Perpetual Virginity of Mary (PVM) is arguably the single most important Dogma in all of Roman Catholicism (& shared with Eastern Orthodoxy). It is certainly among the RC’s chief articles of faith. Much of their theology & even more of their energy flows from or to this belief. /1

It is the rare RC dogma that is even adopted by some Lutherans, Anglicans, & others. So what is PVM? What does Scripture say about it? What are its origins & implications?

First, it is necessary to eliminate what it is not. PVM is *not* the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. /2

The virgin birth can still be completely true even if PVM is completely false.

Also, PVM is *not* about whether or not Mary ever had sex. And this is where most Lutherans & others piously fall into a tarpit created by others. /3

PVM is predicated on redefining “virgin.” Mary defined her own virginity in Luke 1:34 when she replied to the angel , “how will this be since I know not a man?” Mary understood that babies come from sex. This is how any normal, truthful person speaks of virginity. /4

PVM does not use this definition. PVM redefines virginity by the presence of Mary’s intact hymen. According to PVM, Mary was a virgin "before, during & after the birth of Christ.” /5

This means that while Jesus gestated within Mary’s womb like a normal man, at the time for His “birth” He was not actually born as a man. Rather Jesus was teleported from Mary’s womb, presumably to someplace safe within the room, where Mary then swaddled Him. /6

How did teleportation come into the picture, the befuddled Christian may ponder. The answer is found in a gnostic book dating from the mid-second century named the Protoevangelium of James. /7

This work was condemned by Jerome for “falseness of the apocryphal ravings.” Aquinas & Pope Innocent I also condemned it as containing lies as of the early 400s. /8

Other distinctive claims about Mary also appear for the 1st time in this book of lies: Mary is the main character. She is extraordinarily pure & remains a lifelong virgin. She was given to the Jewish equivalent of Vestal Virgins at age three. She was Joseph's ward, not wife. /9

It is fascinating that a book universally condemned by Christians 1,600 years ago is today the fountain & source of the entire Mary backstory we are assured is “infallible church tradition.” /10

Let’s leave gnostic heretics behind & get back to how God spoke of these things.

Isaiah prophesies in 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” /11

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/veyoledet_3205.htm

The word bear here means give birth, bring forth, beget. It is explicitly about the last moments of pregnancy, not some general term for “carry to term.” The one other time this exact variation of the root word for bear appears in Hebrew, it is translated as “in labor.” /12

Isaiah prophesies a second time in 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…” Every instance of this word refers to the birth of a man as every man has been born since Cain. /13

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/yullad_3205.htm

Matthew 1:24-25 tells us, “[Joseph] took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son.”

"Knew her not until" is the same as saying "I haven't gone to the store yet." It only precludes the possibility of past–not future–action. /14

Luke 2:6-7 records, “And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son…”

This passage is as close as you can get to saying “Mary went into labor” without getting clinical. /15

Jesus speaks of childbirth in John 16:21: “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” /16

So we have God prophesying that the Christ would be born as a man. We have God saying that Christ was born as a man. We have Christ Himself describing how every man is born. /17

And most of us regularly confess the words of the Apostle’s Creed together with Christians stretching back 1,600 years: “born of the Virgin Mary.”

Unless you're crossing your fingers during the Creed and whispering "teleported out of the Virgin Mary," you deny PVM. /18

To subscribe to PVM is to deny the Incarnation. There is simply no way around this. All the reasons why it might have been desirable for Mary to be spared the curse she was under according to Gen 3:16 are moot in the face of Scripture’s clear Words. /19

The fact of Jesus’ birth as a man is not the only nail in the coffin of PVM. What was Mary’s relationship to Joseph? PVM advocates claim that although they were legally “man & wife,” Mary was Joseph’s platonic ward in a secret Jewish nun society. What does Scripture say? /20

“When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” /21

“When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son.” /22

“Before they came together.” “Knew her not until.” Anyone who is honest about how language works must admit that these are not ambiguous. And the first one is an explicit repudiation of the lie that Mary belonged to some secret virginal order. /23

Scripture plainly teaches that their betrothal was chaste according to the law, and Joseph & Mary waited to consummate their marriage until after Jesus’ birth. There is no other reading that doesn’t twist these plain words. /24

The rest of Scripture also plainly speaks of Joseph & Mary as man & wife. You are not married in a church or courthouse. Marriage is defined by God in Gen 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father & his mother & hold fast to his wife, & they shall become one flesh.” /25

You are married in your marriage bed, and not a moment before. This is precisely why until recently, immediately after the public ceremony, the couple was whisked to the nearest bedroom–both to bring the marriage to completion, and to eliminate any public doubt of the fact. /26

There is simply & irrefutably no “man & wife” apart from normal biological sexual intercourse. This isn’t a theory or interpretation. This isn’t even “church teaching.” This is the black letter Word of God from Creation itself. A virgin Mary was no one's wife, by definition. /27

What happens when a man & wife become one flesh? They obey God’s command repeated both at Creation and after the Flood: “be fruitful & multiply.” So did Joseph & Mary’s marriage yield the natural fruit of their physical union? The fact is well attested throughout Scripture. /28

“Those were cousins, or step-brothers from Joseph’s previous marriage.” Yet the Greek word for cousin which is used elsewhere is not used here. And why were Joseph’s sons from this made up previous marriage not present in the flight to & from Egypt, but ever-present later? /29

So just to recap, in order to confess the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, you must deny that:

Virgin really means virgin.
Born really means born.
Husband really means husband.
Wife really means wife.
Brother really means brother.
Sister really means sister. /30

This is not how Lutherans treat Scripture. This is not how any Christian should approach the Word of God.

PVM is a lie born of a desire to improve on what God did for us in the Incarnation. Pious or not, such intentions violate the 1st & 2nd commandments, & must be rebuked. /31