When our Catholic friend calls Mary ‘the mother of God’, we may, with Nestorius, recoil or retort: ‘God has no mother!’ Thus we may be inclined to say that Mary gave birth to a mere human being, Jesus; that she is the mother of a man who was the Christ, but not God. For others, such conversations are irrelevant. ‘What matters,’ they say, ‘is that we believe in Jesus for our salvation. The rest is splitting hairs.’ But the early church felt different. Very differently. It argued that our salvation depends on the identity of the child in Mary’s womb. They insisted that we cannot be saved unless God, the eternal Son, was born as Mary’s son.
Nestorius: “God Was Not Born”
Nestorius was an early church leader who believed that Mary gave birth to a human being, not God.
In April 428 CE, Nestorius became the Bishop of Constantinople (present day Istanbul). And in November of that year, he addressed a pressing question while preaching. Some in his diocese were wondering whether Mary was a “God-bearer” (that is, the mother of God) or simply the bearer of another human being. This question was not about Mary, but the identity of her child. Was Mary’s son God or a mere man?
Nestorius insisted that God partnered with Mary’s son to save us.
In that sermon, Nestorius criticised those who dared to think that Mary gave birth to God. With rhetoric flair he asked: “Does God have a mother? A Greek without reproach introducing mothers for the gods!” So, for Nestorius, Mary “did not produce the Creator; rather, she gave birth to the human being.” When God sought to save sinners, he formed a man in Mary’s womb without male seed “and through a human being brought about the revival of the human race.”
As far as Nestorius was concerned, God the Son was not born. He couldn’t be.
Instead, Nestorius insisted that God partnered with Mary’s son to save us. You may think of this as a firm: two people with a shared objective form a company, which, by law, becomes a person. Through this firm, the two achieve their objectives. Likewise, for Nestorius, God the Son entered a personal union with Mary’s son to save us. Mary gave birth to the human partner, not God the Son. She is appropriately the mother of Christ, not God.
The Early Church: God Became Man to Save Us
But the early church insisted that Mary bore God.
He, who has no beginning, became human by birth while remaining God.
By this, they did not mean God began existing in Mary’s womb. They meant that God was born as human for our sake. He, who has no beginning, became human by birth while remaining God. He neither changed his nature nor entered another human being. The word, who was God in the beginning (John 1:1-2), became human (John 1:14). There are not two persons in a partnership, but one person, God the Son, who, as God, needed no birth, but as man was born to Mary.
Why does this matter? Among many others, here are four reasons.
1. Mere Humanity Cannot Save Itself
First, the early church believed that God himself had to become as we are to restore what’s broken in us.
Through his body, the Lord released life to those sick to death.
Gregory of Nazianzus, a church father from the same period as Nestorius, argued that God hasn’t healed what he has not taken onto himself. As 1 Peter 2:24 notes, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” and so, “by his stripes are healed.” God the Son so united our nature to himself that through his body, he heals us from the sickness of sin that brings death. Through his body, the Lord released life to those sick to death, eternal life now, and the promise of future bodily resurrection (Romans 6:5; Colossians 2:12-13; 3:1; 2 Corinthians 4:14; 1 Thessalonians 4:14).
2. God Gave Himself on the Cross
Second, God didn’t die for us if he was not born.
If the blood dripping from the cross is of a mere man, we are still dead in our sins.
Nestorius believed that “that which was buried in the tomb was not in itself God.” But if God didn’t die, he didn’t purchase us with his own blood (Acts 20:28). Yet, our sins are so great that only the bleeding God could save us. “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit” (Psalm 49:7-9). If the blood dripping from the cross is of a mere man, we are still dead in our sins.
3. All Men Are Doomed to Die, but God Defeated Death
Third, if God had not been born, he would not have defeated death in his body for us. Only the eternal God, born as man, can say: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17-18). Death is defeated by the God who died and rose.
Death has no power over us because the grave cannot contain the Lord of life.
The Lord attracted death and darkness to his body and dealt them a fatal blow so those who believe in him may no longer live in fear. In that hour of deep darkness, the Son’s rays shot through and diffused the light of life to those condemned to death. Death has no power over us because the grave cannot contain the Lord of life!
4. Salvation Is From God to Man, Not the Other Way Around
We did not go looking for God; he found us.
Finally, for Cyril of Alexandria, the identity of Mary’s son determines whether God came to save us by his grace or we must rise to him by our works. Either God came down to us in our misery, became as we are, and extended mercy to us, or we must climb man-made ladders to find him. The gospel says God came down and raised us to himself by immeasurable grace (Ephesians 2:3-9). We did not go looking for God; he found us.
The Matter of Mary’s Son Is Critical
The identity of Mary’s Son is no small matter. Mary must be the God-bearer, or we cannot be saved. Our victory over sin and death depends on God being born as a man. The cost of our sin can only be paid by the bleeding God. Either God came to us in grace, dispelled the curse, defeated death, and extended his inner life and fellowship to us, or we must, in vain, work our way to him. Mary’s Son must be God.
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