In our last study we considered the problem of a number of Christian and professed Christian groups who claim that they alone have the truth and that they represent, either by continuity, reconstitution from a pattern, or modern day revelation, the one true church of Jesus Christ, membership in which is necessary or at least strongly advised to be saved. We saw that the fallacy of this thinking has its root in a misconception of what the church is. These groups seek to identify the true church with a visible phenomenon, a physical body of people, which Jesus warned the Pharisees against doing in Luke 17:20.

But does the church not exist in the world in some way as a visible entity? Certainly it does. The word church comes from the Greek word meaning called out. The visible church in any community represents those who have been called by God out of the world and the darkness of sin into the light of Christ’s salvation. They have been enabled to hear the call of God by the action of the Holy Spirit who has given them new birth (John 3:3, Titus 3:5, John 6:44, 65, John 6:37, John 10:27, and other passages).

These Christians are called by God into holy assembly regularly, certainly at least once a week on the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10). God speaks to them in His word through an appointed teaching ministry (Eph. 4:11-16). Christ invites them to His table (Matt. 26:26-29), He introduces new people into His visible church and into covenant through baptism (Matt. 28:18-20), He leads their worship in praise to the Father (Heb. 8:1-2), and His Spirit brings their prayers before the Father as sweet incense (Rom. 8:26, Rev. 5:8). Far from being a mechanistic pattern to be reconstituted so accurately as to allow a group to claim it alone has the truth, these are the regulating principles that govern all believers in Christ for their holy assemblies. Liturgies are common to all who have put their faith in Christ and manifest the gratitude for the salvation by responding to God’s call to worship.

But is not the visible church then to be identified with the one true church? And what is the invisible church and the difference? To the answer to those questions we turn in our next study.