Topic Video: The Visible and Invisible Church

The visible church includes everyone who is regularly part of the gathered church, regardless of the condition of their hearts. There are several different ways people can be counted as part of the visible church. To learn more, watch today's Topic Video!
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The visible church includes everyone who is regularly part of the gathered church, regardless of the condition of their hearts. There are several different ways people can be counted as part of the visible church. They can be confirmed in God’s covenant, such as by baptism in the New Testament, or circumcision in the Old Testament. Or they can have or profess faith in Christ. In churches that don’t maintain official membership, or that don’t practice covenant confirming rites like baptism, they might be counted as covenant members simply because they regularly submit to the teaching of the church. Or, as Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 7:14, they can simply have a believing parent or spouse.
For example, in the Old Testament, the entire nation of Israel was part of the church, even though not everyone had saving faith. At the very least, they were all present within the nation. Beyond this, as God had instructed in Genesis 17, they had all been confirmed in God’s covenant through the circumcision of the males.
In the New Testament, we see something similar. When Paul wrote letters to various churches, he intended those letters to be read to everyone who was directly associated with those churches. And as we can see from his exhortations to Christians to test themselves to see if they really had faith, Paul fully expected that there would be unbelievers within the church.
Jesus also had the same expectation in his parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, where he said not to take the unbelievers out of the church.
The mixed character of the visible church means that we must always be on guard against unbelief and error in the church. At the same time, the holiness of the church persists even when unbelievers are involved in its ministries. So, we honor the sacraments, God’s holy ordinances. And we respect God’s holy Word, even when it is preached poorly or hypocritically, as Paul taught in Philippians 1:14-18. The holiness of the church is both a warning against looking to the church in place of God, and an assurance that God uses the church effectively despite human sin and unbelief.
With this understanding of the visible church in mind, let’s consider the idea of the invisible church.
Whereas the visible church includes everyone who is part of God’s covenant community, the invisible church is composed only of those who have been united to Christ in salvation. For this reason, it is sometimes called the “true church.”
Generally speaking, we treat most people in the visible church as if they were truly saved, giving them the benefit of the doubt. But the reality is that only God can see the heart, and as a result, only God can identify the invisible church with full certainty.
It is important to recognize that the invisible church also includes every believer who has ever lived, both before Christ’s earthly ministry and after. When Jesus returns, he will completely purify his church. He will purge all the unbelievers from it, so that the invisible church will be identical to the visible church.
The fact that there is currently an invisible church within the visible church has important implications for everyone who claims to be a Christian. And one of the greatest implications is that the church needs to hear the gospel on a regular basis. We have to continue to teach, and to preach the gospel of redemption not only to ourselves, but to others as well. We have to make sure that the unbelievers in our congregations are invited to come to Christ and to be part of the invisible church.