Can Mary Save Us?

0:00 welcome back to JS poy I'm Joe hesm a few years ago I was sharing with some Protestant friends my testimony such as it is and I got to this part where I was explaining how I credited a friend of mine who's now a priest with really saving my soul in college because he was my college ra and he patiently and clearly answered all of the doubts and questions and objections that I had about Catholicism even as someone who'd grown up Catholic and when I get to this part of the story they're visibly uncomfortable and they explain to me that from their background saying anyone besides Jesus saved you was just another way of saying that you're not saved after all there's no other name under Heaven by which we're saved than that of Jesus Christ so it sounded Blasphemous to them and I know it sounds incredibly Blasphemous to Protestant years when

0:46 Catholics say things like Mary saves us I think John Ankerberg speaks for a lot of Protestants when he objects that it sounds like we're putting Mary in the place of Jesus Christ according to the Pope the knowledge about God and even salvation comes through Mary Pope Leo the 13th prayed oh virgin Most Holy none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee none oh Mother of God attains salvation except through thee none receives a gift from the Throne of Mercy except through thee you know Pope Leo would have been biblically correct if you just put Jesus's name in place of Mary's why it's because the Bible teaches that only through Christ can we

1:32 know God look at John 1:18 it states no man has seen God at any time the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father he has made him known second the Bible clearly tells us salvation is only found in and through Christ not through Mary in Acts 4:12 we read salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under Heaven given to men by which we must be saved so today I want to do three things number one highlight where we actually agree what it is that Protestants are getting right in their objection number two show why the Bible still agrees with the Catholic side that we can absolutely say that we save other people or other people have saved us and then number three I want to

2:19 apply it to Mary show how this applies in this unique pretty special way to the Virgin Mary in her role of Salvation so let's start with the first what does the Protestant objection get right well of course it gets right the utter centrality of Jesus Christ no one else dies on the cross for you so In that clip he quoted from acts 4 and it's worth hearing St Peter's words before the Sanhedrin he says rulers of the people and Elders if we're being examined today concerning a good deed done to a they're brought in after performing a miracle by what means this man has been healed be it known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified whom God raised from the dead by him this man is standing before you well this is the stone which was rejected by you Builders

3:06 but which has become the head of the corner that the Cornerstone in other words and there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved in fact we can add to that several other passages from the Bible for instance 1 John 4 he says and this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us in his son to be the expiation for our sins Mary is not the expiation for our sins the Saints are not the expiation of our sins the person who led you to Jesus Christ is not the experation for your sins Jesus himself is of course and a few verses later John says we've seen and testify that the father has sent his son as the savior of the world anyone who is saved is saved

3:52 through Jesus Christ there is no other way there is no other name under Heaven given to Men by which we are saved the catechism agrees with all this obviously it says in paragraph well maybe obvious to Catholics some Protestants may actually believe that we think there's another savior Mary or the Saints that's not what's going on here the catechism in paragraph 613 says Christ's death is both the Pascal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive Redemption of men through the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world that is he is the Fulfillment of what begins in a figure in the Passover and it's the sacrifice of the New Covenant which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the blood of the Covenant which was poured out for many for the

4:39 Forgiveness of sins so make sure you don't miss I mean this is a hopefully an obvious straightforward point that Jesus Christ in a unique and a singular way pours out his blood for us and nobody else's not even the martyrs Die For Us in the same way in the next paragraph the catechism uh says that the sacrifice of Christ is unique right like just make no mistake about it if you think other sacrifices are like Calvary you are wrong it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices and then it explains several ways how first it's a gift from God the Father himself for the father handed his son over to sinners in order to

5:24 reconcile us with himself at the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man who in Freedom and love offered his life to his father through the Holy Spirit and reparation for our Disobedience so whatever else may be true all the other ways we may save someone we don't save them in the way Jesus does on the cross he alone does that he alone is the mediator between God and man in the sense First Timothy 2 actually means it which is he alone Bridges the chasm caused by sin and he does it through the cross so if that was all scripture said and if that was all the catechism said then say hey great stop saying you save other people stop saying other people save you stop saying Mary saved you stop all that because only Jesus is the savior but it turns out the Bible has a lot more to say and

6:11 so on the question of can we save other people it is a resounding yes and it is explicit and unambiguous which is going to lead to the deeper question of how can both of these things be true so we're going to explore that let's look at a few biblical passages first let's go to James chapter 5 when he says if any among you is sick let him call for the Elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins he will be forgiven so you've called the elders presbyteros what we later short shortened to priest and they pray over you and this prayer of faith saves you now you might say hey maybe

6:58 that's just physical healing even though it says and if he has committed sins they'll be forgiven but if there's any ambiguity in that there's not in the next few verses in verse 16 it says therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous man has great power and his effect so if someone is cut off from God through sin your prayer can help restore that union now maybe that's still too vague let's go a few more verses forward prayer verses 19 to 20 it says my brethren If anyone among you he wanders from the truth and someone brings him back let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins you can save another person from

7:47 Death spiritual death obviously because you're bringing the sinner back from the error of his ways you can save other people and you've just been given a road map for how to do it by bringing them back into the truth now you don't do it by dying on the cross for them right but when you lead someone to Jesus you saved them think about it in a medical analogy let's say you've got a very serious illness and it will kill you but there's a powerful antibiotic that can cure you that's Christ that's his sacrifice that's the merits he's won for us on the cross this is the only medicine this is the only remedy and so if you're saying well could this other drug cure me could you know this you know herbal remedy

8:35 cure me no no no no only this one antibiotic Christ I guess he's probiotic he's for Life leave that aside for purposes of the analogy so if Christ is the medicine he alone can heal you but there might be a doctor or a nurse or an orderly who brings that medicine to you and you can still say they saved you you might have a friend who said hey I think you're actually really sick and you better get to the hospital really soon when I was a baby I had what would have been a terminal uh disease and thanks be to God my mom took me to the doctor and when the first doctor said he's fine she didn't believe him and took me back and to it get a second opinion and the second doctor realized I was 48 hours

9:20 away from dying my life was saved incredible my mother saved my life the doctor saved my life it's not 50/50 they had different roles to play in my physical salvation well likewise in your spiritual salvation Jesus Christ has this utterly indispensable role but every person along the way who shared the gospel and preserved the gospel and brought you the saving gospel of Christ has brought you that saving medicine they have saved you in some sense not in the same sense Jesus did of course but in a very real sense nevertheless that's James 5 Jude Echoes this in theist to Jude in verses 20 to 23 says you beloved build yourselves up on your Most Holy Faith

10:06 now even that language of building yourself up I think was probably going to be uncomfortable to certain Protestant ears because it sounds too pelagian we're doing too much pray in the Holy Spirit keep yourselves in the love of God wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life and convince some who doubt save some by snatching them out of the fire so another way we can save other people is by snatching them out of the fire particularly I would tie it to the thing that he said right before that convincing those who doubt if you're struggling with the faith and your friend counsels you and gives you advice and explains why the faith is rational and you should still believe they've turned you away from apostasy they have saved you this is exactly the thing that was going on in my testimony where I had

10:51 these questions and these doubts and these objections and a Catholic friend very patiently eloquently explained to me why I was wrong and why these things were true it turned me away from the like I was snatched out of the fire that is what it means to save another person on a creaturely level and this is not just like a one or two off this language is found throughout the Bible St Paul says to Timothy not to neglect the gift you have which was given you by prophetic utterance when the elders laid their hands upon you so what's going on there Timothy is the bishop here and so even though he's appointing like presbyter and overseers he is in this singular role where

11:37 everyone else reports to him in the church he's been like left to attend to and he doesn't just have this by dictate he has this Authority sacramentally because in the laying on of hands he was given a Spiritual Authority that's pretty much right there in the text 1744 but that then creates not only a spiritual power and authority but also a spiritual Duty that he has to as St Paul puts it practice these duties devote yourselves to them devote yourself to them so that they all may see your progress take heed to yourself and to your teaching hold to that for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers in other words Paul is

12:22 telling Timothy be a good bishop and you will save both yourself and those who've been entrusted to you that's the role of every Bishop that's the calling at least of every Bishop right and that's calling in a different way of every evangelist and every you know hopefully in the role that I'm in right now I'm saving myself and those hearing me that sounds strange to our ears I absolutely get that but it is a Biblical way of speaking and thinking about salvation and if it sounds strange to us that is a problem with us not a problem with the biblical text so St Paul is giving us this method both to save ourselves that's got to make very comfortable and save other people there it is we we can't run from the biblical language this is not a mistake this is not a denial that

13:09 there's no other name under Heaven by which we're saved because what is Timothy doing if he's doing his job well he's leading people to Jesus Christ so he's saving them like the nurse who hands the saving medicine to the doctor like the doctor who gives you administers the the saving medication Christ is secure and the way we save other people is by administering the Cure or bringing them to someone who will administer the cure to them that's how it works it's beautiful and this isn't just a new testament thing too one of the clearest passages about this is actually in the Old Testament When God says to Ezekiel that he's made him a Watchman for the house of Israel and he tells them if I say to the wicked oh Wicked Man you shall surely die and you do not speak to

13:55 warn the Wicked Man to turn from his way that Wicked man shall die in his iniquity but his blood I will require at your hand but if you warn the Wicked Man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way he shall die in his iniquity but you will have saved your life so even if you fail in your mission you're you're a bishop you're a parent you're an evangelist whatever it is and you're trying to save other people and you fail at that the mere fact that you are following God's prompting to give that message of Salvation will save your life and if you don't do it God will hold you accountable his blood I will require at your hand this is not faith alone you have to actually do something and if you fail to do the thing God has

14:40 called you to do you can be damned because he holds you accountable for someone else's damnation those are very strong words that's all right there in the Bible and again I think this is foreign from knowing many modern Christians speak about salvation and that is a problem with us now I've been talking mostly about you know Bishops and evangelists and missionaries and and this kind of big way of saving other people and that is often what we're called to do frankly that we're called to vocally share the gospel in these ways but there are a lot of other ways where we're called to live the Christian Life in such a way that we invite other people into it so to give another great example I think from St Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 he talks about family life and he says if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he

15:27 consents to live with her she should not divorce him so little bit of context he's dealing with a group of largely converts in Corinth and in many cases it was women who would convert before the men would and there's a lot of reasons sociologists have like that they speculate about this we don't need to get into all of that except to say that like many people even watching this video you may find yourself in a situation where you've changed and you've become Christian and you're married to someone who isn't and there's a denominational divide or there's a religious divide and that can be a really uncomfortable place and it can break apart a lot of marriages now another thing to note here is St Paul is speaking to people who don't have sacramental marriages this is not the sacrament of marriage this is what's called natural marriage and so they could get divorced

16:13 and remarried but Paul is going to recommend that they don't do that he says if he consents to live with you don't divorce him for why for the unbelieving husband is consecrated that is made ho holy through his wife and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband otherwise your children would be unclean but as it is they are holy now Paul has this habit of just laying out some rich and deep theology not really explaining it and moving on and he does this here like what does it mean to say our children are holy what does it mean to say we're consecrating an unbeliever what does any of that look like what does that mean the most

16:59 hopeful interpretation is that we should not despair that if you are a Christian and you have aing members of your family you should continue to pray and intercede for them because it may be through your Holiness they will be saved what that looks like Paul doesn't tell us maybe we're not to know and just have to wait and see what it looks like and maybe that they have an obvious conversion it maybe in some other way God is able to look at them and see your faith and heal them think about the paralytic man whose friends bring him to Jesus Jesus looks at the faith of the friends instead of to the man your sins are forgiven and then tells them to rise and walk so maybe what you're called to do in this situation is to pray and intercede and patiently fight

17:47 for the family member who's gone astray the friend who's gone astray Paul's looking particularly at marriage but I think this is something we should take great spiritual hope in without defining something that is isn't given to us to Define so we can't just declare this person is definitely saved because of their you know faithful mom or whatever we don't know that but we have grounds to hope that we can save others in some mysterious Way St Paul is briefly sketching out here he then considers the case what if the other person doesn't stay with you what if the unbelieving partner wants to separate he says let it be so in such a case the brother or sister is not bound for God has called us to peace this is what sometimes is called the Pauline privilege that you can divorce and remarry if your first

18:33 marriage is not a sacramental one and the unbelieving unbaptized partner leaves you then you're good to go it this is not a binding marriage in the eyes of God the way a sacramental marriages there's much more that could be said but this isn't a video about cat and law so I'm going to leave that aside but that's where that comes from if you're curious the next line though is what I really want to focus on verse 16 wife how how do you know whether you will save your husband husband how do you know whether you will save your wife now I think John angerberg would have to say well we can't save them there's no other name under Heaven by which we're saved and Paul would say you're missing what I mean by saved we're not saving them like Christ saves us we're saving them in a

19:20 subordinate way we're saving them in a way where we're applying Christ's unique sacrifice to their lives through our prayer and Medi intercession all of these things we're bringing them to the one mediator that's the biblical picture and this is what I think is often missed when people have this zero some mindset that if Christ is the savior of the world then no one else has any kind of salvific role that's just not biblical that's not true it's not logical to give one more example if you said hey who painted The cysteine Chapel ceiling was it Michelangelo or was it belli that is a coherent question and it could wouldn't be 100% of both if it was 50% of one it could be at most 50% of the other but if you said who painted

20:07 the ceiling of the CIS Chapel was it Michelangelo or was it paintbrushes that question just reveals a fundamentally misunderstood uh sense of agency because it's 100% Michelangelo and 100% paintbrushes as well and there's no tension between that whatsoever because the paintbrushes are what are called an instrumental cause Michelangelo uses those to paint the ceiling well likewise God uses the various people in our lives to bring us to Salvation we can both say God has saved us and they have saved us there's no contradiction there they're working in different ways at different levels of causality so let's apply this biblical concept to three people St Paul St Patrick and the Virgin

20:53 Mary I want to begin uh with St Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 4 remember that line that if Timothy does what he's supposed to do he will save both himself and his hearers Paul describing himself puts it like this in Romans 11 he says now I'm speaking to you Gentiles in as much then as I an apostle to the Gentiles I magnify my Ministry in order to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them so okay we think of Paul as the Apostle to the Gentiles but he's very clear that he's trying to us absolutely but also trying to save his fellow Jews anyone who heard that and was converted by it could say Jesus saved me and St Paul

21:39 saved me this would not be blasphemy this would not be contradiction this would be strictly biblical or you could take the example of St Patrick if you're Irish and you're a believing Christian you can thank St Patrick right like he is the Apostle to Ireland and So what had been a pagan country becomes a Christian country and so you could say who saved you well was it Jesus of course absolutely was it St Patrick also yes now that's true even centuries later like maybe you didn't meet the person who brought Christianity to your Shores to your town to your family but you were saved by them and or you were saved by someone who is saved by someone who is saved by them and so on so you can trace that kind of lineage back and you can rightly say that they

22:26 saved you and again this is not blasphemy this is not denying the singular Act of Christ on the cross this is just recognizing that Christ's Plan of Salvation includes the cooperation of the Saints includes the cooperation of Christians like we are called to be partners with Christ in sharing the saving gospel and so we can have the Dignity of causality right like someone could be saved because of what you chose to do when you could have said no this is a good thing this is something we should rejoice in this is good news okay so we talked about St Paul we've talked about St Patrick now let's talk about the Virgin Mary in what way can we say that the Virgin Mary saves us well several ways if we can talk about Paul

23:12 as the Apostle to the Gentiles because he brings the saving message Mary brings Jesus literally into the world like the passage I'm always struck by is in John 6 when Jesus says that he's the living bread come down from heaven and he says the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh Jesus doesn't just save us in a generic way he saves us on the cross by Dying In the Flesh for us and who's responsible for this well the Virgin Mary Mary gives him his flesh I don't mean that Mary takes away Jesus's free will not that at all but Mary in her yes to God is an important role to play in the Incarnation if you miss this if you reduce Mary to just like a shell

23:59 and not truly a mother then you've missed something really important she is the mother of God she's the mother of Jesus Christ who is God as Elizabeth says she's mother of my Lord and she cooperates with that freely so when he has flesh to give for the life of the world it's because Mary says yes to the angel Gabriel luminum second Vatican Council puts it like this predestined from eternity by that decree of Divine Providence which determined the the Incarnation of the word to be the mother of God the Blessed Virgin was on this Earth the virgin mother of the Redeemer and above all others and in a singular way the generous associate and humble handmade of the Lord she conceived brought forth and nourished Christ so in

24:44 what way does Mary save us first by saying yes to the Incarnation she's a handmade of the Lord she freely cooperates with the Plan of Salvation she could have said no I think this is an important thing to make clear she did have to say yes to the angel Gabriel now Protestants when they hear that will say well God would have found another way sure likewise if St Patrick hadn't gone to Ireland maybe somebody else would have you can always do those kind of counterfactuals if the person who did save you didn't maybe someone else would have saved you it doesn't matter the point is she did save us by saying yes to the Incarnation so that Redemption would come through her into the world in the person of Jesus Christ

25:29 second Mary presents Jesus to the father in the temple and was United with him by compassion as he died on the cross in this singular way she cooperated by her obedience faith hope and burning charity in the work of the Savior and giving back Supernatural life to souls wherefore she is our mother in the order of Grace like she is the first and most faithful disciple of Jesus when the apostles save John don't show up on Good Friday Mary's there she sticks with it and so that's the second way like she is sharing in the gospel by being a faithful disciple and by being a faithful disciple who gives him to the father in the presentation we see that uh we see it also when at the wedding Feast of kaaa where you know Jesus says his hour

26:15 hasn't come and Mary gives him the push she says to the stewards the servants at the feast do whatever he tells you and she launches Jesus's public Ministry through her intercession like just read John 2 it's right there third the maternity of Mary in the order of Grace began with the consent which she gave in faith at the enunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross and last until the Eternal fulfillment of all the elect in other words this isn't just historically true because she's not dead now taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this salvific duty but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of Eternal salvation now look I understand Catholics and protest prots often disagree about what it is the

27:00 Saints are experiencing in heaven right now and that many Protestants are uneasy with the idea the Saints are alive in heaven like Jesus says when he's responding to the Sadducees and says Abraham Isaac and Jacob are alive because God is the god of the living and not the dead and so they're worried about saying oh you know you're praying to the dead Etc no we're praying to the living that's not a quibble that's biblical but here Mary is alive in heaven and she is interceding for us because here's the thing all the Saints in heaven intercedes leavea aside whether we should pray to Mary all put all that question aside for a minute Mary is certainly praying for us because she is Holy and she cares about us and she loves us in Revelation 12:17 the mother of Jesus is presented as the

27:45 mother of those who hold the testimony of Christ now you can say that's Israel or the church or Mary or all of the above it certainly looks to me like all of the above in any case anyone who's holy in heaven is is praying and interceding for other people because if you're that selfish that you wouldn't do that you're not making it to heaven right all right fourth by her maternal charity Mary cares for the Brethren of her son who still Journey on Earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties until they are LED into the happiness of their true home and so for those reasons we're told the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the church under titles like Advocate auxiliatrix aatrix and mediatrix now I get those kind of titles sound really

28:30 unpleasant to Protestant ears I get that I absolutely I get it because we're used to thinking in zero some way where it sounds like we're saying there are two mediators between God and man Jesus and Mary that's not what we're saying and the second Vatican council is actually really clear when we talk about Mary saving us or mediating or any of these things we don't mean in the way that Jesus is the unique Savior and the unique mediator we don't mean that at all explicitly in the next paragraph this however is to be so understood that it neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one mediator so it isn't that like Mary adds something to the Cross make it a little bit better nor is it like Mary takes away so it's 50/50 not that at all Jesus

29:15 is doing a singular thing Mary's cooperation isn't at that point like that's not what we're describing here for no creature Vatican 2 says could ever be counted as equal with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by the ministers and by the faithful and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to his creatures so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source that's everything we've seen so far that Christ's unique action doesn't preclude us from cooperating it makes it possible like Jesus doesn't die on the cross to take away our cross he

30:02 dies on the cross so our cross can have meaning we can make up in our own bodies what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ as St Paul says this is the invitation that the Bible lays out quite clearly and if we've got theological blinders on that don't let us see that that's a problem on us not a problem with the Bible lastly Vatican 2 says the church does not hesitate to profess this subordinate role to marry like if if you've been told the church views Mary as equal to Jesus or above Jesus or anything like that that is a lie that is a fiction in Vatican to is being very clear no Mary is subordinate to Christ it knows it through the unfailing experience of it and commends it to the hearts of the faithfuls that encouraged by this maternal help they may the more

30:48 intimately adhere to the mediator and Redeemer that Mary's role is to lead us to Jesus remember her last words in the Gospel of John are do whatever he tells you that is her cooperation with Christ she is helping to bring Jesus into the World by launching his public Ministry but she is also making clear that her life is referential her life refers us to Jesus that the reason we as Christians care about Mary isn't for Mary's own sake apart from Christ the reason we care about Mary is because we care about Christ if you go back through the history of the church the whole controversy over whether we call Mary Mother of God or not is based on what we believe about Jesus Christ it's not drawing us away from him it's leading us to him and so the people who have the

31:33 healthiest relationship with Mary have the healthiest relationship with Jesus so if you are coming from a place where your own background makes you alergic to saying somebody else saves you or and Mary saves you any of these things I hope this has been a good biblical provocation or even Revelation right to show you look scripture speaks and thinks and acts in a way that you don't speak and think and act and that this might mean that there's an alignment needed I hope this is helpful I really look forward to hearing your comments uh below because I know this can be kind of a contentious issue and I hope we can keep it civil and encouraging and by all means if you've got objections and questions I really I want to give you permission ask those below and I and I

32:19 know many other people would be happy to kind of help answer the things you might be struggling with if this is giving you some unease for Sheamus popri I'm Joe hhm God bless you