Ecclesiology is the study of the doctrine of the Church. The word “church” is used in a variety of ways and can therefore be confusing if people are thinking of it in a different sense. The invisible Church refers to true believers whereas the visible church refers to people claiming to be Christians but may or may not be true believers. The invisible Church is the Church as God sees it whereas the visible church is the church as man sees it. As Augustine points out, the visible church will always contain non-believers and there will always be true believers outside of the visible church. “For in the ineffable foreknowledge of God, many who seem to be outside are actually within, just as many who seem to be within are in reality outside.”[i]
But it is even more complicated than that. Some believe that the invisible Church consists of all true believers for all time whereas others believe that the invisible Church started at Pentecost and therefore only consists of believers since this time. The visible church can refer to a small gathering of Christians, a physical building, the organization that worships in the physical building, an entire denomination, all professed Christians in the world, and so forth. Frederick Mayer writes, “Ecclesiastical terminology may also become a barrier to a common understanding and may actually be the cause that two partners in a conversation talk past each other.”[ii]
[i] Alister McGrath, The Christian Theology Reader, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017: 404 (citing Augustine).
[ii] Frederick Mayer, “The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel and the Terminology Visible and Invisible Church,” Concordia Theological Monthly, Vol. 25, no. 3, March 1954: 178.
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