It's All Completely Biblical: The Assumption of Mary

Pay attention to this little word "also," where it says, "Your own soul, also, shall be pierced by a sword." Does this not show that she was not the only one in this passage who was foreseen to suffer and be pierced? She was not the only one -- Christ was pierced too. Then I ask you, O Protestants, was the piercing of Christ for our sins sufficient to procure for us release from the snare of death? Manifestly so; therefore Mary, who shared in these sufferings without reservation, must also have shared without delay in their result, namely release from death. If she suffered corruption of death in her body who was also pierced in her soul with the sufferings of Christ, then manifestly those sufferings were not enough to release her from death; but if on the contrary she was preserved from the grave, or was granted the bliss of heaven with no delay when her life here was over, then she is a sign of the power of Christ's death to raise us to life, since she shared without hesitance in the life that His sufferings procured, after sharing without hesitance in the sufferings He procured it by.

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These are Biblical arguments in favor of the doctrine that Mary was taken into heaven body and soul

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Revelation 12:

1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. ...

3 Then a second sign appeared in the sky: there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet. ...

5 The woman was delivered of a boy, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne.

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Argument:

Question: What woman was delivered of the baby Messiah, King of all nations?

Answer: Mary.

Mary is the "sign" which was given to all nations, of a virgin with child, who bears the Son of God, the Son called Emmanuel, God with us, whose rule extends over all the house of Jacob, and lasts forevermore. Here in Revelation, His virgin vessel is seen above the skies! Here in the vision of the Apostolic Seer, the mother of our Lord and Savior renews an image of that Christmas night so many years ago. And why? To serve as "a sign." A sign of what? Of God's rule in the midst of adversity, which is what John's Revelation is about. What greater sign could there be than this Christ, who was born without even the comfort of a cradle, and chased by a maniac beast of a king, yet protected by God's providence? The child was protected, the mother granted safety. The beast is a second sign, a sign of corrupted manpower, which cannot thwart the Lord's designs even though it reaches its heights, with tenfold horns for seven heads, and seven might-denoting crowns.

The presence of Mary assumed into heaven is therefore seen here as an optimal sign of God's fidelity. Just as He took the mother of His only-begotten into the safety of Paradise, so He will be faithful to His promise to protect His faithful ones from this devil-ruled world. St. John wrote the Book of Revelation to encourage his hearers with that very hope; hence he has shown us a sign and a seal thereof, and the sign is Mary, the humble one who has been greatly exalted, and saved from the power of Satan, which is death.

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These are Biblical arguments in favor of the doctrine that Mary was taken into heaven body and soul

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Psalms 45:

7 Your throne, O God, shall endure for ever.

A scepter of justice is the scepter of your kingdom.

8 Your love is for justice; your hatred for evil.

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you

with the oil of gladness above other kings...

9 ...On your right stands the queen in gold of Ophir.

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Argument:

Psalms 45 is a messianic Psalm which describes the King of Israel (Jesus) as God, a lover of right and hater of evil. Hebrews 1 says that this Psalm is fulfilled in the risen Christ:

Hebrews 1:

8 But of the Son he says, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom.
9 Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness beyond thy comrades."

Compare those last two verses with the Psalm quoted above. The author of Hebrews clearly applies the words of Psalms 45 to the Son of God because only the Son sits with God on His throne. This very Psalm says that there is a Queen standing at the right hand of Jesus, arrayed in finest gold.

Now the Son is risen physically. "It pleased God to make absolute fullness reside in him," (Colossians 1:19) and in fullness of humanity, both body and spirit. Not just the one or the other, for the Son must reign as King over all things both physical and spiritual, and therefore He rules from the heavens in both His divine body and His divine soul. His Queen, which is His Mother since He has no physical bride, must also be physically present in the spiritual heavens in order to share that reign to the degree stated by the above-quoted Psalm. Psalms 45, then, speaks of both a King and a Queen: both have complete humanity, body and soul, and they share in their humanity the reign of God.

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These are Biblical arguments in favor of the doctrine that Mary was taken into heaven body and soul

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It is a statement worthy of mention that Mary has been rightly compared and contrasted with Eve in her role as the mother of the Devil's defeater. One of the fruits of this comparison is the very suitable contrast of their actions: Eve by disbelief helped bring the scourge of death to the world; Mary, then, by faith conceived the defeater of that death. Now as an instrument of the Incarnation, Mary was an instrument of death's defeat. In what sense could that be true, however, if she herself was overcome by that very death which she helped defeat? Does one achieve victory over the adversary, only for death to get the last laugh? Then death has rediscovered the sting it lost when Christ defeated it, and Christians can no longer cry, "O Death, where is thy victory?" (1 Cor. 15:55)

Mary must, in other words, have been free of death herself, if she really helped free us all from our common death by faith. If she who was the instrument for Christ's immortal body experienced herself the lasting effects of our mortality, then what hope have we, who could never be as much an instrument of immortality as she was who bore the Undying One? Then let us not say she was held by death; let us admit that if she did not die, she has been assumed, and if she did die, she was was both raised up and glorified in Her Son. This is the unfailing faith of the Church; this is the testimony taught by the Scriptures. Amen.

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These are Biblical arguments in favor of the doctrine that Mary was taken into heaven body and soul

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2 Samuel 7:

2 the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent."

5 [So God said,] "Go and tell my servant David, `Thus says the LORD: Would you build me a house to dwell in?' " ...

11 [Rather] the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. ...

1 Kings 8:6 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim.

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Argument:

Doesn't it seem odd, at first swipe, that the very same God who ordained a place for the Ark in His Temple first stated that the Temple should not be built for the Ark, as David had wanted it? God was clear that the Temple was not built for the Ark, even though the Ark would be placed there anyway, and that with great rejoicing. So why did He take the time to point out that the reason for building the Temple did not rest in the Ark, if David's idea would be implemented anyway? Well, here's what I think was going on:

God knew that the Ark foreshadowed Mary, and the Temple, Jesus' Body. He rejected the idea that the house was built for the Ark on the principle that He doesn't cause great things (like His Son's human body, symbolized by the Temple) because of lesser things (like Mary, symbolized by the Ark), but rather the lesser thing is brought about for the honor of the greater thing, so that it might have greater glory.

Mark these words: for God said that David should not make the Temple for the sake of the Ark (2 Samuel 7:5-7); but then, He says, "but I will make a house for you." (2 Samuel 7:11) In this He prophesied in a figure that He would prepare a body for our Lord without the aid of a man's seed, for David was not the man who built the Temple, though we might have expected him to be; but the Temple which he did not build foreshadowed the body of our Lord.

The odd thing that Protestants have to deal with is that the Ark ended up being placed in the Temple anyway. What does that mean? Well, the Temple no longer exists, for it has been fulfilled in Christ's Body; but that Temple is in heaven now, for Christ Himself is the Temple of the Sky. (Rev. 21:22) The Ark being taken into the Temple symbolizes Mary being taken into Heaven, and even though this Temple wasn't created in her honor, but in Christ's, nonetheless God places her there, just as He placed the Ark which foreshadowed her into the Old Covenant Temple, which foreshadowed Christ. He reigns now heaven, with His Body encompassing His people, and Mary is included in a most special, most complete way, body and soul. This is true because she has been placed there, and this is foreshadowed by the placing of the Ark into the Temple; even though the greater wasn't created because of the lesser, nonetheless Mary/the Ark was created for the honor of Jesus' Body/the Temple, and therefore the former most perfectly fulfills its purpose in God's sight only when it rests completely in the latter.

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These are Biblical arguments in favor of the doctrine that Mary was taken into heaven body and soul

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Canticles 2:
10 My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;
11 for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. ...
13 The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
14 O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is comely.

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Argument:
The Lord calls out to someone to arise, come away. In whom is this fulfilled? In what woman, in what highly favored daughter? Look at the evidence:

This Canticle is about a man and his fruitful wife; God has given to Mary alone the gift of bearing His Child.

The bride in the Canticle is called "a garden locked, a fountain sealed." (Canticles 4:12) Thus we see her used by God for a prophecy of the virgin birth, for these words veil her fruitfulness in poetry about her virginity. For what is more fruitful than a garden or a fountain? But this fruitful woman is sealed from men by virginity; this garden, though locked by chastity, brings forth a child. These ideas too are only true of Mary.

Then read 4:16: "Awake, O north wind," says the Lord, "and come, O south wind!" (Come, O Spirit!)
"Blow upon my garden." (Enter, Spirit, the virgin.)
"Let its fragrance be wafted abroad," let the Chaste One bear a Son.

This is the most glorious spiritual reading of Canticles 4:16, for the Incarnation is the most glorious work of that Great Divine Spirit which blows where it wills, like the wind. (John 3:8) He blew into Mary, a garden, though locked, and bore in her such fruit as we would never have otherwise tasted. But then the Lord calls to her, "Arise, my love; my fair one, come away!" (quoted above) These words too, then, find fulfillment in Mary, the Virgin escorted to heaven. Therefore her Assumption is clearly foretold, in the words of her going away to her master, her bridegroom, our God.

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These are Biblical arguments in favor of the doctrine that Mary was taken into heaven body and soul

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Mary's Assumption is logically integrated into her status both as mother to Christ and as His disciple at the Cross. That is to say, it is linked between the Incarnation and the Redemption, without which our own promised Resurrection unto life is unmerited.

Jesus was raised from the dead for several reasons, but chief among them was that He is a sign for us of our own future Resurrection, which is a promise to us by God. Moreover, that promise was embodied in His Resurrection, giving us certainty that we have not misunderstood God's intention: by Resurrection, He really means bodily raising and eternal life thereafter, since that is what Jesus' Resurrection shows us.

However, Christ is not the only seal of the promise of eternal life, which is the same as the promise of the Resurrection to life. He chose to associate His mother in this promise from the beginning to the end.

The birth and maturation of our Lord are essential parts of salvation history, because they are the means by which our Lord took on that very humanity He came to save. These events were the beginning of God's fulfillment of His age old promises of messianic hope. Mary had a part in these events. So, from the Incarnation, she was granted a share with her Son in sealing God's promise of eternal life, of resurrection, to all who believe. If she died and was not resurrected and taken to heaven, then God's promise began its fulfillment, but did not include bodily life over death even though God had chosen her as a participant in being a seal of this promise. This conclusion cannot be tolerated, since if the promise of Resurrection did not include bodily life over death even for she who had a full degree of participation in Christ's redeeming actions, then we have no chance of being resurrected when we are finally granted that fullness of redemption on the Last Day.

So Mary's freedom from death is a necessary proof of our own future freedom from death. Without her being raised already, we can know that we will never be. That is why it is important to believe that Mary has preceded our own bodily entrance into heaven on the Last Day.

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