From the Pastor's Study
Teflon Baby Dec 8, 2021
A few days ago, I was reading about the Immaculate Conception. Probably most of us have heard that phrase but may be a little foggy on what it means. The Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic teaching that says that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born without sin. Not even the stain of sin clung to her from the moment she was conceived. They go on to say that Mary, because she was not tainted by sin, was also not prone to sin, and, as a result, did not sin.
It is noteworthy that this teaching did not become an official part of Roman Catholic teaching until 1854 when the Pope declared it to be so. One might wonder why, after 1800 years of Christian history, the Roman Catholic Church decided that Mary was born and lived without sin. (We do recognize that while the teaching of the Immaculate Conception was not officially part of the Catholic doctrine, many people held it to be true.) I don’t know why the Roman Catholic Church decided to make the teaching official, but they do say why they believe it.
As we well know, we become like those who we hang around with. If you choose friends who smoke marijuana, chances are you will smoke it too. If you hang around with people who like camping, chances are you will start camping with them. Who our friends are and what they do rubs off onto us. Thus, because it was necessary that Jesus be perfect so that he could become an acceptable sacrifice to God, Roman Catholics teach that Jesus could not be affected by sin. He could not be tainted by it. We know, further, that we become like our parents, so if Jesus were to be unaffected by the sin of his parents, Mary had to be without sin, or so the Roman Catholics teach. With the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, Roman Catholics are upholding the teaching that we need a perfect sacrifice to be saved. If Jesus was tainted by sin, his sacrifice on the cross would not be good enough.
I would agree with that final statement. Truly, if Jesus were sinful in any way, indeed, even tainted just a little by sin, his death on the cross would not serve to win us salvation. However, I find myself disagreeing with the teaching of the Immaculate Conception that says that Mary had to be without sin if Jesus was to be completely sinless as well. Is it necessary to say that Jesus had to have been conceived in the woman who without sin for him to be without sin? I don’t think it is necessary to say that.
Here is why: in the Bible uncleanness (sin) was transmitted from a unclean person to a clean person through contact. That makes sense. If you wearing clean clothes and I have just finished rolling in the mud, when I touch you, your clean clothes don’t make mine clean. Rather, my dirty clothes make you dirty. The Bible pictures sin working in the same way. In biblical times people avoided touching someone who was unclean lest they themselves become unclean. A leper, someone with skin disease, was considered unclean, and therefore by touching them you would become unclean as well, and, in addition, perhaps diseased at the same time. With Jesus it was different. Jesus, several times during his ministry, touched lepers and instead of their leprosy affecting him, his touch healed them. They became clean because of his touch. Or, as another example, Jesus ate with “sinners,” but he didn’t become unclean and a sinner because he spent time at their table eating their “unclean” food. Their sin did not affect him as it might us. With all people except for Jesus those who are dirty makes others dirty. With Jesus it is the other way around.
This, as I see it, makes it unnecessary for anyone to insist that Mary’s womb needed to be free of sin. It didn’t matter that Mary was tainted by sin because Jesus would not be affected by that sin. It would not cling to him. In today’s terms, we might call him the Teflon Baby: sin didn’t stick to him like it does to us.
When Jesus was born into this world, he was not like us. We are conceived and born into sin, the Bible teaches, and, as a result, we are sinners. Jesus was different. He was not affected or tainted by the sinful world around him even when he came to live among us. Instead of becoming a sinner himself, Jesus, through his death on the cross, transferred his sinlessness to us. We become sinless because of Jesus.
Of course, we need to nuance that. Christians aren’t sinless, far from it. I still sin, and, I am sure, so do you. But from God’s eyes, when we believe in Jesus, our sins are washed away and God sees us as if we had never been even tainted by sin. Jesus’s sinlessness, his uncleanness, rubs off on us.
I understand why the Roman Catholic Church holds to the teaching of the Immaculate Conception. They want to ensure that Jesus was not tainted in any way by sin so that he could be a perfect sacrifice acceptable to God. That is an honourable motivation, but it fails to consider the power of Jesus, who was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is sinless and remained sinless in a sinful world because of who he is, not because of who Mary was.
In this Christmas season, then, let’s marvel that Jesus was born into a sinful world but instead of being tainted by that sin, through his life and death made that which was sinful into something that was pure and clean.
Pastor Gary
