Are the nations expected to come to God’s people or are God’s people to go to the nations? Mission scholars have long debated this question, particularly regarding the Old Testament (OT).
Some claim that the OT conception of mission is primarily centripetal—that is, that God’s people draw the nations in toward Jerusalem rather than going out to the nations. For example, Christopher J. H. Wright maintains, “When the centrifugal dynamic of the early Christian missionary movement finally got under way, it was indeed something remarkably new in practice if not in concept.… It seems to me that there is no clear mandate in God’s revelation to Israel over the centuries for them to undertake ‘missions,’ in our sense of the word, to the nations.” For Wright, Israel’s mission was to be the kind of people that would attract the surrounding nations to the Lord.
Others contend that mission in the OT is centrifugal in its movement—that is, God’s people are to carry the truth and message of the Lord to the nations around them, rather than waiting for those nations to come to them. One proponent of this view is Walter Kaiser, who demonstrates that the “servant of the Lord” in Isaiah designated not just the future Messiah, but also the nation of Israel. He contends, “Once it is admitted that Israel also functioned and was designated as the ‘servant of the Lord,’ it is difficult to limit her involvement in the spread of the gospel simply to a passive role of centripetally calling the nations of the world to herself. She must bring the religious teaching, usually translated ‘bring justice,’ to the nations.” For Kaiser, Israel’s mission to was not just to be the people of God, but also to go to the nations, extending the knowledge and instruction of the Lord among them.
Considering the biblical evidence in support of both positions, it seems prudent to affirm that biblical mission is both centripetal and centrifugal.
In fact, Isaiah 2 provides the grounds for such a both/and conclusion.
In the midst of his indictment of God’s people, Isaiah provides a glimpse of hope for the future, in which the nations around them turn and worship the Lord. In Isaiah 2:2–3, he states,
It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
And all the nations shall flow to it,
And many people shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
And that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Isaiah 2:2–3
Notice here that mission is both centripetal and centrifugal in orientation. These verses picture the nations streaming unto Israel to join in worshiping their God. The nations “flow to” Israel, saying to themselves, “let us go … to the house of the God of Jacob.” Further, verse three gives the reason for their movement toward God’s people: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” In other words, the nations stream toward God’s people in repentance and worship of the Lord (centripetal movement) precisely because the message of the Lord has gone out from God’s people (centrifugal movement).
According to Isaiah, as the gospel proceeds forth from God’s people, the Gentile nations of the world will be drawn in to God’s people. Thus, we see here both centripetal and centrifugal movement intricately tied together as God works through his people to redeem the nations.
The answer then to the centripetal–vs–centrifugal question regarding OT mission (in particular) and biblical mission (in general) is both/and rather than either/or. God’s people go to the nations with the gospel while at the same time calling them to come and join their ranks. It is through such centripetal and centrifugal movement that God’s mission will be be fulfilled.
For the church today, this means we must be active both in taking the gospel message to the lost and in embodying the kind of gospel-oriented lifestyle that attracts the lost toward the church. Ultimately, apart from the outward movement of God’s redeeming message “to the ends of the earth,” there will be little impetus for the nations of the earth to move toward the Lord and his people.
