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By David Cox correo@davidcox.com.mx

This tract explains why we do not exalt Mary in our wor­ship of God. Mary is not God, but the Catholics have exalted her (and con­tinue to cre­ate new beliefs to fur­ther exalt her) so that she would become as God, an object or wor­ship, ven­er­a­tion, and ado­ra­tion. This tract also explains why mak­ing images of Mary (or any other thing) is unbib­li­cal and breaks the O.T.‘s divine pro­hi­bi­tion against using images in reli­gious wor­ship of any kind.

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“A graven image… is not prof­itable… is prof­itable for noth­ing? – Isa­iah 44:9,10

Many times Catholics ask, “Why don’t Protes­tants wor­ship Mary?” They tell us, “You have no respect for the mother of God.” Our answer is very sim­ple, “we respect all women, espe­cially godly Chris­t­ian women, but we do not wor­ship any­body that is not God him­self”. We reserve this rev­er­ence and honor only for God.

This tract will inves­ti­gate the mat­ter of the rela­tion and atti­tude of a true Chris­t­ian towards Mary, the mother of Jesus’ humanity.

Wor­ship is only for God

Exo 34:14 For thou shalt wor­ship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jeal­ous, is a jeal­ous God:

God is very jeal­ous, and because of this char­ac­ter of God, he demands that our wor­ship be exclu­sively reserved for Him. If you wor­ship any­thing or any­one else, it will inflame the fury of God (Deu 6:12–15). In Exo 22:20, God con­demns with the death penalty all those who offer sac­ri­fice to other gods out­side of Jehovah.

Mat 4:9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and wor­ship me.

In the temp­ta­tion of Christ, we see Satan just wanted Jesus to wor­ship him a lit­tle. We also see in Rev 22:8–9 that the (good) angels of God refused to receive wor­ship from men, “their co-servants.” In Acts 14:13–15, we equally see the apos­tles refused to allow other human beings to do sac­ri­fice to them or to wor­ship them.

We Should not Wor­ship Images

Exo 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any like­ness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thy­self to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jeal­ous God, vis­it­ing the iniq­uity of the fathers upon the chil­dren unto the third and fourth gen­er­a­tion of them that hate me; (to “serve” them = hate God)

The 10 com­mand­ments clearly estab­lish that we are not to “bow down” (honor) other gods, because any­thing that we honor or wor­ship that is not God is an idol. This is explained even more in that we can not fash­ion our­selves images, nei­ther any­thing that is in the earth or heav­ens in order to help our wor­ship. The sim­ple fact of mak­ing an image or rep­re­sen­ta­tion of God, Jesus, Mary, or a saint, an angel, or any other sim­i­lar thing in which we give honor and glory reli­giously as if to God but instead to these cre­ated things, this will greatly inflame the fury of God (Deu 6:15) against us. Because of this rea­son, images do NOT help us, but to the con­trary, they cause God to get rag­ingly mad against us!

Rom 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and wor­shipped and served the crea­ture more than the Cre­ator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Images are of Absolutely NO Use

Isa 44:9 They that make a graven image are all of them van­ity (empty of real value); and their delec­table things shall not profit; and they are their own wit­nesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed. 10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is prof­itable for noth­ing?

“Van­ity” means some­thing that com­pletely lacks of any spir­i­tual value. God says that they are “of no profit”, and these peo­ple who resort to using images in their wor­ship are blind and igno­rant. It is as if Isa­iah was say­ing directly to the Catholics today, “How fool­ish you are! You make a baby Jesus doll, but it can­not dress itself nor can it fix itself when it gets bro­ken, or clean itself when it gets dirty, yet you wor­ship this doll as God? How fool­ish you are! Don’t you see that this is use­less in the true wor­ship of God? It drags God down to the level of a dumb baby doll. This is prof­itable for noth­ing. It is use­less, don’t you understand?”

Peo­ple who wor­ship using images say that the images “help” them in their ado­ra­tion of God. But the use of images is a tes­ti­mony to their con­fu­sion, because images are not use­ful in any way in reli­gion nor in the true wor­ship of the one and only true God.

Isa 42:17 They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.

This is like when they make and wor­ship (car­ry­ing it around and hon­or­ing it) using a doll they call “baby Jesus” as if it were really God. God him­self pro­nounced a curse against all those using idols or images, and he says they are extremely con­fused by these things. In Lev 26:1 it is expanded to the pro­hi­bi­tion of any type of activ­ity that includes idols, sculp­tures, statutes, or “painted rocks” (pic­tures). In Isa­iah 42:8 God says that he will not share his glory and praise with sculp­tures nor with anything!

Deu 4:15 Take ye there­fore good heed unto your­selves; for ye saw no man­ner of simil­i­tude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: 16 Lest ye cor­rupt your­selves, and make you a graven image, the simil­i­tude of any fig­ure, the like­ness of male or female,

The rep­re­sen­ta­tions of God or other bib­li­cal peo­ple or crea­tures (images) is still pro­hib­ited in the Bible, and to use them is to cor­rupt your­self in God’s eyes.

Wor­ship or Reverence?

While the Roman Catholic Church says there is a great dif­fer­ence between wor­ship given to God, and the rev­er­ence that they give to the saints and to Mary, the effect is the same. They bow the knee before rep­re­sen­ta­tions of these “non-God” images, plac­ing flow­ers and can­dles (which are a type of sac­ri­fice for cheap peo­ple) and ren­der ser­vice to honor and respect the images which are clearly pro­hib­ited by God.

The pro­hi­bi­tions of God use the words “give honor” and “serve” (Roman 1.25). To give honor means to wor­ship or rev­er­ence which means the same thing. It is to serve giv­ing reli­gious respect and glory to some­one or some­thing such as ser­vices in honor of that per­son, or giv­ing sac­ri­fices. Ser­vice speaks of honor. Also the Bible uses the phrase “to bow down before” (Exo 34:14) or to kneel (Mat 4:9) before some­thing or some­body. There­fore no fig­ure nei­ther cre­ated by human hands nor found nat­u­rally in the world is to be or rep­re­sent God. We wor­ship God spir­i­tu­ally because God is a spirit.

John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that wor­ship him must wor­ship him in spirit and in truth.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Dead

Deu 18:9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abom­i­na­tions of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daugh­ter to pass through the fire, or that useth div­ina­tion, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11 Or a charmer, or a con­sul­ter with famil­iar spir­its, or a wiz­ard, or a necro­mancer (con­sul­ter of the dead). 12 For all that do these things are an abom­i­na­tion unto the LORD: and because of these abom­i­na­tions the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

The Bible is very clear on this point, that any­one who tries to com­mu­ni­cate with the dead is actu­ally prac­tic­ing witch­craft. Then pray­ing to Mary or the saints (which are dead humans) is witch­craft, and this is pro­hib­ited by God.

Isa 8:19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have famil­iar spir­its, and unto wiz­ards that peep, and that mut­ter: should not a peo­ple seek unto their God? for the liv­ing to the dead? 20 To the law and to the tes­ti­mony: if they speak not accord­ing to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

God clearly says that his peo­ple should seek God in their prayers, not seek out the dead. If any­one teaches any­thing else, then “there is no light in them,” or they do not under­stand what God is try­ing to tell them. Pray­ing or com­mu­ni­cat­ing in any way to the dead is directly oppo­site of what God com­mands us to do. This is what the Roman Catholic Church teaches as basic Catholic doc­trine. One should flee from peo­ple who pro­mote doc­trines and prac­tices oppo­site of what God commands.

Heb 4:14 See­ing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heav­ens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our pro­fes­sion. 15 For we have not an high priest which can­not be touched with the feel­ing of our infir­mi­ties; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet with­out sin. 16 Let us there­fore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Only through the medi­a­tor Jesus do we have free access to God, to his mercy and grace, and access to sal­va­tion. There is every rea­son to come to Jesus directly, and no rea­son to seek first or alter­na­tively Mary or the saints. We should note that prayers to Mary are like try­ing to bribe Jesus because sup­pos­edly he can­not refuse his mother. See Deu 10:17; 2Chro 19:7; and John 14:6.

Is Mary the Mother of God?

Sim­ply put, no. For some­body to be the mother of some­body else, there are two ways of estab­lish­ing this rela­tion­ship: (1) the woman phys­i­cally brings the per­son into being, or (2) the par­ents adopt the child (already exist­ing inde­pen­dently before the child exists). If Mary gave birth to God, then we also need to affirm that Mary existed before God, which is not true. Jesus existed in his divin­ity before Mary and made appear­ances in the Old Tes­ta­ment, and Mary only gave birth to the human­ity of Jesus. She had noth­ing to do with his divin­ity. It is incor­rect to say that Mary is the “mother of God” because that implies her pre-existence before God, really mak­ing her greater than God and in author­ity over God, which is impossible.

The Catholic Church teaches that Mary is actu­ally in the Trin­ity, that she is “the com­ple­ment of the Trin­ity, Daugh­ter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, and wife of the Holy Spirit” – Heb­do­mas Mar­i­ana. Mary is “the cen­ter of the uni­verse” – Salazar. DeMont­fort says “Jesus Christ… has given her grace touch­ing his Majesty, all rights and priv­i­leges that (Jesus) nat­u­rally pos­sesses by nature.” This makes her another Jesus. “If there is any hope in us, any grace, any sal­va­tion, it comes to us by her, because thus is the will of God, who has desired that we have every­thing through Mary.” Pope Pius IX Ep Evan­gel 1849 B.C. Mary is “co-redeemer of the human race together with her Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Catholic book, “Mary, the Co-Redeemer.”

The Catholics make Mary to have a posi­tion iden­ti­cal to God, and the pre­rog­a­tive of pro­vid­ing sal­va­tion aside from Jesus, mak­ing Mary an idol, a false god in com­pe­ti­tion with the true God, exactly what God prohibits.

Is Mary the Queen of Heaven?

The expres­sion “Queen of Heaven” occurs in the Bible only in Jere­miah 7:18; 44:17–25. It is a false god­dess that Israel wor­shipped (served) in their idol­a­try, for which God pun­ished them. To iden­tify Mary with this “Queen of Heaven” is to iden­tify her with a false reli­gion pro­hib­ited by God.