What Roman Catholics Really Believe: The Assumption of the Virgin Mary

Once again, today, August 15, marks the celebration of the Roman Catholic feast day known as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Assumption. A Practical Catholic Dictionary says this about the Assumption:

“The taking into Heaven of the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary soon after her death. The word assumption comes from the Latin word assumere (to take up) and the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was free from original sin and so was not subject to death in the same way that creatures are, was taken into Heaven and united to her son. The Feast of the Assumption is August 15 and is a holiday of obligation in the United States. Belief in Our Lady’s Assumption goes back to early Christian days. On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption as a dogma of the Church. See dogma. A new Proper for the Mass for the day shows Mary in her bodily glory. The Introit begins, ‘A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” Apocalypse XII 1.’ (p. 29). 

A holiday of obligation is one of the six feast days a Catholic must be present at Mass. In the United States those six days are: Christmas (December 25), the Circumcision (January 1); Ascension Thursday (forty days after Easter); the Assumption (August 15); All Saints Day (November 1); and the Immaculate Conception (December 8).

There are many problems with the doctrine of the Assumption, the most obvious being the fact that nowhere in the Bible is it taught that Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, was taken into heaven. It is assumed that Enoch, the great grandson of Adam, was taken into heaven, because the Bible says that he “walked with God: and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 4:24), and we know that the prophet Elijah was taken into heaven on a chariot of fire. Nowhere, however, does the Bible say that Mary the mother of Jesus was taken into heaven.

A Practical Catholic Dictionary says that the belief in the Assumption “goes back to early Christian days,” yet it was not made a Catholic Church dogma until 1950. If it were true, however, that the early Christians recognized and believed in the doctrine of the Assumption, then  this would be recorded in the Bible. That it is not means that the Assumption does not go back to early Christian days, but to early Roman Catholic Church days. 

Moreover, the Catholic Church says that the Assumption was made a dogma in 1950, but the feast of the Assumption was only introduced as a liturgical feast in the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Sergius I, who reigned from 687-701 (Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 16, p. 385.) This then, is the earliest known record of the doctrine of the Assumption: some six centuries later than the establishment of the Christian Church (33 AD), and three centuries after the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church (330 AD).

This should all come as no surprise to Bible-believing Christians, as very little of what is taught in the Roman Catholic Church can be found in the Bible, including the Immaculate Conception: the Catholic belief that the Virgin Mary was free from original sin. This dogma is contrary to the Bible, which teaches that all are born with the sin of Adam and Eve:

“Wherefore, as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). 

“For if through the offence of one [Adam] many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many” (Romans 5:15).

If the Virgin Mary were sinless, then the Bible would be a lie, because, according to the Bible, it is because of sin that we all die. This includes Mary, the mother of Jesus. If the Virgin Mary were really the biblical Mary, therefore, then she died, because she was born into sin like the rest of us. If the Virgin Mary did not die, then the Virgin Mary could not have been the biblical Mary, the mother of Jesus. And I have been saying that for years.

Jesus never sinned a day in His life, and it is for this reason that He rose on the third day. Death couldn’t hold Him, because He did nothing to deserve death. Mary, the mother of Jesus, however, was subject to death because she was born under the curse of Adam like all humans.

The Catholic Church worships the Virgin Mary as a deity, which is obvious when it says that the Virgin Mary “was not subject to death in the same way that creatures are.”A creature, according to the Random House Collegiate Dictionary,is “anything created, whether animate or inanimate.” If the Virgin Mary were not created, then the implication is that the Virgin Mary must be the Creator, as there is no other option.

The doctrine of the Assumption calls Jesus Christ a liar; as the Lord Jesus, said:

“And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13).

To those who say that when Jesus said “no man” He meant no male, I say to you that when Jesus said “no man” He was using the inclusive masculine, the same inclusive masculine He used in John 14:6 when He said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” Jesus therefore meant “no man or woman.” And to those who would say that Jesus was talking about the past and not the future, I would call your attention to the fact that when Jesus made this declaration He had not yet been crucified, let alone risen. The Lord Jesus was therefore in effect saying, “No one has ever ascended into heaven, nor will ever ascend into heaven, but me, the only One who has ever come down from heaven.”

The doctrine of the Assumption deifies the Virgin Mary by further ascribing to this idol qualities and characteristics that belong exclusively to the Lord Jesus. This is further proven by the fact that according to A Practical Catholic Dictionary, the Virgin Mary was taken into heaven and “united to her son.” It doesn’t say “united with,” mind you; it says “united to.” To unite in this fashion means “to join, combine, or incorporate so as to form a single unit or whole” (Random House Collegiate Dictionary). With this statement, the Roman Catholic Church is actually declaring that the Virgin Mary is part of the Godhead.

But, the Bible says:

“There are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three [not four] are One” (1 John 5:7).

There is no mention of the Virgin Mary.

The Bible then adds this final Word:

“If we receive the witness of men [the Roman Catholic Church], the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which He hath testified of his Son” (1 John 5:9).

Amen.

–TSM

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