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Let me give you both a Scripture lesson.
Mary is the fulfillment of the OT Type that was the Ark of the Covenant.
Whereas the Ark carried symbols of God within it, Mary actually carried God witin her womb. This is why she was proclaimed Theotokos (God Bearer) at the 1st Council of Ephesus in 431.
Don't believe the Ark was an OT type of Mary? Let's examine the facts:
a. The Word was written by God on Tablets of Stone (Ex. 25:10) placed inside the Ark (Deut. 10:1)
b. The Word of God became Flesh (John 1) conceived inside Mary (Luke 2:38) Mary carried the Word of God.
a. [The New Covenant] will not be like the covenant that... they broke though I was their husband (Jer. 31:31)
b. The Holy Spirit (God) is Mary's spouse (Luke 1:35)
a. "Who am I that the Ark of my Lord should come to me?" (2 Sam. 6:9)
b. "Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43)
a. When the Ark carrying the Word of God returned “David was leaping and dancing before the Lord” (2 Sam. 6:14)
b. When Mary came into Elizabeth's presence carrying the word of God, the baby “leaped for joy” in Elizabeth's womb (Luke 2:38)
a. The Ark carrying the Word of God is brought to the house of Obed-Edom for 3 months, where it was a blessing. (2 Sam. 6:11)
b. Mary (the new Ark) carrying the Word of God goes to Elizabeth's house for 3 months, where she is a blessing (Luke 1:56)
a. The Ark is captured (1 Sam 4:11) and brought to a foreign land and later returns (1 Sam 6:13)
b. Mary (the new Ark) is exiled to a foreign land (Egypt) and later returns (Matt. 2:14)
Now - here is a general Scriptural rule about types and fulfillmets:
NT Fulfillments are ALWAYS more perfect and glorious than their OT Types. ALWAYS - without exception - and this case is NO diffrent.
If the Ark, which was a type was pure and un defiled, Mary, the fulfillment would have to be that much MORE pure and undefiled.
There ends the lesson.
Just a few additions to CatholicAuthority's excellent summary on the New Ark of the Covenant - Mary.
1) Luke 1:48
"for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed" This prophecy stands as witness to the Catholic and Eastern churches acknowledgment of Mary and the lack of it from bible-only-believing Christians.
2) The Greek word Luke uses to describe Elizabeth’s loud cry of joy (anaphoneo) isn’t used anywhere else in the New Testament. And it’s found in only five places in the Greek Old Testament - every time used to describe “exultation” before the Ark (see
1 Chronicles 15:28;
16:4-5;
2 Chronicles 5:13).
3) Revelation 11:19 states
"Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail."
As Hahn says (
Lesson - Lesson Three: The Ark of the New Covenant | St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology.),
"This is a strange string of images, almost overwhelming - like much of the book of Revelation. But certainly the statement that the Ark of the Covenant was visible must have caught the attention of the first people who heard the vision. If the Ark had been seen, then the time Jeremiah spoke of must have come: the time when “God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy,” the time when “the glory of the Lord will be seen in the cloud, just as it appeared in the time of Moses” (see
2 Maccabees 7-8)"
So people hearing of John's vision of the Ark would have been excited to know more but then oddly that is all there seems to be, as the following verse (Revelation Chapter 12:1) goes straight into a description of "a women clothed in the sun".
Now it is a well known fact that chapter divisions were added to the modern bibles as was done between Revelation Chapter 11 and 12. And this means that John had no such division between the Ark of the Covenant section of Chapter 11 and the woman clothed in sun section of Chapter 12:1-6.
"A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. [SUP]2 [/SUP]She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. [SUP]3 [/SUP]Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. [SUP]4 [/SUP]His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. [SUP]5 [/SUP]And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule[SUP][
a][/SUP] all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; [SUP]6 [/SUP]and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days."
Hahn summarizes:
"And who is this woman?
“She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth ” (see
Revelation 12:2).
“She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne” (see
Revelation 12:5).
The one destined to rule the nations with an iron rod (a shepherd’s rod) is the Lord’s Anointed, the Messiah or Christ (see
Psalm 2). The “woman clothed with the sun,” whom John sees when he looks at the Ark of the Covenant, is the Mother of the Christ."
