HOLIEST OF ALL WOMEN pt1: THE BLESSED FRUIT
By: Pastor Manny
Last month, I presented an article that provides an introduction for this series. In that article, I provided evidence that Mary is the most blessed among all women that even Protestant theologians like James White acknowledged [1]. However, some Protestants challenge the idea that her blessedness is related to her holiness and grace since that would mean that Mary is the holiest of all women. With that in mind, I will be citing the verse in question, and we can see in context whether their interpretation is accurate or not.
Luke 1:42
42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “BLESSED are YOU among women, and BLESSED is the FRUIT of your womb!
[emphasis added]
In verse 42 of Luke chapter 1, the word “blessed” was not only applied to Mary, but this was also applied to Jesus. The only difference between the two was that Eulogēmenē (feminine) was used for Mary while eulogēmenos (masculine) was used for Jesus. Based on the construction of the Greek words, there is a parallelism between the two that was noticed also by the Expositor’s Greek Testament in its commentary.
Expositor’s Greek Testament:
“…thoroughly true to feminine nature: “blessed thou among women (a Hebrew superlative), and blessed the fruit of thy womb,” poetic parallelism again, answering to the exalted state of feeling [2].”
Since there is a parallelism that is involved (and you don’t need to be Catholic to see that), we can then see what it means for Mary to be blessed by looking how Jesus Christ was said to be blessed.
John 1:14
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, FULL OF GRACE and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
[emphasis added]
John Gill:
“…and blessed is the fruit of thy womb: this is a reason why she is called blessed, because her child was blessed; being in union with a divine person, who is God over all, blessed for ever; and who has all SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS in him, and is that seed, in which all nations of the earth were to be blessed; and so is both blessed in himself, and the source of all blessedness to others [3] [emphasis added].”
Even though the blessedness of Jesus is infinitely higher than that of Mary, arguing that is irrelevant since Protestants have to recognize the category of Christ and Mary’s blessedness and that is under the category of holiness. God is infinitely holier than the angels, but it doesn’t follow that the angels in heaven committed sins. In the same way, the fact that God is infinitely holier than Mary does not imply that Mary committed sin. Rather, since the word “blessed” is used in that category in comparison to all women, that implies that Mary is the holiest of all women, and she was holier than Eve who was created sinless but committed a sin. As the Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott noted,
“Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, speaks to Mary: “Blessed art thou (eulogeme’ne)
among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (eulogeme’nos). The blessing of
God which rests upon Mary is made parallel to the blessing of God which rests upon
Christ in his humanity. This parallelism suggests that Mary, just like Christ, was from
the beginning of her existence, free from all sin [4].”
Just like what I did in the introduction, I will be showing the premises that we proved, and the conclusion that we have to accept if we are going to be honest with the biblical facts.
Premise 1: Mary is the “most blessed of all women”.
Premise 2: The word “blessed” is related to her holiness and grace.
Conclusion: Mary is the “holiest of all women”.
