Gospel of John shows our Lord to be Mary's only child

[Paul Younan]

Wow. Excellent question, one I also haven't put much thought into before.......can I have some time to think about that? <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->

Absolutely, it's a fascinating topic....take your time.

My first reaction is to say that Mary needed to be a virgin otherwise one could claim that Yeshua came through a normal 2 human parent birth and thereby deny his divinity.

Isn't that the case, regardless?

Mary being a virgin, instead of mitigating the possibility of denying the "immaculate conception", actually introduces a new avenue of attack, vis-a-vis the perceived absurdity of a virgin conceiving in the first place. I believe the requirement that she be a virgin actually makes the immaculate conception harder to defend, in that God could just as well have planned His Incarnation via an older woman who had already given birth to twelve sons. It wouldn't (seemingly) have affected who Christ was, or what He accomplished - right?

Also, of course, it was a fulfillment of prophesy that He would be born of a virgin.

This is the "why" question - why? If not to deflect the charges against the immaculate conception, which came anyway in addition to the doubting of the virginity, then why must she have been a virgin according to the prophecy? It would have been just as miraculous if God were to have been incarnated in a womb used by twelve prior pregnancies, right?

But once that has been established (his birth through a virgin) I'm not sure if I understand why it is then necessary that she remain in that state forever.

I don't necessarily think it was necessary in that sense, just like it wasn't necessary in that sense that she had been a virgin prior. By "that sense", I mean of course the demonstration of the miraculous. The fact that it happened that way conveys deep meaning, a very special reference back to what Paul tried to teach us about the Second Adam. It is here that your answer to both questions lies.

The Virgin's conception teaches us that He who begot Adam without intercourse from the virgin earth, also fashioned the Second Adam without intercourse in the Virgin's womb. Whereas the First returned back into the womb of his mother, it was by means of the Second, Who did not return back into the womb of His mother, that the former who had been buried in the womb of his mother, is brought back from it.

(Mar Ephrem, "Commentary on the Diatesseron")

This is about the restoration of humanity to Paradise, Akhi (1Cor. 15:42-49.) The story of the Image of God Created, Lost and Restored.

"Today you will be with Me in paradise", Luqa 23:43.

+Shamasha