...one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered. –Augsburg Confession^[1]

The invisible church or church invisible is a theological concept of an "invisible" body of the elect who are known only to God, in contrast to the "visible church"—that is, the institutional body on earth which preaches the gospel and administers the sacraments. Every member of the invisible church is saved, while the visible church contains some individuals who are saved and others who are unsaved. (Compare Matthew 7:21-24.)

This concept has been attributed to St Augustine of Hippo as part of his refutation of the Donatist sect.^[2] He was strongly influenced by the Platonist belief that true reality is invisible and that, if the visible reflects the invisible, it does so only partially and imperfectly (see Theory of Forms).^[3] Others question whether Augustine really held to some form of an "invisible true Church" concept.^[4]

The concept was insisted upon at the Protestant reformation as a way of distinguishing between the "visible" Catholic church, which according to the Reformers was largely corrupt, and those within it who are truly believers. John Calvin described the church invisible as "that which is actually in God's presence, into which no persons are received but those who are children of God by grace of adoption and true members of Christ by sanctification of the Holy Spirit... [it] includes not only the saints presently living on earth, but all the elect from the beginning of the world." (Institutes 4.1.7)

Later Pietism took this one step further with its ecclesiolae in ecclesia.

Roman Catholic theology, reacting against the concept of a purely invisible Church, emphasized the visible aspect of the Church founded by Christ, but in the twentieth century placed more stress on the interior life of the Church as a supernatural organism, identifying the Church, as in the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi^[5] of Pope Pius XII, with the Mystical Body of Christ.^[6]

This encyclical rejected two extreme views of the Church:^[7]

• (1) A rationalistic or purely sociological understanding of the Church, according to which she is merely a human organization with structures and activities, is mistaken. The visible Church and its structures do exist but the Church is more, as she is guided by the Holy Spirit:

  Although the juridical principles, on which the Church rests and is established, derive from the divine constitution given to it by Christ and contribute to the attaining of its supernatural end, nevertheless that which lifts the Society of Christians far above the whole natural order is the Spirit of our Redeemer who penetrates and fills every part of the Church.^[8]

• (2) An exclusively mystical understanding of the Church is mistaken as well, because a mystical "Christ in us" union would deify its members and mean that the acts of Christians are simultaneously the acts of Christ. The theological concept una mystica persona (one mystical person) refers not to an individual relation but to the unity of Christ with the Church and the unity of its members with him in her.^[9]

For the Eastern Orthodox Church too, making a real distinction between the heavenly and invisible Church, alone true and absolute, and the earthly Church, imperfect and relative, is a "Nestorian ecclesiology".^[10]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Augustine of Hippo
• Donatism
• Catholic
• Invisible Churches (Slavery)
• Protestant Reformation
• One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

[edit] External links

• Origin and Development of the "Universal Invisible Church" Concept</ref>
• Reformed/Roman Catholic International Dialogue, Towards a Common Understanding of the Church, 125-129

v • d • e Lutheran Church Six Chief Parts of Luther's Small Catechism The Ten Commandments · Apostle's Creed · Lord's Prayer · Sacrament of Holy Baptism · Confession · Sacrament of the Altar Chief Articles of Faith in the Augsburg Confession I. God · II. Original Sin · III. The Son of God · IV. Justification By Faith · V. The Office of Preaching · VI. Of The New Obedience · VII. Of The Church · VIII. What the Church Is · IX. Of Baptism · X. Of the Lord's Supper · XI. Of Confession · XII. Of Repentance · XIII. Of the Use of the Sacraments · XIV. Of Ecclesiastical Order · XV. Ecclesiastical Usages · XVI. Of Civil Affairs · XVII. Of Christ's Return to Judgment · XVIII. Of Free Will · XIX. Of the Cause of Sin · XX. Of Good Works · XXI. Of the Worship of the Saints Practices Divine Service · Confirmation · Common table prayer · Sign of The Cross · Matins · Vespers · Easter Vigil · Liturgical Calendar Movements Gnesio-Lutherans · Crypto-Calvinism · Philippists · Sacramentarians · Ubiquitarians · Lutheran Orthodoxy · Pietism · Laestadianism · Old Lutherans · Neo-Lutheranism · High Church Lutheranism · Evangelical Catholicism · Confessional Lutherans Lutheranism portal