At a glance:
Since God is the creator and Mary is one of His creations she cannot be His mother, this is not lost on the Roman Catholic Church, and so we find technicalities which attempt to teach us that she is referred to as such in order to glorify God, but does it? Or does in exalt her beyond what is proper?
New American Bible:
Luke 1:41-43, “Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:
Luke 1:41-43, “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb! And how have I deserved that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
The New Testament Rendered from the Original Greek with Explanatory Notes:
Luke 1:41-43, “Elizabeth inspired by the Holy Spirit, exclaimed in a ringing voice: ‘Blessed are you beyond all women! And blessed is the fruit of your womb! How privileged am I to have the mother of my Lord come to visit me!”
The Catholic Catechism #495 states:
Called in the Gospels ‘the mother of Jesus,’ Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as ‘the mother of my Lord.’”
Admitting that the Scripture refers to Mary in this manner does not keep the Roman church from changing the title to Mother of God.
“Early titles used for Mary were Theotokos (God-bearer), Dei Genitrix (Mother of God) and Deipara (God-bearing).1
The dogmatic logic is that Jesus is God and Mary is His mother, therefore, she is the Mother of God. The Bible never refers to Mary as Mother of God. God is eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, God had no beginning and will have no end. If God is eternal and Mary is His mother then she must be more eternal than He. Mary is the mother of Jesus and Jesus is God, however, Mary is neither the mother of the Holy Spirit nor the mother of the Father. The Bible refers to Mary as the mother of our Lord.
In this case the word Lord is the Greek word kurios κύριος from kuros (supremacy).2
It is used 748 times in the Bible; Lord 667, lord 54, master 11, sir 6, Sir 6, misc. 4. It is not the word LORD הוהי, which is used in place of YHWH, the Tetragrammaton (Yahweh, Jehovah, HaShem, etc.). When Moses asked God in the burning bush what His name was, God’s answer was the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. Therefore, in Luke 1:43 we are told that Jesus is Lord: Master or Ruler, not that He is LORD: YHWH. We are told that He is LORD elsewhere in Scripture. Jesus as deity had no beginning, yet, Jesus is the God-Man, and so as a man He had a beginning within chronological time.
This point is not lost on the Vatican, “A general council of bishops at Ephesus in 431 A.D. declared, ‘If anyone does not confess that God is truly Emmanuel, and that on this account the holy virgin is the mother of God (for according to the flesh she gave birth to the Word of God become flesh by birth), let him be anathema (condemned).’ The council carefully stated that Mary is the mother of God ‘according to the flesh’ to clarify that Mary is not the source of Jesus’ divinity.”3
Thus, while affirming that Mary is not the source of Jesus’ divinity we are still to be condemned if we do not accept the title Mother of God. This statement is made because it is claimed that affirming Mary as the Mother of God affirms Christ’s divinity. Catholic apologist Karl Keating states, “‘the honour of Mary is the safeguard, the outpost of the adoration of her son. To acknowledge the Theotokos [‘God bearer’] is to believe in God the Son made man.’”4
In reality this is nonsensical because calling Mary the Mother of God does not proved that Jesus is divine. And in fact, it can be confusing, misleading or even dangerous to give Mary this title without providing immediate and clear explanation for doing so. This is because in our day that Mary is the Mother of God is used to exalt her and not as tool that is employed to show that Jesus is God.
The following Bibles also read “Mother of my Lord” for Luke 1:43:
The Living Bible-Paraphrased, The Holy Bible an American Translation, The Living Bible, Authorized King James Version, New King James Version, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, The Answer-New Century Version, The Revised Berkeley Version in Modern English, New International Version, Holy Bible Contemporary English Version, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, The Book, Complete Jewish Bible, The New Testament in Modern English, New American Standard Bible-New Testament, New Testament from Aramaic-According to the Eastern Text, New Living Translation, Noah Webster Version, Robert Young’s Literal Translation, J.N. Darby Translation, The Message, American Standard Version, Hebrew Names Version.
No Bibles yet consulted have been found to state “Mother of God.”