Is Mary the mother of God? Answer that question too quickly, in either direction, and you will end up saying something you might not actually believe. Say yes without defining what you mean, and people may hear you saying that Mary somehow came before God or gave God His existence. Say no without thinking, and you can end up denying that the Man who was born in Bethlehem was God in the flesh. Neither of those sounds biblical. So is Mary the mother of God or not?
Perhaps you have heard someone pray the Hail Mary, whether in person or in a movie. Part of it goes like this:
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
In another study, we will examine whether or not we should even be addressing Mary in our prayers. But notice that Mary is called—not just Holy—but the Mother of God.
Let’s slow down and examine this claim to see if Mary, indeed, is God’s mother. The most respectful thing we can do for Mary is take her at her word, and the safest thing we can do with any doctrine is use Bible words in Bible ways. But first, let’s see where this title even came from. The history is not what most people assume.
The first chapter of John tells us that God became flesh. We know Him as Jesus. We also know that Mary gave birth to Jesus. Since Jesus is God, the child in her arms was God in the flesh. If someone asks whether Mary is the mother of God, and what they mean is, “Was the baby she carried truly divine?” then the answer is yes, and we can say that without flinching.
Scripture even comes close to saying it. When Mary visited her relative Elizabeth, listen to how Elizabeth greeted her.
But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Luke 1:43
Elizabeth knew Mary as “the mother of my Lord.” But “Mother of God”? Where did that phrase come from? In the early fifth century, the “bishop” of Constantinople, a man named Nestorius, objected to a Greek word that was being used for Mary: Theotokos, which means God-bearer. He argued that Christotokos, “Christ-bearer,” was safer language.1 He was concerned that the first word made Mary sound like the origin of God.
But the men who opposed him saw a bigger problem. If the one Mary carried was not God, then who exactly was born in Bethlehem? Their argument was not about Mary’s greatness. It was about Jesus’ identity. Cyril of Alexandria, the leading voice at the Council of Ephesus in 431, said that anyone who will not confess that Emmanuel is truly God, and that the holy Virgin therefore bore Him, stands outside the faith.2 Yes, that raises the question of Mary’s perpetual virginity. We will address that in another study.
To be fair, the title was not invented to exalt Mary. It was adopted to remind people who Jesus is. But there is a glaring issue with giving Mary this title. The Bible never calls Mary the mother of God. Scripture calls her the mother of Jesus (John 2:1; Acts 1:14), and Elizabeth called her the mother of my Lord. Those phrases say everything that is true without suggesting anything that isn’t. I would rather use Bible words in Bible ways, wouldn’t you?
Although I do not share his Christology, I do share Nestorius’ concern. “Mother of God” can easily be heard as saying more than its historic Christological purpose intended. Hearing that title, one may hear that Mary is the origin of God Himself. A beginning is exactly what Mary did not give the Son of God. John 1:3 says:
All things were made through Him [Jesus], and without Him nothing was made that was made.
That includes Mary. Before Mary had a mother, Jesus (known as the Word at the time) already was. Jesus said in John 8:58:
Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.
Mary truly bore Jesus according to the flesh. She gave birth to Him, cared for Him, instructed Him, and watched Him grow. Although, as a child, Jesus subjected Himself to her (see Luke 2:51), she did not originate His divine nature or give the eternal Son His existence. He had that before there was a Mary, before there was an Abraham, before there was a world (see John 17:5). Colossians 1:16–17 says of Jesus:
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Sixteen hundred years ago, Nestorius was worried that people would hear the phrase “God-bearer” and conclude that Mary was the source of God. That is still the risk the phrase carries in ordinary English.
Watch what happens when the title becomes a doctrine. The title itself was originally intended to protect a truth about Christ. But over time, “Mother of God” became part of a much larger theology of Mary. In Catholic teaching today, her motherhood is explicitly connected with asking for her intercession. We will examine whether Scripture gives Christians any reason to make that move in another study.
So how do you honor Mary? Say what Scripture says. Call her blessed. Call her the mother of Jesus. Call her the mother of our Lord. Giving someone a title God never gave them isn’t honor.
And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7
The hands that wrapped Jesus the Christ were hands He had made. The young woman who fed Him was a young woman He had formed in her own mother’s womb. The One who spoke the stars into existence was learning to speak from His mother. Isn’t that amazing? Now we begin to understand Philippians 2:5–8:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
God chose Mary to bear this child—the Son of God. And He came for you. He took on flesh, lived the life we could not live, died the death we deserved, and rose from the grave.
In the next study, we’ll explore a question Mary answered herself in one short sentence. Did Mary need a Savior? Study that question here.
- Socrates Scholasticus, Hist. eccl. 7.32, records the dispute at Constantinople over the title Theotokos and Nestorius’s preference for Christotokos. ↩︎
- Cyril of Alexandria, “The Twelve Anathematisms,” anathema 1, in The Seven Ecumenical Councils, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, NPNF² 14; see also Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann et al., 43rd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012), no. 252. The anathemas accompanied Cyril’s third letter to Nestorius (430) and were laid before the Council of Ephesus (431), where his second letter to Nestorius was formally approved. ↩︎