I must say, growing up Catholic, I took the title “Mary, Mother of God” for granted. Never once had anyone I knew challenged that title. To me, it just seemed obvious. Jesus is God. Mary gave birth to Jesus. Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God. Plain and simple!
It would only be once I began to dive deeper into my faith, that I realized there are many Christians who do have a problem with calling Mary “Mother of God”.
The title Mother of God, or “Theotokos” in Greek, was challenged by Nestorius in the fifth century. Not only was he a Catholic, he was the Archbishop of Constantinople.
Nestorius refused to believe Mary was the Theotokos (God-bearer), preferring to call her “Christotokos” or Christ-bearer. Nestorius claimed that Jesus was two persons – a divine person and a human person, and that Mary only gave birth to the human part of Jesus because Mary could not give birth to God.
Not only is this a logical impossibility – you cannot be two persons and one person simultaneously – but Nestorius is also guilty of eliminating the real Jesus in the process. Not only was Nestorius excommunicated for this heretical teaching, but the Catholic Church responded in the Council of Ephesus in 431 by declaring,
“If anyone does not confess that God is truly Emmanuel (God with us) and that, on account, the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God, let him be anathema.”
In other words, “Any questions, Nestorius?”
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Why is it so important to call Mary Theotokos and not just Christotokos? Ultimately, it is to protect the true identity of Jesus Christ as God. Jesus Christ is a divine person with two distinct natures (divine and human), joined in a hypostatic union without being commingled or divided.
If your Mariology is wrong, your Christology will necessarily be wrong. If you deny Mary is the Mother of God, you will have to deny the divinity of Jesus to remain consistent.
If your Christology is wrong, your Mariology will necessarily be wrong too. If you do not recognise Jesus as God, you will not see Mary as the Mother of God. Pretty obvious.
This is why it is so important for Christians to call Mary the Mother of God. In doing so, we proclaim the truth behind the title, that Jesus Christ is truly God.
