When it comes to the subject of Mary, Protestants and Roman Catholics have a oversized plate of controversies. Should we hail her? Was she sinless? How do we feel about the word “theotokos?” Where the duration of her virginity is concerned, one would think much less is directly at stake. Yet when the conversation circles around that way, the subject will likely appear no less important to both parties. It won’t take long for their respective doctrinal foundations to manifest. One will argue from Scripture, the other from dogma. One will argue from rules, the other from exceptions. One will argue from exegesis, the other from eisegesis.
Roman Catholicism’s stance on this is not a surprising one. It needs Mary to be the new Ark of the Covenant, it needs to aggrandize celibacy and its counterparts; and it will create any theological hologram necessary to support these. So the perpetual virginity of Mary may as well be one such byproduct. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” But as Protestants, when we spot this mold in our basement, we are responsible to have zero tolerance for any compromise on God’s institution of marriage.
WAIT WHATS AND YEAH BUTS
And now for everybody’s favorite stop: the clarification station. If I were to say outright that sex within marriage is a command, the fountains of the great deep would burst forth with indignant comments. Someone will tell me about a friend of a friend of a friend with a rare medical condition that makes intercourse dangerous to her. Still someone else can think up a far-fetched freak accident that would leave a man sexually disabled. Not that such heckling is worth a response, but it can’t hurt to acknowledge that the fall can indeed leave people without the means to fulfill God’s revealed will. But it’s a different thing entirely to have the means, yet neglect them by reason of an exception.
Because anything is possible when you make up dogmas, the Romanists have thought of a way to believe—to their own satisfaction—that Mary and Joseph could forego consummation without committing the sin of depriving one another: God just took away their sex drive! Sounds simple, right? It is, and that’s the problem. It flippantly reduces sex to the momentary gratification of a physical urge. The command not to deprive one another is not just about pleasure. It’s about the fulfillment of covenantal intimacy. It’s about being one flesh. So using asexuality in this story as a deus ex machina—or rather, a machina ex deus—undermines the union that makes a marriage a marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:5 is often associated with encouraging couples to have sex to avoid temptation, but this is only part of its application. Verse 3 uses the Greek word “opheiló,” sometimes translated as “affection” or “benevolence” with reference to something owed. With application to marriage, this would include sex, but also love, respect, to have and to hold, and so forth. They’re all grouped together as equal covenantal components. As for verse 6, I don’t think anyone disputes that it is Paul’s topical encouragement of marriage that he calls a “concession, not a command.” He’s not commanding everyone to get married in the first place, but he’s not making any duties optional within marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:3-5
Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
The marriage of Mary and Joseph actually serves as an example for one of this passage’s most specific details: abstaining for a time. This is exactly what they did until after the birth of Christ. Anyone dissatisfied with the word “until”—which we’ll get to shortly—can find confirmation in this passage that such times may not be perpetual.
Matthew 1:25
Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus.
All this comes together when we remember that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church: covenant plus consummation. A covenant without consummation, like the false teaching of the Sadducees, rejects the resurrection. Of course, consummation is only the first time. How often a couple continues it is up to them. And no, of course it’s not wrong for sexual activity to lapse in old age. This doesn’t annul the sexual union; it just means there will be a last time. The point is: marriage, by definition, cannot be sexually neutral. Sex is just as commanded within marriage as it is forbidden without marriage. Willful perpetual virginity within marriage is just the inversion of fornication.
EQUIVOCATIONS
It’s not just moral exceptions that this doctrine demands. Ask about any of the verses that contradict it, and the answer will always be an exception in definition here, an exception in grammar there, and an exception in basic legibility everywhere. And it is true that, unlike God’s law, predominant word usage can have exceptions. But the people who subscribe to this teaching suppose that they can assert whatever exceptions they want, and the burden of proof will be on everyone else to rule them out. This begs the question: at what point do exceptions become the rule, negating the concepts of both exceptions and rules?
It starts with the verse we just read, Matthew 1:25. Conventionally, the word “until” denotes a stopping point, but this is flexible. When Jesus told His disciples He would be with them until the end of the age, this did not mean His presence would be taken away, but that its nature would be radically and permanently recreated. “Until” can also participate in figures of speech, such as “until seventy times seven.” You may find a few more variations if you look through all the uses of the Greek word “heós” in the New Testament; it’s only in there 146 times. But no matter how many fingers it will take to count the exceptions, they will not be grounds to assert that Matthew 1:25 is a moot point.
As for Mark 6:3, imagine Jesus as a Roman Catholic on social media when those in the synagogue mentioned His brothers. His response would be something to the effect of, “They’re not my brothers! They’re my cousins! Stop saying brothers! It’s cousins, cousins, cousins!” It is true that the Greek word “adelphos” can mean more than blood brothers. In fact, when Jesus’s mother and brothers wanted to speak to Him in Matthew 12, this is when the concept of “Christian brethren” was introduced. And yes, the word could refer to blood family in a broader sense—if used in a context that prescribed such an application. But the opposite is the case when the word is used in reference to individuals, or alongside “mother,” “sister,” or “relative.”
Mark 6:3
Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.
Luke 21:16
You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.
Of all the unbiased readers in the world, zero would find these uses of the word to be ambiguous. The latter verse would be redundant; and the former verse would never organically suggest—even with a thorough knowledge of the word—that “mother and brothers and sisters” might mean “mother and male kinsmen and female kinsmen.”
This is also reflected in Galatians 1, in which Paul uses the word in verse 2 to refer to the brethren who are with him, and in verse 19 to refer to James the Lord’s brother. Just as no one wonders if the brethren who are with him are blood brothers, so no one should wonder if James the Lord’s brother is the Lord’s extended relative. In fact, Luke 2:44 uses distinctly different words to refer to Jesus’s actual extended relatives. And the chronological context is just as relevant as the grammatical context. From a trip to Capernaum, to chasing Jesus through the crowds, and all the way to the book of Acts, Jesus’s brothers followed Mary around like little ducklings.
This becomes doubly relevant when the question about John 19:26 is posed: “Why did Jesus tell John to take care of Mary, if Mary had sons?” In keeping with Jesus’s habit of turning of the Pharisees’ questions against them, perhaps the most Christlike response to this is “Why did Jesus tell John to take care of Mary, if Mary had nephews?” However, because God saw fit to grant us some insight into this, there are ways to answer the question more directly.
John 7:5
For even His brothers did not believe in Him.
While Mary was witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus, by all accounts up to that point, her other sons were back at home thinking that both she and Jesus were a couple of fanatics for being in their respective stations on Calvary. They were probably the last people she wanted to go home to after such a thing. John, on the other hand, was already caring for Mary more than her sons were, by standing beside her at the cross. So Jesus honored His mother by putting her in the care of the disciple whom He loved.
At this point, some will argue that this would violate the Mosaic law, because caring for a mother was a duty reserved for her son. (Oh, what’s the matter? You don’t think there are exceptions to God’s law? I agree.) Jesus was not put in such a box as to make his brothers disobedient by John’s assignment. No doubt, they still fulfilled their duty to care for their mother—but they had John to assist them, oversee them, and keep them accountable in this. This is demonstrated by their behavior after they do believe in Jesus, which is found in the aforementioned passage in Acts. And what are they seen doing? Joining their mother in corporate prayer.
Acts 1:14
All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Finally, Scripture elucidates the importance of Jesus’s family details in the Gospel of Luke.
Luke 3:23
Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli,
Luke takes the time to clarify that the Son of God, despite assuming the practical role of Joseph’s son, did not actually descend from Joseph. This is something the reader presumably already knows, but it’s worth repeating. So if Jesus’s brothers were only “supposed” brothers, where is that clarification? Divine inspiration spelled out the fact that it doesn’t mean what it may have otherwise implied at face value. Yet for some, this is still not enough. If a repeated statement does not spell out the fact that doesn’t even mean what it does not say at face value, then they stand upon their little dunghill and declare that God must tiptoe around any whim they may read into the text, and that other people are just too dull to frolic through their obstacle course of loopholes.
ITS HISTORY AND ITS FUTURE
When contending that Mary and Joseph had a real marriage—sex and all—I have gotten several responses to the effect of “Ew, why are you so obsessed with Mary’s sex life, you creep?” Granted, I have also seen some Protestants troll in a manner that warrants such a response. But when any disagreement is automatically regarded as degrading to Mary, the doctrine proves to be an accessory the idolatrous pedestal on which Rome puts celibacy. This is just one of the many logical conclusions, but where exactly did it begin?
If more people had examined the first historical document to teach it, perhaps they could have known where it leads before it was too late. Many layers of parallel heresy are seen in the following quote from chapters 19 and 20 of the Protoevanglium of James. Let the reader beware: it gets explicit.
This apocryphal text from 145 A. D. rewrites the virgin birth, being so preoccupied with “virgin” that it rejects “birth”. Not only does it sound like it was written by a fetish blogger living out his own perpetual virginity, but it undermines the very need for Christ’s incarnation. Maintaining that the physical and spiritual realms are like the matching poles of two magnets, this Gnostic dualism makes everything subservient to its need for Mary’s reproductive system to be advertised as in “unused, like new condition.” Not only is Mary an idol; so is her vagina. But we Protestants are the weird ones.
By now, several people are itching to object, “That doesn’t represent the whole doctrine! What about Luther and Calvin? They believed it, right?” Well, Luther did. Luther had to clean up so much of Rome’s sloppy leftovers that he couldn’t get to everything. However, those saying that Calvin believed it are either lying or repeating someone who has lied to them. In truth, he was undecided on the matter. Much is made of the fact that he called it “excessive ignorance” to assume, without linguistic research, that Jesus had blood brothers. But this quote about a vow of virginity is often overlooked, which I will follow up with the quote in which he gives his final thoughts on the matter.
“The conjecture which some have drawn from these words, that she had formed a vow of perpetual virginity, is unfounded and altogether absurd. She would, in that case, have committed treachery by allowing herself to be united to a husband, and have poured contempt on the holy covenant of marriage; which could not have been done without mockery of God. Although the Papists have exercised barbarous tyranny on this subject, yet they have never proceeded so far as to allow the wife to form a vow of continence at her own pleasure. Besides, it is an idle and unfounded supposition that a monastic life existed among the Jews.”
“It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: but this is limited to that very time. What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers. Certainly, no man will ever raise a question on this subject, except from curiosity; and no man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.”
This article may run contrary to that last statement; but if Calvin could read it, I hope he would at least understand the principle behind it. What’s really at stake here is not anybody’s sex life, but whether man-made dogmas can declare exceptions to God’s law. Even one exception will have the most dire of consequences; and I believe that Calvin would agree if he could see what other exceptions the church is now allowing to God’s laws of sexual morality.
A HILL TO DIE ON
Much like the church in Galatia, this doctrine opens the two deadly trap doors of legalism and lawlessness. As we saw in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul rejoiced in being unmarried. But he did not claim to be spiritually superior because he didn’t have sex; and he didn’t make a foolish vow barring him from his right to potentially marry at a future time. But Rome, by weaving this doctrine into its Mariology, has made it a thing to be reached for. “If Mary took the vow, so can I!” say aspiring priests. But approximately 11,000 testimonies from minors would beg to differ, 6,700 of which have been substantiated. This is what grows from the seed of asceticism.
The seed of lawlessness only needs one small exception to be planted, watered, and placed by a sunny window in a petite, rustic pot. If the marriage covenant was rewritten for one couple, why not all? And if God approved a partially-fulfilled covenant, who’s to say He’ll finish fulfilling His covenant to us? If these sins seem more concrete, that’s because the church often judges the easy targets while placing a much lower priority on positive marital duties. But the first sin committed by the men in Romans 1:27 was not homosexuality. It was leaving the natural use of the woman.
This doctrine wouldn’t just affect Mary but also the Godman, whom it supposes was complacent in this violation of the family institution. It treats the family like a gingerbread house, where anyone can be made into anything, so long as there’s a smile on their faces. If you are a Protestant flirting with the perpetual virginity of Mary, do not be deceived. It’s not open-minded or intellectual, it’s not cool or counter-cultural, and it’s not historically precedented. It’s Romish dogma like any other and a gateway to deeper sexual immorality.
What could possibly be a greater honor to the mother of our Lord than the gift of one of God’s most beautiful institutions? Are we really to believe that false piety would have been more desirable? And are we really to believe that once the infant Christ has passed through Mary, her body was too holy for her own husband? Christ came to make a way for us to enter into holy places, walking where He has walked. And remember: this is exactly what holy matrimony reflects. This makes the perpetual virginity of Mary antithetical to the Gospel itself. So as we’ve just wrapped up a season of melodiously asking if Mary knew, let’s make the answer known: yes. Mary knew that her baby boy would save our sons and daughters, Mary knew that her baby boy would one day rule the nations, and Mary knew her husband in the Biblical sense.
