What Does Matthew 12:49 Mean?

(49) **Behold my mother and my brethren.**—The words assert in its strongest form the truth which we all acknowledge, that though natural relationships involve duties which may not be neglected, spiritual relationships, the sense of brotherhood in a great cause, of devotion to the same Master, are above them, and that when the two clash (as in the case supposed in Matthew 10:37), the latter must of right prevail. The words have naturally occupied a prominent position in the controversial writings of Protestants against what has been judged by them to be the idolatrous worship of the Virgin Mother by the Church of Rome; and it is clear that they have a very direct bearing on it. They do exclude the thought that her intercession is mightier to prevail than that of any other pure and saintly soul. Though spoken with no apparent reference to the abuses of later ages, the words are a protest, all the stronger because of the absence of such reference, against the excess of reverence which has passed into a *cultus,* and the idolatry of dressed-up dolls into which that *cultus* has developed.