Is the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception Biblical?

Getting Behind the Biblical Greek and Church History

Since the Reformation, it’s been a constant struggle to uphold many Marian dogmas, including the one that Mary was conceived and born without sin. Of course, many Protestant scholars, pastors, and laypeople attempt to undermine Catholic teaching by claiming that the immaculate conception is “unbiblical”. When they do this, they’re appealing to their own theology of Sola Scriptura or “by scripture alone”. Nonetheless, there is actually a quite convincing biblical argument for the Catholic teaching, which is found in the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel text, the Catholic understanding for this dogma has evidence for Mary being conceived without sin:

Gabriel says, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary for you have found favor with God.”[1]

Regarding this scripture passage, the English translation from the Revised Standard Version carries more theological weight than the New American Bible translation. In the former Gabriel says, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!”, whereas in the latter Gabriel says, “28 And coming to her, he said, ‘Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you’.”[2] The importance of this particular passage is “full of grace”, which comes from the Greek word kecharitomene. The tense of this particular verb form is a perfect passive participle and the message that it conveys isn’t properly rendered in the New American Bible translation. A perfect passive participle verb indicates something that occurs in the past, present, and future; therefore, what Gabriel is saying to Mary in Luke’s Gospel is that Mary is with grace throughout her existence – she is conceived without sin. This particular passage, therefore, gives tremendous support to the dogmatic claim of the Catholic Church of Mary’s immaculate conception.

So, from an exegetical interpretation standpoint, it can certainly be argued that the original language of Luke’s Gospel, Greek, implicitly teaches the Catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception, but why would Mary need to be stainless? Is this just merely a Catholic proof text that can be easily dismissed? There’s actually a biblical reason for Mary needing to be conceived without sin found in two books of the Old Testament, 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, and the reason deals with the Ark of the Covenant. The story deals with a man named Uzzah who touches the Ark in an attempt to save it from touching the ground:

5 And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. 6 And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. 7 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. [3]

The tradition of the Church has recognized Mary, the Mother of God, in her motherhood who bears the second person of the Blessed Trinity to be the new Ark of the Covenant. She is the vessel that contains God Incarnate, so in reference to the above text, for her to bear such a responsibility, God must prepare her through her immaculate conception to be able to be the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is certainly true that in the Scholastic period of the Church there was a disagreement between figures like St. Thomas Aquinas, who rejected the teaching of the immaculate conception vs. Bl. Duns Scotus. Nonetheless, the earliest documentation of the doctrine of the immaculate conception found in the fathers of the Church comes in the form of hymns found in Ephraim around the 4th century A.D. The hymn poetically declares:

You alone and your Mother

are more beautiful than any others;

For there is no blemish in you,

nor any stains upon your Mother.

Who of my children

can compare in beauty to these? [4]

The doctrine of the immaculate conception continues to have a 4th century pedigree with St. Ambrose of Milan mentioning Mary as stainless in a commentary on the Psalms, “Lift me up not from Sara but from Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain of sin. [5] The great 4th-5th century doctor of Grace, St. Augustine, in his treatise On Nature and Grace understands Mary as being immaculately conceived.

Of course, naturally, this begs the question, is this doctrine a development that occurs during the 4th-5th century? And if it does, what is the significance of the development during the period? Many Protestants who advocate for a concept of Original Sin and/or total deprivation, or some combination of these understandings, do so from developments that occur largely in the theological thought of St. Augustine in the 4th century. Furthermore, major developments and clarifications in the history of the Church occur in the 4th century largely at the council of Nicaea.

In the history of Christianity because of its earliest origins, it is not a religion of the book—there was no book. Of course, with that being said, historically some Catholic apologists tend to treat Sacred Scripture as non-existent prior to the 4th century A.D. Paul Bower explains Church Fathers were aware of the existence of Sacred Scripture, but it was “a fluid reality.” [6]

the advent of Sacred Texts being written, the pre-Nicene Fathers measured both tradition and scripture by a “canon of truth,” or “rule of faith.”  Bowers explains, “The early rule of faith has been variously described as embodying the authority of church tradition to expound scriptural revelation…serving as the criterion of its interpretation…for the integrity of Christian faith…exhibiting the primary “plot” tying together Old and New Testaments.” [7] 

Nonetheless, Sacred Scripture leading up to the Council of Nicaea was not the normative expression of Sacred Revelation in Christianity, but rather it was “the Fathers” of that council and the bishops who adopted the orthodoxy of the council of Nicaea which were the normative authority on matters of the faith and morals. Richard Price explains that the use of the term “the Fathers” becomes more frequent after the first three centuries, but the application of the term “the Fathers” begins to take on the connotation of those bishops who were involved with the council of Nicaea and the formulation of the Nicene Creed. [8] The authority of the council, namely Nicaea, and the “holy Fathers of Nicaea” began to be associated with any bishops who wrote in defense of the council and creed. Due to this established authority Price writes in reference to the authority of councils, “ecumenical councils are treated as comparable to Scripture, and the Fathers who attended them as comparable to the biblical writers.” [9]

The Catholic Church’s doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary can be asserted to be implicitly biblical from the Gospel of Luke. Furthermore, the historical record of the Fathers of the Church just after the Nicaea council with two great Latin Fathers Ambrose and Augustine gives further credence for this doctrine to be a true revelation. Some Catholic apologists have suggested that Martin Luther himself supported the doctrine of the immaculate conception, however, preliminary research suggests this as mere wishful thinking. Regardless, modern exegetical and historical methods being absent during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, bible-believing Christians and confessions as a whole should reexamine both Luke’s Gospel in light of this doctrine. Generally speaking, the connection with Mary being the new ark of the covenant magnifies the centrality and divinity of Jesus Christ Himself.

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[1] Luke 1:28:30 RSV

2] Luke 1:28 NAB

[3] 2 Sam 6: 5-7 ESV-CE

[4]  “The Nisebene Hymns,” W. A. Jurgens, tran., The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 1 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1970–1979), 313.

 {5} St. Ambrose of Milan, “Commentary on Psalm 118,” W. A. Jurgens, tran., The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 2 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1970–1979), 166.

[6] Paul Bowers, “Scripture and the Fathers,” ed. Ken Parry, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Patristics (Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2019), 355.

[7] Ibid, 356.

[8] Richard Price, “Fathers and the Church Councils,” ed. Ken Parry, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Patristics (Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2019), 400.

[9] Ibid, 401.