The Truth About Mary: Why Protestants and Roman Catholics Disagree

Some people place a lot of importance on Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Now, there’s no doubt that she was a devoted woman of God.  And we should all admire her faith and obedience.  But some place major importance on Mary.  For example, Roman Catholics believe in…

• Mary’s immaculate conception.  She was “preserved from all stain of original sin” from the moment of her conception.
• Mary’s complete sinlessness.  She never sinned.  
• Mary’s perpetual virginity.  She remained a virgin for life.
• Mary’s assumption to heaven immediately after death.  She was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory.  While all other Christians must wait for the return of Christ to receive their glorified bodies, Mary received hers when she died.  
• Praying to Mary as Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Medatrix.
• Mary’s cooperation in the birth and development of divine life in the souls of the redeemed.
• The church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship, as seen in the seventeen festival days annually dedicated to her, and the fifty “Hail Mary” prayers in the rosary.

These are official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.  A question worth raising is, “Why don’t Protestants believe these things about Mary?”

The reason can be summarized with the Protestant motto or phrase Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone!  Ever since the beginning of Christianity, the Bible was viewed as the sole and sufficient source of authoritative revelation from God.  In other words, Scripture is the Church's only infallible and sufficient rule for deciding issues of faith and practice.  This means that all Christians are to give their attention to the Bible, finding in it the very words that are to be believed and obeyed.  On the flip side, Sola Scriptura means that God does not require or prohibit anything of Christians that is not contained in the Bible either explicitly or implicitly.  In other words, if something is not found in the Bible, then it’s not binding for us to believe or to do.

But an important shift took place in the latter part of the Middle Ages.  The Roman Catholic Church began to claim that Scripture alone is not sufficient for salvation and spiritual growth.  It claimed that Scripture must be supplemented by tradition – i.e., extra-biblical teachings that Christ supposedly passed down orally to the apostles, and from them to their successors, the bishops in the Catholic church – and the church’s teaching office.  Ever since then, the Roman Catholic Church has been inventing new doctrines that aren’t found in the Bible.

In protest to this disturbing change in the church, reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin began to sound the Protestant motto Sola Scriptura -- Scripture Alone.  The Bible alone is sufficient, authoritative, and binding.  If it’s not in the Bible, then we don’t believe it and teach it.  This is why Protestants don’t exalt Mary like the Roman Catholics do.  The reason we don’t believe all those things about Mary is because none of them are in the Bible.  In fact, these teachings even contradict the Bible.

In Acts 1:14, for example this is the last mention of Mary in the Bible.  Mary, who is supposedly to be prayed to as Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Medatrix, is not mentioned another time in the Bible.  Mary, who is supposed to be instrumental in our salvation and spiritual growth, is no longer talked about.  This includes all the letters of Paul, and the letters of Jude and James -- two of Mary’s own sons.  Surely if we were to exalt Mary as the Roman Catholics claim, and surely if she were important to our salvation and spiritual growth, she would be mentioned repeatedly throughout the New Testament, along with detailed passages of all the other doctrines of Mary.  But that’s not the case.

Not only that, but Roman Catholics believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary -- that she remained a virgin.  But in Acts 1:14 it says that Mary, along with Jesus’ brothers, were among the first church members.  And in Mark 6:3 the Bible specifies that Jesus had four brothers, and even names them – James, Joses, Judas, and Simon (Mark 6:3; Matt 13:55; Luke 14:26; John 7:3, 10).  How is it possible that Mary remained a virgin when the Bible says she had four more children after she had Jesus?  

My intention is not to bash Roman Catholicism or to offend them.  I have many friends who are Roman Catholic.  But there are major difference in our beliefs, and essentially when it comes the doctrine of Mary.  My hope is that now you know why.