The Holy Catholic Church

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The Apostles' Creed

Theology

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This is, for some people, the most confusing statement in the Apostles' Creed . Why is it that Protestants can be happy to state that they believe in the Catholic Church? This was certainly a problem for me as a young man and I have met many people who have had the same problem. I once asked an elderly minister about the phrase and he became quite cross and declared that this was the reason he disliked all creeds. When I first started this project, the only negative e-mail I received was quite condemning about this clause of the Creed.

It was only as I began to read Church history and to talk to people from all types of Churches that I realised that the problem was in the common understanding of Catholic as meaning Roman Catholic. Catholic, however, is a word that was applied to the Church long before there was any controversy about its centre being in Rome and long before the practices and doctrines that Protestants and Roman Catholics disagree about became fixed. Catholic simply means universal. This clause of the Creed refers, not to any one part of the Church but to the whole Christian Church throughout the world.

The subject of the Church is an enormous one which I can only introduce in this article. So I have decided, by way of the introduction, to look at the credal statement which is really three statements.

1. I believe in the Church
2. I believe the Church is Holy
3. I believe the Church is Catholic

I Believe in the Church

In the Greek of the New Testament times the word which we translate as Church was ekklhsia (ecclesia) which means, literally, "called out". The fulness of the meaning, however, is greater than that because in general use in Greek speaking countries it actually had the meaning of "convocation" which is "called together". The two apparently contradictory interpretations of the word work together to give us an accurate picture of what the Church is intended to be. It is a people called out from the world and called together to form a great company, a new and holy nation, the Church of Jesus Christ.
The sense in which ekklhsia has the meaning of "called out" carries with it the additional idea of being redeemed. When the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, or when Israel was exiled in Babylon, God "called them out" from bondage and exile and returned them to the promised land.

Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. ( Isa. 51:11 AV )

The Church can be seen in two senses.

1. The whole body of God's Redeemed people from the time of Pentecost onwards until Jesus shall come again.
2. The local expression of that body. The local company of God's Redeemed people alive now in a given location.

It is vitally important to remember at all times that whether we are speaking of the Universal or Catholic body of the Church or whether we are speaking of the local company of God's people gathered together it is Christ's Church, not your Church or my Church but his.
 

The Church is Holy

The whole concept of holiness is one which deserves a series of articles in itself. For this article we must confine ourselves to a brief description of what we mean when we say that the Church is holy.
Holiness, in the biblical sense, is being set apart. In this sense the word is very akin to that of ekklhsia. We are, in a sense, called out to be set apart. We are set apart as a Church because we have special task to do which must be done from "outside" of the world's situation and standards.

Also within the meaning of "set apart" is the concept of being different. The Church is called to be different. It is to be different in the way it is run. We make a mistake when we try to organise the Church in the same way as we organise business or even our homes. Business is there to make a profit, the Church exists to serve Christ and, in doing so, to serve the people to whom Christ has sent it. Our modern homes tend to be exclusive places - places of safety to retire from the world to our cosy family circle. The Church is intended to be inclusive - a place from which we sally forth into the world in the task of extending the Christian family.

Another way of looking at "set apart" is that of cleanness or purity. The problem with that concept is that we so often see it as a negative thing. I remember someone once saying to me "blessed are the pure for they shall inhibit the earth". But that is a terrible misunderstanding of the concept of purity. It is not, as some would suggest, a matter of giving things up and becoming po-faced but a taking on of a marvelous gift from God which brings about the most positive, proactive personality.

Unfortunately, the Church has never reached perfection in any of these concepts of purity for, as Calvin said, "it always labours under infirmities, nor is it ever wholly purged of the vestiges of vice, until it completely adheres to Christ its Head by whom it is sanctified."
 

The Church is Catholic

Once again we are dealing with a word which has its roots in Greek. The word kaqolikoV (katholikos) means general or universal. It is intended to convey that the Church is one - however scattered across the face of the earth it may be. The term became important because there were "rival" churches springing up. We are not, here, talking of Roman Catholic against Protestant but about churches which denied either the divinity or the humanity of Christ, groups who declared that the god of the Old Testament was an evil god from whom Jesus had come to save us, groups which insisted upon people becoming Jews before they could become Christians and having to obey all the Jewish laws. These were alternative churches in the way that Spiritualism, Christian Science and New Age are alternative churches today.

That, however, is the negative side of the word Catholic. It has also the positive element which says that this Church is not a Roman Church, not an English, American or Genevan Church, it is a Church which removes barriers of nationality, race, class or status for "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." ( Col. 3:11 ) This is what is really meant by Catholic. There is a sense in which to speak of Roman Catholic or Anglo-Catholic is a contradiction in terms.

So we can happily say, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church", for that is what Jesus called the Church to be.