Was Mary Forever Virgin? (Jesus Christ, Messiah, virginity, followers, grace)

[Noni Medalla]

In order to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet, “A virgin will become pregnant and have a son, “….Joseph had no sexual relations with Mary before she give birth to her son,…” “But he had no sexual relations with her before she gave birth to her son”, “And Joseph named him Jesus.” (Mt.1:22-23, 25)
A clear indication that after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary assumed their normal sexual relationship as husband and wife and, as a matter of fact, got children of their own. There is no need to deny this because performing the inherent duties of husband and wife is not a sin nor is it a shameful thing and abhorrent in itself. In fact, in the Old Testament, a woman is considered cursed if she can not bear a child from her husband. Which is why, to admit to the fact that Joseph and Mary were having children of their own will never lessen nor blemished a bit the reputation of Mother Mary as the mother of Jesus.
In the first story of creation, God created man and woman in his image, blessed them and told them to “be fertile and multiply”. (Gen. 1:28a). God’s basic intent therefore is for married couple to multiply because children are part of God’s plan in marriage. Thus, when Joseph was about to break his engagement with Mary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife…”(Mt.2:20).
The basic truth therefore is that, to make come true what has been written, the Messiah will be born out of a virgin woman, but not necessarily a virgin forever. Thus, among others, Mt. 1:23, 25 of the above.
Likewise, in Zec. 12:10-11, the Lord said: The descendants of David and other people of Jerusalem “will look at the one they stabbed to death, and they will mourn for him like those who mourn for an only child. They will mourn bitterly, like those who have lost their first-born son.” MeaningJesus Christ as truly the only son of God anda first-bornson of Mary.

DOES MARY HAD CHILDREN OTHER THAN JESUS?

Consider the following:

Jesus performed his first miracle in Cana in Galilee; there he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
After this, Jesus and his mother, brothers, and disciples went to Capernaum…(Jn.2:11-12).
…”Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want you, want to speak with you, want to see you.” (Mk.3:32/Mt.12:47/Lk.8:20)
When Jesus went back to his hometown (Nazareth), the people were amazed at his teaching. Amid questions like, ….“Where did he get all these? What wisdom is this that has given him? And how does he perform miracles?”. They also said: Isn’t he….. the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? And, Aren’t his sisters living here?” (Mk.6:3).

The time for the Festival of Shelters was near, so Jesus’ brothers said to him to come to Judea so that his followers will know what he is doing. That Jesus should do so if he wanted to be well known. “Since you are doing these things, let the whole world know about you”, they said. (Not even his brothers believed in him.Jn.7:2-5). (Very specific and precise statements on Jesus Christ and His brothers.) They gathered frequently to pray as a group, together with the women and with Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. (Acts 1:14)

The answer therefore is positive. Jesus has had brothers and sisters. No amount of interpretation can point anywhere else. To claim otherwise is to be very unrealistic if not hypocritical. All of the above clearly refer and point out to Mary and her children. Every time ‘brothers of Jesus’ are mentioned they mostly refer to Mary as their mother.
The only escape from this truth is to assert that Jesus, the one they were talking about is not Jesus Christ the son of God, and the “Mary” they were talking about is not the actual Mary, the mother of the Messiah. But this is a far-fetched thing and unbelievable. To interpret them this way is to be unrealistic if not ridiculous because there is no sense to it. It will only lead to confusions and bring us no closer to Jesus Christ and his teachings. If indeed all of the above actually refer to Jesus other than Jesus Christ and to a woman named Mary, not the mother the Jesus, then it is not worthy and need not be even mentioned in the Bible because it serve no purpose but to confuse the believers. Nowhere in the New Testament can you find any attempt to misled believers from knowing the true identity of Jesus Christ. The Lord wanted us to believe him, believe in him and all about him and follow his teachings without need of such distractions. Besides, like among others, John 2:11 clearly refer to Jesus Christ when it said: “Jesus perform this miracle in Cana in Galilee; there he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” Then followed in the next sentence, Jn. 2:12, which states: “After this, Jesus and his mother, brothers, (Here is a clear separation between Jesus’ mother and brothers and all others including his disciples) and his disciples went to Capernaum and stayed there together.” It is impossible to separate these two sentences to mean the ‘Jesus’ (Jesus Christ) of the first sentence is not the one referred to in the other. Likewise,the question, “Isn’t he the son of Mary, and the brothers of James……”? specifically refer to ‘Jesus (Christ) who went back to his hometown where the people were amazed at his teachings’. (Mk. 6:2-3) These and all the others only prove the contention that Joseph and Mary had no other children untenable. They are facts and not based on logic that to refute them is to refute the Bible itself. Besides, all of the above-stated brothers and sisters are mentioned with Mary as their mother or a word ‘mother’ in a singular form, meaning, Mary, the mother of Jesus. All of the above specifically referring to Jesus’ mother, brothers and sisters to the exclusion of all others in the group at a given time.
Moreover, when the Lord said “his brothers, sisters or mother are those who hear the word of God and obeyit” cannot be interpreted to mean anyone can be referred to as mother, brother or sister of Jesus Christ. The Lord must have said it only to emphasize that unless one does what God wants him to do, blood relationships is not an assurance ofacceptability to God. Just as when a woman in the crowd said to Jesus that, “How happy is the woman who bore and nursed you!” Jesus answered: “Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”(Lk. 11:27-28). When Jesus ordered his disciples to go to the other side of the lake, one of them said: “Sir, first let me go back and bury my father,” “Follow me”, Jesus answered, “and let the dead bury their dead.” (Mt 8:18, 21-22). Men are such God’s mere creation and can only be God’s subject, slave, friend or children. For God is God and mortals are mortals. As a matter of fact, not even Jesus’ disciples were credited to become his brothers. In Jn.15:14, Jesus said to his disciples: “And you are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer because a servant does not know what his master is doing. Instead, I call you friends because I have told you everything I heard about my father.”
HOWEVER, notwithstanding the above, the incontrovertible facts always remain that Mothers are vast repositories of love for their children. Thus, such a mother should be dearly loved and respected that when she is gone, she should be enthroned on a pedestal in everyone’s heart, though certainly they are not to be idolized and worshipped as the source of divine grace and mercy. Like saints, mothers are not to be praised and honored equally or more than what we ought to to the Lord our God. The Lord said, “you are not fit to be my disciple unless you love me more than you love your father and mother.” (Mt. 10:37).

[jeffrey]

Does it matter? She was a virgin at Christ's birth. What she did or didn't do after that has no bearing on Christ. Joseph was around 70 years old when he married Mary, and had kids of his own from a previous marriage. Whether Joseph had more kids once again does not matter.

[jeffrey]

And welcome to the forums!

[ChrisP]

Well he had brothers (and possibly sisters I can't remember the story)... I don't think God seeded more than one divine son (according to the bible)

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by ChrisP

Well he had brothers (and possibly sisters I can't remember the story)... I don't think God seeded more than one divine son (according to the bible)

No, he had male and female relatives. The Greek terms used do not definitively identify them as brothers and sisters at all. They could just as easily be half-siblings, step-siblings or even cousins. The Greek makes no distinction at all between these three. Of course, we've done this topic to death several times and so everyone will probably be aware of my stance on this. Please people, if you are going to come up with arguments against the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos could you try to come up with something a little more defensible than linguistic arguments based on the interpretation of English words like 'until' or 'brother'? These only stand in the English translation (because no translation is precise) and are completely false when considering the Greek original.

James

[Bishka]

I don't believe she was. I think she had other children, but none we, as it was put, "seeded by God"

[Bishka]

MODS: I believe this is copied and pasted, but I'm not sure from where yet, still looking at that.

[Karl R]

In the movie "Dogma", there's a scene where Rufus is discussing the virgin Mary. My views are similar to his.

Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus ... that's a miracle.

Thinking that Mary and Joseph were married for years without having sex ... that's a little too hard to believe.