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“Did Mary have original sin?”

“Did Mary have original sin?”

AUGUST 20, 2021

/ Programs / Key Life / “Did Mary have original sin?”

Steve Brown:
Did Mary have original sin? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual or that faithfulness to God, means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn’t for you, but if you’re looking for honest, Biblical answers to honest questions, welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hi Steve. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
Listen, I’m going to let you answer the question, then I’m going to, and I’m not going to say a word, and then I’m going to say send letters to Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
But, you know, I gotta admit, when you were doing the intro there, I was thinking, did Mary have a little lamb? And I just started laughing.

Steve Brown:
That’s what you were laughing about.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s what I was laughing about. So yeah, that’s going to be an interesting one.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it is. Pete, by the way, as you know, for over 25 years, we’ve been getting together on Fridays to just answer your questions. And we love to get your questions. By the way, you can check out Pete’s ministry at ForgeTruth.com. And you will be amazed and be glad I told you about it. And we love to get your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, record your question. And sometimes we put you on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

In Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

Or you can e-mail us at [email protected]. And all of those places are places where if the Spirit should move, you could help us financially. If you do that, we promise we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in giving it. And by the way, you can do it on your phone too. You can text Key Life at 28950 and just follow instructions. And if you can’t do it, we understand, do say a prayer for this ministry. Again, I promise if you can help us, we’ll squeeze every dime for the glory of God. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer, and we’ll get to some of these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Sounds good. Let’s pray. Our great God, what a joy at the end of this week, to be able to come into your presence and to know that we are yours all because of Jesus. We honor you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit for being the Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer of all of our lives. And, so Lord, today, we praise you. It’s been a long week and Lord, we have many requests about relationships that need to be restored and bills that need to be paid, attitudes that need to be changed. Lord, growth that needs to be made. And we just pray, Holy Spirit, that you would bring your grace into our hearts in such a way that we’re energized and motivated to continue growing. Be with our leaders and pastors, teachers, priests and worship directors and all those that will be in front of us this week-end in church. And so we pray for them. We pray that you would give them the message, fill them, empower them and in turn use them in our lives. Thanks for Key Life and this opportunity to do some Q&A now. We commit it to you. In Jesus name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Okay, Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
We all have original sin, because of Adam. I was wondering if our blessed mother, Mary, the mother of Jesus has original sin too?

Steve Brown:
That’s an interesting, you know, we have a wall Roman Catholics who’ve listened to Key Life. And, you know, this’ll be one of the areas where we disagree. And I must say that as Protestants and Pete and I are both Protestants and we’re Presbyterians, we generally don’t give Mary her due. She’s an amazing lady and you can preach sermons on how God used her and how we’re to be like her. And we would like to apologize for putting her in a place where we just dismissed her. Now, that’s our sin, but we feel as Protestants that you guys have gone too far in the other direction. And who knows, when we get to heaven, we’ll check it out. But Biblically, and you got to remember that Protestants, we don’t have the Magistarium, so we have nothing aside from Scripture and we believe that you set all doctrine and all beliefs, by what Scripture says, and Scripture only.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right, now clarify Magistarium.

Steve Brown:
That’s the teaching of the Roman Catholic church, it’s the body of teaching. And so, that’s good, you know, we have that kind of informally as evangelicals or whatever in the denominations that we have, but it’s not authoritative. The only thing that’s authoritative is Scripture. And Scripture says that, never mentions that Mary is without sin. That is a determination made by the Roman Catholic church. So back to the original question. Yeah, she like us was a sinner.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. And that’s why the Holy Spirit had to cause Jesus’ birth, you know, in her. But you know, you’re exactly right, in the genealogies and Matthew and Luke, both show her to be connected to Adam.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And because she is, original sin is a part of her, from our viewpoint. And so, don’t send us letters. We won’t try to convince you. And you don’t try to convince us. Because we’re all old and we’re not going to change, but you asked and we don’t avoid things, when you ask.

Pete Alwinson:
There you go. Simple as that. We love each other still.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s right. And Mary has original sin, she’s better than me. Okay.

Pete Alwinson:
Well she’s home and she’s not sinning anymore, like you are, like every day.

Steve Brown:
I heard you say, this is an e-mail, once that you heard a voice talking to you and it was probably not God. You said when God speaks, he’s not talking to just one person, to many at the same time. If that is true, how can we have a personal relationship with Jesus? Does God still speak to us? Pete. I need to clarify what I was saying. I remember saying that. I was talking about somebody who gets up and says, I’ve heard from God. I was talking about somebody who stands up and starts a new church by saying, I’ve heard from God. And I said that God doesn’t speak that way. When he speaks to one, he speaks to a bunch. And so if one person says, I’ve got the truth and nobody else does, you run. That’s what I was talking about, not a personal relationship with God. Have you ever heard God speak? I mean audibly or is it.

Pete Alwinson:
Not audibly, but there have been times when the word, reading the word, the Spirit just sort of highlights Scripture and says, this is for you. And, you have this sense of personal application to it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think your point is very well taken and you’re absolutely right. This is how cults and false religions get started.

Steve Brown:
And, I think there are times when God impresses and I’m talking about aside from Scripture in particular areas, like go here or do this and as pastors, we both experienced that. I, one time could not finish a sermon, because this man’s name kept coming to me. And so, I closed the work and left my study. This is in the evening and went to this house. And I knocked on the door and his wife came and said, who told you? Nobody knows. He had just died 20 minutes before.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh my goodness.

Steve Brown:
And I just could not, not go. I went, so God still does that. He does that with all of us on occasion and we need to be careful with that sort of thing. But I think that really does happen. And in terms of a personal relationship, you’ve got to know the God’s out of time, you know, he’s got all of eternity to just have a relationship with you and all of eternity to have just a relationship with everybody else that you know, because he’s not encased in a timeline the way we are. It really is, and it’s personal, isn’t it.

Pete Alwinson:
It is. That’s so good. And it’s, and he’s infinite. So he has the capacity to have all of these relationships. He really is totally other and totally here with us.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, that’s good. No good word, Steve.

Steve Brown:
And sometimes, I’m absolutely blown away that he knows my name and to the person who asks and wrote that e-mail, he knows your name too. Does the gift of prophecy still exist?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, it depends on how you interpret prophecy, right? If it’s a direct revelation from God that adds to the Bible, I think we might have a better discussion about that. I would say no at that point. What would you say?

Steve Brown:
No, I agree.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
I think anytime that somebody’s giving a personal word from God, that is the moral equivalent of Scripture, that’s from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke. The Canon is closed. God has said all he meant to say. And he said it well. So quit trying to add to it.

Pete Alwinson:
And some people say that’s prophecy. Now, if you interpret prophecy as preaching the word of God with applications, then in that sense, our preaching should contain the best of the profits of the Old Testament and the New Testament time. And so, prophecy is going down on in that sense, if you interpret it that way.

Steve Brown:
And the word means literally fourth tale, not future, not fortune telling.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And so, there’s a sense that when you get into the pulpit and preach, if you’re faithful to God’s word, you become in a Biblical sense, a prophet. In a technical sense, you’re a prophet. But in the sense that the prophets are referenced in Scripture, that kind of prophecy.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. No, we say no, because that’s a direct immediation of divine truth, that went into Scripture. And we don’t have that going on today.

Steve Brown:
No. And, if anybody does, run. Is cremation Biblical? That’s an e-mail too. We get that a lot.

Pete Alwinson:
I know, we do. And it’s, it’s way more common. And, and it was, it was at one point cheaper to have a cremation service, although they’re finding ways to make it not cheaper now. But, I don’t see anything wrong with that, because it’s not, the resurrection of the body is not a molecule by molecule sort of resurrection, it’s a supernatural work of God. And so it doesn’t seem to me to be inconsistent, however there is something powerful, with having a body, a casket there in a funeral service, memorial service, reminding us of the resurrection that will one day take place.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And that’s cathartic too,

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
psychologically a healthy thing. But listen, if you, and I’ve said this before, my wife has said, she’s going to be cremated, because it’ll be the only time she was ever a warm. Hey guys, we’ve got to go. But before, I just want us to say how good it is to have you with us. And it is a compliment that you join us each week. Now, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.

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