There is no exception to the universal rule of sin except for our Lord Jesus Christ. “In Adam the person corrupts the [human] nature; in other humans the [human] nature corrupts the person” (Aquinas). Scripture gives no warrant to the Roman Catholic dogmas of Mary’s immaculate conception and bodily assumption. The grounds given for Rome’s declaration by Pius IX in the bull Ineffabilis Deus of December 8, 1854, “that the most Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved from all stain of original sin in the first instant of her Conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race,” are quite unconvincing. Appeal is made to the strangest texts and typologies: Genesis 3:15; Psalm 45:11f.; Song of Solomon 1:8-16; 2:2; 3:6; 4:1f.; 6:9; Wisdom 1:4; Luke 1:28, 41, 48; Revelation 12; and typologies such as Noah’s ark, the dove with the olive branch, the burning bush, and so on. These stretches reveal the dearth of arguments and require no further refutation. Scripture decisively teaches, rather, that all humans, Christ alone excepted, are sinners. No exception is ever made for Mary, who, though no specific sinful words or deeds are recorded of her (not in Mark 3:21; John 2:3-4 either), still rejoices in God her Savior (Luke 1:47) and is called blessed because of her motherhood of Christ but never because she is sinless (Luke 1:28, 48). Rome does not imply that Mary was not comprehended and fallen in Adam but only that she was preserved from all stain of original sin only by a special grace of God in consideration of the merits of Christ. Accordingly, she was preserved from original sin in the very first instant of her conception. There is, however, not the slightest ground for this dogma in Scripture, as Aquinas frankly admits: “nothing is handed down in the canonical Scriptures concerning the sanctification of the Blessed Mary as to her being sanctified in the womb.” Here is the only ground: Simply, like Mary’s assumption, it is an inference from the mediatorship the Roman church gradually attributed to her. It is not fitting (conveniens) that Mary should be conceived in sin, should have committed sin, and died. She has to be sinless; therefore she is sinless, even though neither Scripture nor tradition teaches this. (Herman Bavinck, Abridged Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, 365).