The Church's Growth Through Faith

… shows the multitude of those who will be called, how great and countless it will be. “For your sons,” he says, “whom you have lost, will say in your ears: Make room for me” (Isaiah 49:20). It is said somewhere to the spiritual Zion as well: “Enlarge the place of your tent and of your curtains; fix them firm. Do not hold back; spread out still further to the right and to the left” (Isaiah 54:2–3). We have read also in the books of Moses that around the tabernacle in the wilderness, the one made, I mean, of skins, wide and long courts were laid out, some facing the dawn and the sunrise, some to the west behind the tabernacle, and to the north and the south as well (compare Exodus 27:9–18). The figure hinted at the breadth and length that the sacred courts, that is, the churches, would have in time to come.

Yet even so, since the grace from Christ keeps on overflowing, the places everywhere are too narrow for those who have believed, so that the Church, which is the spiritual Zion, in her joy reflects and cries out within herself: “Who has begotten these for me?” (Isaiah 49:21). And I would say: faith in Christ. For through it you, who were childless and a widow, have become great in children. It has reared your peoples for you; and you who were once left alone have grown rich beyond all expectation, and have been seen with many children, you who were once bare and alone.

“Thus says the Lord: Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations, and to the islands I will raise up my signal, and they will bring your sons in their bosom, and carry your daughters on their shoulders. And kings will be your foster fathers, and princesses your nurses, on the face of the earth; and they will bow down to you and lick the dust of your feet. And you will know that I am the Lord, and you will not be ashamed or put to confusion” (Isaiah 49:22–23).

He has promised Zion that she will have many children, and fine ones, and that her children will come to such a multitude that she will need wider places than before and will be urged to enlarge her tent. Now he at once shows that the multitude of the children promised to her appears not so much from Israel as from the flock of the nations. And the thing is true, and one can see it from the events themselves. For the remnant of those from Israel has been saved, but it is small and easily counted (compare Romans 11:5); while the world under heaven has been caught in the net through faith in Christ, and the power of the apostolic and gospel preaching has brought to Him those throughout all the earth.

That this will happen, then, he makes plain by saying: “Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations” (Isaiah 49:22). “Lift up” means “raise high” and “exalt”; and the hand would suggest strength, that is, power. For when Christ was made known to the nations through the gospel preaching, He became exalted and renowned through the miracles He worked, and through the resurrection …