Catholicity

Scripture treats the worship of Yahweh and the good news of Christ as universally addressed: from Solomon's prayer for the foreigner through the prophetic vision of nations streaming to Zion, through Paul's "no distinction between Jew and Greek," to the Epistle to Diognetus describing Christians as a people drawn from every land. Catholicity, in the older sense, names this scope — the gospel addressed to all peoples, with partiality among them rebuked by the God who has sent it.

Solomon's Prayer for the Foreigner

The dedication of the temple already anticipates worshipers from outside Israel. Solomon prays "concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he will come out of a far country for your name's sake" (1Ki 8:41), asking that Yahweh "do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as [do] your people Israel" (1Ki 8:43). The temple is built so that its name is known beyond Israel.

Nations Streaming to Zion

The prophets see the same horizon. "It will come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of Yahweh's house will be established on the top of the mountains, and will be exalted above the hills; and all nations will flow to it" (Is 2:2). The peoples themselves speak the summons: "Come⁺, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem" (Is 2:3). Micah repeats the vision almost verbatim (Mi 4:1-2), adding that Yahweh "will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning strong nations far off" (Mi 4:3).

Isaiah 60 sets the same gathering in lavish imagery. "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of Yahweh has risen on you ... And nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising" (Is 60:1, 3). The wealth of the nations comes in (Is 60:5); foreigners build the walls (Is 60:10); the gates are open continually so that "men may bring to you the wealth of the nations" (Is 60:11). The chosen Slave of Isaiah 42 "will bring forth justice to the Gentiles" (Is 42:1) and "the isles will wait for his instructions" (Is 42:4). Yahweh declares to the Slave of Isaiah 49: "It is too light a thing that you should be my slave to raise up the tribes of Jacob ... I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth" (Is 49:6). The summons goes out at last to everyone: "Turn to my [Speech], and be⁺ saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other" (Is 45:22).

From the Rising of the Sun

Malachi presses the geography even further. "For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same my name [will be] great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense [will be] offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name [will be] great among the Gentiles, says Yahweh of hosts" (Mal 1:11). The Psalter echoes the picture: "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Yahweh; And all the kindreds of the nations will worship before you" (Ps 22:27); "All nations whom you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; And they will glorify your name" (Ps 86:9); "Declare his glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples" (Ps 96:3). Of the messianic king it is sung, "All nations will call him happy" (Ps 72:17).

Sirach joins the same chorus: "His wisdom will the Gentiles declare, And his praise will the congregation tell forth" (Sir 39:10).

Light to Every Man

The universality is rooted in creation itself. The eternal Speech, John says, was "the true light, which lights every man, coming into the world" (Jn 1:9). Paul makes the same point: "the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made" (Ro 1:20), and the Gentiles "show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness with them" (Ro 2:15). In the figure these texts use, no nation is named as outside the reach of God's witness, and none is set outside his summons.

God Has No Favoritism

This is the fixed counter-pole to every form of partiality. Of God Paul says simply, "there is no favoritism with God" (Ro 2:11). The same formula is hammered through the apostolic letters. To masters: he "is both their Master and yours⁺ ... and there is no favoritism with him" (Ep 6:9). To slaves wronged by masters: "he who does wrong will receive again for the wrong that he has done: and there is no favoritism" (Cl 3:25). To the assembly: "if you⁺ call on him as Father, who without favoritism judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your⁺ sojourning in fear" (1Pe 1:17). And of the leadership at Jerusalem Paul could say, in the same breath, "God does not accept man's person" (Ga 2:6).

James turns this into a community ethic. "My brothers, don't show favoritism in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, [the Lord] of glory" (Jas 2:1). The poor man in vile clothing and the rich man with the gold ring belong on the same footing, lest the assembly "make distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts" (Jas 2:4). "If you⁺ show favoritism, you⁺ commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors" (Jas 2:9).

No Jew nor Greek

What had been a prophetic anticipation of nations gathered to Zion becomes, in Paul, a fact within the body of Christ. "I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish" (Ro 1:14). The good news is "the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Ro 1:16). "There is no distinction between Jew and Greek: for the same [Lord] is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him" (Ro 10:12). "He also called us, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles" (Ro 9:24). The Gentiles are "fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the good news" (Ep 3:6).

In Galatians the same conviction is put as a baptismal confession: "There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor free, there can be no male and female; for you⁺ are all one in Christ Jesus" (Ga 3:28). The pillars at Jerusalem ratified it with a handshake — "James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision" (Ga 2:9).

Colossians frames the same truth from the side of the renewed humanity: "where there can't be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all things, and in all" (Cl 3:11).

One New Man

Ephesians 2 holds the longest single argument for the catholic scope of the gospel. The Gentile readers are reminded what they were apart from Christ: "once you⁺, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision" (Ep 2:11), "separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Ep 2:12). "But now in Christ Jesus you⁺ who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ" (Ep 2:13).

The wall is broken. "For he is our peace, who made both one, and in his flesh broke down the middle wall of partition, the enmity" (Ep 2:14), "having abolished the law of commandments [contained] in ordinances; that he might create in himself the two into one new man, [so] making peace" (Ep 2:15), "and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having slain the enmity in himself" (Ep 2:16). "And he came and preached [the good news of] peace to you⁺ who were far off, and peace to those who were near" (Ep 2:17). The result is a single house of access: "for through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father" (Ep 2:18). "So then you⁺ are no more strangers and sojourners, but you⁺ are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Ep 2:19).

Universal Worship

The gospel's reach is also its endpoint. "Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [those] in heaven and [those] on earth and [those] under the earth, and that every tongue should confess, The Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father" (Php 2:9-11). "As I live, says the Lord, to me every knee will bow, And every tongue will confess to God" (Ro 14:11). It is the same picture in Revelation, where "another angel flying in mid heaven" has "eternal good news to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people" (Re 14:6), and where "all the nations will come and worship before you" (Re 15:4). The seer is shown that the kingdoms of the world have become "[the kingdom] of our Lord, and of his Christ" (Re 11:15). The Lord himself foretells the means: "And the good news must first be preached to all the nations" (Mr 13:10).

The same scope is summed up in 1 Timothy: God "would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1Ti 2:4). Christ's own promise extends the fold beyond it: "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: I must also bring them, and they will hear my voice; and they will become one flock, one shepherd" (Jn 10:16). And to one comer at any door, the word stands: "I am the door; by me if any man enters in, he will live, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture" (Jn 10:9).

A People of Every Land

The Epistle to Diognetus, included in the UPDV corpus, restates the catholic shape of the church as social fact. The writer asks why the Christians "neither esteem those gods regarded by the Greeks, nor keep the superstition of the Jews" (Gr 1:1), and answers with a portrait of a people scattered through every culture: "the Christians are distinguished from the rest of men neither by country, nor by language, nor by customs" (Gr 5:1). "Dwelling in Greek and barbarian cities, as the lot fell to each, and following the customs of the land, in clothing, diet, and the remaining manner of life, they display the marvelous and admittedly strange character of their own citizenship" (Gr 5:4). "They dwell in their own countries, but as sojourners; they partake of all things as citizens, and endure all things as strangers; every foreign land is their country, and every country a foreign land" (Gr 5:5). "By the Jews they are warred against as aliens, and by the Greeks they are persecuted; and those who hate them can give no reason of their enmity" (Gr 5:17).

Of God's own way of bringing them in, the same writer says: "He sent him as calling, not pursuing; sent him as loving, not judging" (Gr 7:5). The catholic scope of the good news, in this picture, is not coercion of the nations but their summons.