“THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.”
THAT utterance of the Roman Catholic Church generally referred to as the “Dogma of the Immaculate Conception,” does not refer to the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, but the conception of Mary, His mother. Thus Pope Pius IX. stated the doctrine Dec. 8, 1854:— By the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and our own, we declare, pronounce, and define, that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful. Then follows the pronouncement of the penalties to any who “dare to think otherwise.” But nowhere in all God’s Word do we have the revelation expressed or implied that Mary was sinless, in the sense of having sinless flesh. She was doubtless a good woman, a Christian woman through grace by faith; but she was conceived and born as were others in the same Davidic family, having the same flesh with the same sinful tendencies. Of this “woman,” one of a class, a representative of women, a descendant of Eve, one of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, Jesus was born, flesh and blood and bone. We can not explain how the Son of the eternal God, the Creator of worlds, could do this. But God’s Word abundantly reveals that He did do this, and so became Immanuel,—“God ‘with us.’” He partook of our nature that we might be “partakers of the divine nature.” He came clear down to sin’s lowest pit in order that, ascending, “He might fill all things,” and lift man up to Himself. But by devising an absolutely sinless mother, immaculately conceived, Roman Catholics, and Mr. Dowie following after, separate the Saviour from men, and endeavor to bridge over the chasm by humanly-appointed, sometimes self-appointed, priests.