Oldbear83 said:
FLBear5630 said:
Oldbear83 said:
Wonder how our RC friends consider Matthew 1:25?
Catholics view the word until as up to a certain point, not meaning a change afterward. For example in 2 Samuel stated Michael had no children until his death. It does not nit mean he had children after he died.
Personally, i dont think it matters. Definitely not enough to change denominations.
" he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son"
Seems plain enough in meaning.
Actually it's not.
And get rid of that Walt Disney translation of the Bible that you're using.
"Okay, so that's the famous until argument in Matthew 1:25. The idea here was that Mary and Joseph did not have relations until she had given birth to Jesus. So normally when we use the word until, even in English, it signifies a reversal of some kind. I'm not going to eat chocolate until Lent is over, which then you can apply from that, that once Lent has finished then I'm going to resume eating chocolate again. But the word until, of course, doesn't always mean that. It doesn't necessarily imply there is a cessation or a reversal of activity after that point. There are examples of this in scripture itself. So let me talk about some of those. The Greek word that is translated until in this passage is Heos. In English, if you transliterated it, it would be H-E-O-S, Heos, and here are a few examples where there is no reversal, even though the word until is used.
In 2 Samuel 6:23, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament or the Septuagint, it says, "Michal, the daughter of Saul had no child to," or heos, "the day of her death." So Michal, call the daughter of King Saul, it says she had no child to the day of her death. That does not mean after she died she started having children. We go on, when Jesus quoted Psalm 110, He said, "David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till," Greek heos once again, "'I put your enemies under your feet.'" That doesn't mean that he won't be sitting at the Lord's right hand after the enemies are put under his feet. Once again, it's talking about a continuing action, even though the word until is used.
Now, some people, I've read other Protestant authors who will say, "Well, you're picking and choosing out of the Old Testament here to say what heos means or until. Matthew doesn't use it this way. So you can't impose the Old Testament's usage onto Matthew." But actually that's not the case. Matthew does use the word heos in this way. Look at Matthew 28:20. In there, Jesus says, Jesus tells the disciples, the apostles, "Observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the close of the age," heos, the close of the age. But Jesus is going to be with the apostles even after this present age comes to an end. It's cited in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 says that. So the word heos, until, yes, it can talk about a reversal, but it can also just mean an action was done and it will still be continuing. It's just focusing on the prior elements of the action, but it doesn't imply some kind of reversal at a future time.
So 2 Samuel 6:23, Michal had no child until the day of her death; just means she'd never had children throughout her entire life. It doesn't say anything of what she did after the day of her death. So this passage in Matthew 1:25, I would ask a Protestant who brings us up, what is Matthew's point? What is he trying to get across? Is Matthew trying to tell the reader, "My point is that Mary and Joseph had sex after Jesus was born." That's not his concern. That's not Matthew's main point in Matthew Chapter One. His main point is that Jesus does not have an earthly father. Jesus' Father is God the Father. We know that because Mary and Joseph did not have sexual relations before Jesus was born. That is the main point he's trying to get across. He's not saying anything about what happened after Jesus was born. His main point is about the span of events that took place before Jesus was born.
In fact, John Calvin, the Protestant reformer John Calvin, said of Matthew 1:25 and the perpetual virginity of Mary, "No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the Evangelist as to what took place after the birth of Christ." In fact, belief in Mary's perpetual virginity was something most of the Reformers believed in: Martin Luther, John Calvin, I think Zwingli believed in this. So Mary's virginity was something that was believed in even well past the Protestant Reformation. I think a lot of times that modern Protestants are more apt to reject this doctrine. It's because we live in a time and place where people think that to go without sexual relations is almost like a kind of death, like you're being denied, like something that is necessary for life itself because we live in kind of a sex-crazed culture."
- Trent Horn, Roman Catholic Apologist.
