The passage most associated with the Immaculate Conception is Luke 1:28-30, where Gabriel addresses Mary with the title (or proper name) of full of grace or highly favored one (Greek: Kécharitôméne). Kécharitôméne is the passive perfect participle form of the verb charitoo, expressing a completed action or definitive perfection. The verb’s root is charis, Greek for grace or favor. The full literal translation of Kécharitôméne would be oh, one who is completely graced or favored. It is followed by “You have found favor [Greek: charis, grace] with God.”
In the fourth century, Jerome translated Kécharitôméne as gratia plena—full of grace—since God had blessed Mary “in Christ with every spiritual blessing,” having chosen her and us in Christ “before the foundation of the world . . . [to] be holy and blameless [Latin: immaculati]” (Eph. 1:3-4).
If God fully favored or graced Mary, she needed to be free of sin, of any alienation from God. Mary is fully graced, as she is fully a virgin. Had she been “unvirginal” in any moment of her existence, then she would not be fully a virgin. Likewise, had Mary been disfavored (i.e., in sin) at any moment, then she would not have been fully graced by God or “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).
Light is an image for grace. Being clothed with the sun indicates that Christ shared with Mary his glory, favor, and grace in God, just as he will with all Christians: “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43), when we shall be full of grace. God did this with Mary in anticipation of the redemption, of her becoming the Mother of God. This fulfilled his promise: to pour out his Spirit upon his maidservants and handmaids—upon the handmaid of the Lord.[i] The Spirit both purified and filled Mary at her conception so she could be called full of grace and most blest of women. As Gregory Nazianzen (d. 390) explains:
He was conceived by the Virgin, who had first been purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor (Sermo 38.13).
Mary was more blessed, spiritually holy, clear, pure, and spotless than Lady Wisdom from the Old Testament (Wis. 7:23-24). God sought Mary—as he does every Christian—to be Christ’s pure bride (2 Cor. 11:2-3), just as Abraham sought a pure bride for his son Isaac (Gen. 24:3,37; 28:1-2): she must not be a daughter of Canaanites—of sinners descended from Cain. No, Christ’s bride must be immaculate: spiritually holy, spotless, without blemish or wrinkle (Eph. 5:25-27), just as every Christian must be washed clean of any stain so as to form the spotless bride. So it is impossible that Mary had any sin affecting her relationship with God.
God goes to great lengths to preserve women from defilement, prefiguring how God would preserve Mary from the spiritual defilement of sin.[ii] Sinful and defiled women are antithetical to Mary. Sin is linked to shame. We contract sin at conception and experience shame as we grow. Scripture praises Susanna, in the Book of Daniel, “because nothing shameful was found in her” (13:63). In fact, she freely faced death rather “than to sin in the sight of the Lord.” (v. 23). God vanquished the tempting adversaries of Mary, more blessed than Susanna. So describing Mary as immaculate, free from all sin, best fits Scripture.
Key to understanding the Immaculate Conception is how Scripture prefigures Mary in Eve. Exploring early Christian writings, John Henry Newman (d. 1890) noticed how God created both Adam and Eve fully graced and favored, with no stain of sin or shame. This meant their human nature could reflect God’s image and likeness perfectly. The New Adam typology suggests that the New Eve would also be fully graced and immaculate. In fact, God calls all of us, “before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless [Latin: immaculati] before him” (Eph. 1:3-4). Human nature doesn’t necessitate sin: God calls all to be immaculate, free from sin and its effects. So Mary could be.
As the Word of God and source of all grace (John 1:14-17), Christ was conceived in Mary without sin. Since he is eternally God, he is also eternally holy and without sin. This radically differs from Adam, Eve, and Mary, all of whom had the capacity to sin, whereas Christ did not. Although her immaculate conception differs from her son’s, Mary is more blessed than Eve, even before the Fall! “Blessed is the man [or the woman] to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Ps. 32:2).
Justin Martyr (d. 165) compares Mary to the immaculate, undefiled virgin Eve (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 100). In Scripture, virginity affirms something beyond the physical: it represents freedom from sin. (Scripture does not say that every person who is sexually a virgin is free from sin or immaculately conceived. The Bible makes only a negative assertion: the loss of virginity is connected with sin and impurity.) Where there is sin, there is a loss of virginal love of God and a loss of the wholesome relationship with God the Father. As more blessed than Eve, Mary is more fully a virgin and free from sin; she is fully graced with a favorable relationship with her heavenly Father (Luke 1:28-30).
Ill favor is sin. For St. John, sin and virginity are mutually exclusive:
Then I looked, and lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who . . . have not defiled themselves with women, for they are chaste . . . and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are spotless (Rev. 14:1-5).
Adam and Eve lose this immaculate grace and shamelessness when they freely disobey God.[iii] God curses Eve’s sin: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). Eve, and all women stained with original sin, are cursed with birthing pain and menstrual and birthing bloods, associating these with sin and a need for purification.
As God puts enmity between the devil and the Messiah’s mother (Gen. 3:15), so Satan does not break through God’s protection of Mary. Pope John Paul II explains:
The absolute hostility put between the woman and the devil thus demands in Mary the Immaculate Conception, that is, a total absence of sin, from the very beginning of her life. The son of Mary won the definitive victory over Satan and enabled his mother to receive its benefits in advance by preserving her from sin. As a result, the son granted her the power to resist the devil, thus achieving in the mystery of the Immaculate Conception the most notable effect of his redeeming work . . . the beginning of a new order which is the result of friendship with God and which, as a consequence, entails a profound enmity between the serpent and men.
Mary is blessed because of her faith (Luke 1:41-45), and “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). So fullness of faith means fullness of sinlessness and grace. Christ’s mother is “a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens” (Song of Sol. 2:2), oh, blessed among women!
[i] Clothed with sun (Rev. 12:1); sharing Christ’s glory (Matt. 17:2); pour out Spirit (Joel 2:29; Acts 2:14-21); handmaid of the Lord (Luke 1:38,48).
[ii] Preserve from defilement (Gen. 12:10-20, 20:1-18, 26:7-11).
[iii] No shame (Gen. 2:25); reflect God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27, 5:1-2); experiencing shame (Gen. 3:7-12).