Most Protestant Christians believe in the visible and invisible church. But it does not mean that there are two churches. It simply means there are two aspects, or ways of looking at, the one Christian church.
Now this is not a church building. The visible church refers to all members of a local church. The invisible church is visible only to God and consists of genuine Christians, the elect.
The visible church is the only aspect visible to human beings. Although it is visible to humanity, it is also visible to God, who sees everything. But the invisible church consists of genuine believers. Only God can see the invisible Church; God sees both, and people can see only the visible church.
Actually, the visible church includes both believers and non-believers. But the invisible church contains only believers, the elect. We can take from this that not all the professing Christians we meet in church are real believers or members of the invisible church. The non-believers are hypocrites, and though they may receive some benefit due to the insights within the church, they will not achieve salvation like the elect.
The Apostle John talks about some of these hypocrites when he writes, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19, 20).
Reformed theology teaches that these two aspects of the Christian church actually exist. The Westminster Confession of Faith, in chapter 25, which most Reformed churches use, defines the church as follows.
- The…universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
- The visible church, which is also…universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.
Simply said, the visible church consists of those who profess to be Christians and are members of a local church. But some of these people who professed to be Christians are hypocrites. They claim to be Christians, but they aren’t. The members of the church, and for that matter, the public, do not know who is truly a Christian. They only know that they profess to be and are members of a local church.
Jesus Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, spoke of these non–Christians who, though they profess to be Christians and work in the church, are not, and they will not go to heaven. Jesus said:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’ (Matt. 7:21-23).
The invisible church, however, is something very different. The genuine members of the invisible church are known only to God (2 Tim. 2:19). The membership cannot be determined by humankind through normal empirical means, such as sight or voice, etc. Only God can see them.
Humans cannot determine who belongs to the invisible church. They cannot know who is truly a Christian, for several reasons. One is that they cannot see the human heart. Humans cannot know if a person is a Christian. Secondly, becoming a Christian is a spiritual event, and human beings cannot see them; only God can. Another reason is that human beings cannot know who the elect are. Their selection was made by God the Father in eternity past and can only be known by a divine being, not a creature.
The visible and invisible aspects of the church are common sense because humanity can only determine what is visible, not what makes up the invisible.
Some Christians don’t like the visible and invisible aspects of the church. They try to say that those who believe in the visible and invisible aspects are artificially dividing the body of Christ, but they are not. They are simply saying that they cannot tell who is a genuine Christian. They don’t have the ability. The people who will see the new heaven and earth and will be saved are those who are true Christians. And in the vernacular of the Reformed theology, only the invisible aspect of the church will be saved by Jesus Christ on the last day.
