Mary’s Savior

DEFENSE

God can save a person in multiple ways, and Mary was saved by God in more than one sense.

Salvation from the eternal consequences of sin only comes into focus with the ministry of Jesus. Prior to this, the Bible is overwhelmingly concerned with salvation from temporal calamities (war, disease, famine, death, and so on). We may refer to this as temporal salvation.

This seems to be what Mary has in mind. She says she rejoices in God her Savior, “for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden—for behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me.” God has thus saved her from a low estate and given her an exalted one to be remembered and honored forever.

This is reinforced as Mary then lists multiple kinds of temporal salvation (“He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel” Luke 1:51–54). It is also suggested by the parallel canticle in which Zechariah proclaims the praise of God as temporal Savior (Luke 1:68–75).

There is also a sense in which God saves Mary from sin: He saved her from ever contracting it. Theologians sometimes compare the way God rescued Mary from sin to stopping a person from falling into a pit as opposed to pulling him out of a pit. Both can be described as saving a person from a pit, but which would you prefer?

Being saved from ever committing sin is a more excellent form of salvation than rescuing a person from sin after he has fallen into it. Thus Mary was redeemed, in view of what Christ would do on the cross, in a way that prevented her from falling into sin, and so the Catechism refers to her as “the most excellent fruit of redemption” (CCC 508).

TIP

See Jimmy Akin, The Drama of Salvation, for more on temporal salvation.