{"id":8699,"date":"2023-12-20T10:17:28","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T15:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=8699"},"modified":"2023-12-20T10:17:28","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T15:17:28","slug":"immaculate-conception-it-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/12\/immaculate-conception-it-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means.html","title":{"rendered":"\u201cImmaculate Conception.\u201d It Doesn\u2019t Mean What You Think it Means"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_8705\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8705\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8705\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/12\/immaculate-conception_credit-lightstock-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8705\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lightstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As Christmas soon approaches, one phrase that may be heard a lot is the \u201cImmaculate Conception.\u201d However, it\u2019s a phrase that most people, particularly Protestants, don\u2019t have a clear understanding of. In 2018, Chris Cuomo <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/370641-cnn-host-calls-out-gop-lawmaker-for-using-religious-term-without-knowing-what\/\">famously chastised Representative Matt Gaetz<\/a> (R, FL) for his misuse of the term. During an interview with Cuomo, Gaetz called missing FBI texts between two FBI agents critical of then-President Donald Trump the biggest \u201ccoincidence since the Immaculate Conception.\u201d Cuomo then pressed Gaetz to define what he meant by \u201cImmaculate Conception.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m a Christian,\u201d said Gaetz. \u201cI believe that the Immaculate Conception was how Jesus was born.\u201d Cuomo then ridiculed Gaetz for confusing the term. \u201cIt was Mary\u2019s conception. It was the mother\u2019s conception without original sin. It was not the conception of Jesus. Facts matter, congressman. If you\u2019re going to make an analogy, at least know what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gaetz isn\u2019t alone in confusing the doctrine of Immaculate Conception with the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gotquestions.org\/immaculate-conception.html\">Got Questions<\/a>\u201d has a page devoted to clarifying between the two. \u201cMany people mistakenly believe that the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Jesus Christ. Jesus\u2019 conception was most assuredly immaculate\u2014that is, without the stain of sin\u2014but the Immaculate Conception does not refer to Jesus at all,\u201d the site writes. \u201cThe Immaculate Conception is not a virgin birth. Catholics believe Mary was conceived the normal way, but God made her immune from imputed or inherited sin.\u201d The site shares that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as stated by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/faith\/2020\/2\/27\/21147790\/daniel-peterson-mary-immaculate-conception-virgin-birth-jesus-pope-pious-ix-catholic-protestant#:~:text=While%20the%20doctrine%20of%20the,Pope%20Pius%20IX%20on%20Dec.\">Pope Pius IX<\/a> in 1854 is that, \u201cThe blessed Virgin Mary to have been, from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Christ Jesus the Savior of Mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin.\u201d Essentially, Catholics look to Mary as a new Eve, thus she was born sinless like Eve when she was first formed in the Garden of Eden. Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8.<\/p>\n<p>Such a doctrine is a major sticking point between Catholics and Protestants. For Catholics, Mary\u2019s sinlessness is necessary, otherwise she would have passed on sin to Jesus, thus making Him imperfect. Protestants, however, believe such sinlessness to be unnecessary and unbiblical. They assert that the Holy Spirit indwelled Mary, thus protecting Jesus from the passing on of sin through human conception. Both Catholics and Protestants agree on the Virgin birth. \u201cThe virgin birth is important in that it preserves the truth that Jesus is fully God and fully man at the same time,\u201d writes \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gotquestions.org\/virgin-birth.html\">Got Questions<\/a>.\u201d \u201cHis physical body He received from Mary. But His eternal, holy nature was His from all eternity past (see John 6:69). Joseph the carpenter did not pass on his sinful nature to Jesus for the simple reason that Joseph was not the father. Jesus had no sin nature.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Christmas soon approaches, one phrase that may be heard a lot is the \u201cImmaculate Conception.\u201d However, it\u2019s a phrase that most people, particularly Protestants, don\u2019t have a clear understanding of. In 2018, Chris Cuomo famously chastised Representative Matt Gaetz (R, FL) for his misuse of the term. During an interview with Cuomo, Gaetz called&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":8705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cImmaculate Conception.\u201d It Doesn\u2019t Mean What You Think it Means<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As Christmas soon approaches, one phrase that may be heard a lot is the \u201cImmaculate Conception.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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