Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Invisible and visible church

A distinction (Augustinian, sharpened at the Reformation) between the whole company of the truly regenerate, known infallibly only to God (invisible), and the church as an institution that can be seen and joined, which is a 'mixed body' of believers and hypocrites (visible).

From Augustine's contrast of the true members of Christ's body with the merely nominal; the terms 'invisible/visible' are Reformation.

Matthew 13:24–30, 47–50 (wheat and weeds; the net); 2 Timothy 2:19 ('the Lord knows those who are his'); 1 John 2:19; Romans 9:6 ('not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel').

The Reformers used the distinction to affirm true believers and true churches across a divided and partly corrupt visible Christendom, without endorsing schism. Catholic and Orthodox theology prefer to speak of one Church with visible and mystical dimensions rather than two churches.

The invisible church is never an excuse to neglect the visible one — the New Testament knows no unattached Christian; the visible church is the ordinary, appointed context of the Christian life.

Whether the distinction rightly safeguards the elect or wrongly devalues the visible institution; Catholic and Orthodox reservations about 'two churches' language.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.