Where Jesus Is, There Is the Universal Church

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. EPHESIANS 4:4–6

In his letter to the Smyrnaeans Ignatius wrote a sentence that has become a small landmark in the history of the church: “Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be; even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal Church.” The word translated “universal” is the Greek katholikos, from which our word catholic comes. This is the earliest surviving Christian writing in which the church is called catholic. The sentence therefore needs to be read carefully, both for what it says and for what it does not.

What the word meant

The Greek word meant whole, general, universal — the whole of something as opposed to a part. When Ignatius spoke of the catholic church, he did not mean a particular denomination, still less one party against another. There were no denominations. He meant the whole church, everywhere, as distinct from the local congregation gathered in any one city. Lightfoot, whose translation is the one in the Ochorus library, rendered it simply “the universal Church”, and that is the plainest way to hear it.

Later the word gained other meanings. By the fourth century, to call a church catholic was also to say that it held the true faith, as against heretical groups. Later still, after the division of Western Christianity in the sixteenth century, the word came to be used by the Roman Catholic Church as its own name, while Protestants continued to confess “the holy catholic church” in the Apostles’ Creed in the older sense. None of these later meanings should be read back into Ignatius. He was the first, so far as we know, to use the word of the church, and he used it in its simplest sense.

The local and the universal

The sentence draws a comparison. As the people of a city should gather where their bishop is, so the universal church is wherever Jesus Christ is. The local church has its centre in its bishop; the whole church has its centre in Christ. Ignatius is not saying that the bishop is the head of the universal church. He is saying that just as a congregation gathers around its pastor, the whole people of God everywhere gathers around Christ.

This means that for Ignatius the church is not first of all an organisation. It is the people gathered around Jesus. Wherever He is, there His church is.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. MATTHEW 18:20

It also means that no local church stands alone. The church in Smyrna, the church in Ephesus and the church in Antioch are all parts of one whole. Ignatius lived this truth. He wrote to churches he had never seen as though they were his own. He asked each of them to pray for the church in Syria. When peace returned to Antioch, he urged church after church to send messengers to rejoice with it. He tells the Romans that churches not even on his route had sent people to meet him from city to city. The universal church was not an idea to him. It was a web of love, prayer and hospitality that stretched across the empire.

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. 1 CORINTHIANS 12:26

One body, Jews and Gentiles

The theme of the one church runs through the letters in other ways too. To the Smyrnaeans Ignatius speaks of Christ setting up “an ensign unto all the ages through His resurrection, for His saints and faithful people, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in one body of His Church.” The cross and resurrection gather people from every nation into one body. The church is universal not only because it is spread through the world but because it draws in every kind of person.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. EPHESIANS 2:14

He uses a lovely picture for this to the Ephesians. The believers are stones prepared for the temple of God the Father, “hoisted up to the heights through the engine of Jesus Christ, which is the Cross, and using for a rope the Holy Spirit; while your faith is your windlass, and love is the way that leadeth up to God.” The whole people of God is one building, raised by one cross.

The danger of division

Because the church is one, Ignatius hated division. “Shun divisions, as the beginning of evils,” he told the Smyrnaeans. To the Philadelphians he wrote that “where there is division and anger, there God abideth not.” He saw the rival meetings of the false teachers as tearing the body of Christ. And he believed that the one church was held together by one faith: the faith in the real Christ, truly born, crucified and risen.

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:10

Reading him today

The church today is divided in ways Ignatius could never have imagined, and this makes his teaching both painful and precious. It is painful because every tradition must confess that the visible unity he longed for has been broken. It is precious because his central conviction still holds: the universal church is where Jesus Christ is. Wherever people truly confess the Christ who came in the flesh, died and rose again, and gather around Him in faith and love, there His church is found.

This should not make us careless about the divisions between Christians, as if they did not matter. Ignatius would never have said that. But it should make us humble, and it should make us generous. The Christian in another tradition who loves the same Lord, confesses the same creed and prays the same prayer is part of the same universal church. We can learn from Ignatius to pray for churches we have never seen, to rejoice with them in their peace, and to grieve with them in their trouble.

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. JOHN 17:20–21

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. When you next say “I believe in the holy catholic church” or a similar phrase, pause and think of the whole church throughout the world gathered around Christ.

2. Choose a church in another country, perhaps one under pressure, and pray for it by name each week this month.

3. Is there a local church of another tradition near you? Find a way to express friendship or to join with them in prayer.

4. Examine your own heart for a spirit of division — contempt for other Christians, or pleasure in their failings. Confess it.

5. Read Ephesians 4:1–16 and ask how you can keep “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” where you are.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, wherever You are, there is Your church, gathered from every nation into one body by Your cross.

Thank You for the whole company of Your people across the world and across the ages, and for making me part of it.

Forgive the divisions among us, and forgive my part in them; heal what we have broken, and keep us in one faith and one love.

Teach me to pray for churches I have never seen, to rejoice in their joy and grieve in their sorrow, until we are one before You. Amen.