What is the difference between the visible and invisible church?

"I will confess his name." The Lord will distinguish each one that is His. And in these individuals we see that the invisible church exists amid the wreck of all, and when the visible body is judged, they will escape, and not merely escape, for they will be taken to the Lord before this. So that, when the Lord comes to judge the world, they will come with Him; and the visible church, not answering to the grace, will be treated as the world. There is, therefore, an invisible church, I doubt not; but mark that when the true church is invisible, then the visible church is treated like the world. These churches were called candlesticks, and God had put light in them, not to be put under a bushel, but to be put in a candlestick to give light to all around. Well, then, is light invisible? If it is, what is invisible light worth? It only merits condemnation. What has been said by men for the last three hundred years is quite true, that there is an invisible church, but then this is the condemnation of that which is visible. Looked at with respect to its public collective testimony for God, does it bear out the precepts of Christ in its conduct and life? No; and, therefore, there has not been in the church the visible testimony to all the grace, and truth, and blessedness, which is the church's portion in Christ.

When persons speak of an invisible church, it is merely the assertion of apostasy, for the Lord says of the church, "Ye are the light of the world." Now what is the good of an invisible light? "No man when he had lighted a candle," etc. (Luke 11:33). I do not say that there are not invisible saints as individuals; but the term, "invisible church," conveys no other idea to my mind than that of apostasy, and that the church has ceased to be what the Lord set it to be - the light of the world. The church is to be a distinct, manifested, gathered body, while the world is under the dominion of Satan; and in this dispensation is that special manifestation of the church. The Lord gave Himself to gather together in one the children of God scattered abroad on the face of the earth. This oneness can only be maintained through the power and energy of the Holy Ghost. Wherever the Holy Ghost has been grieved, the church has ceased to fulfil in the world what it was sent for; though God's purposes cannot be altered. Then the church is not one, and the world does not believe that the Father has sent Jesus. The church will be displayed in the glory that has been given them, that by their being one the world may know that the Father has loved them as He loved Jesus. This will be known in the millennium. Then it will not be the Holy Ghost working secretly, as He does now, but the manifestation in the world of God's reign in righteousness.

To escape from this anomaly, believers have sought to shelter themselves under the distinction between a visible and an invisible church. But I read in Scripture, "Ye are the light of the world." Of what use is an invisible light? "A city set on an hill cannot be hid." To say that the true church has been reduced to the condition of being invisible is at once to decide the question, and to affirm that the church has entirely lost its original and essential standing, and departed from the purpose of God, and from the constitution it received from Him; for God did not light a candle that He might put it under a bushel, but that He might put it upon a candlestick to give light to them that are in the house. If it has become invisible it has ceased to answer the purpose for which it was formed. Such, upon its own shewing, is the present condition of Christianity

I leave aside the idea of the invisible church, an idea which is not found in the Bible. An invisible assembly is almost nonsense. There will be a universal Church manifested in glory in the day of Christ. Far from being invisible, it will be seen in all the glory of its Head. The children of God, alas! are but too often hidden in the world; and in this sense one may speak of an invisible church. In this case, where is the city set on a hill? where is the light which the Lord would not put under a bushel? To say church is to say assembly. Mr. Olivier makes use of this word to say that, since believers have never been all assembled, there has been no assembly, nor church consequently, except by a figure which consists in speaking of a part for the whole.

348 Another point may require more development — the visible and invisible church. We have already seen that Christ declared He would build His church, and that both Peter and Paul speak of that progressive work, by which the building is carried on, to be completed only in glory; set up, no doubt, perfect at first, but carried on by the Lord by the addition of living stones, and this without recognizing any human hand in it; nay, speaking so as to exclude man's work, whatever wood, hay, and stubble might be put by man into the manifested building on earth. But there was also, as we have seen, an external visible building, called withal "God's building," into the formation of which, day by day, the responsibility of man entered, built with gold and silver, and with wood and hay or stubble, yea defiled, corrupted by man.

Before God it consists of every blood-washed, Spirit-indwelt believer on the face of the earth. As a professing thing on earth it is composed of all baptized individuals, who are thus held by God responsible for their profession. The former is seen in Ephesians (see Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4, 16; 5:25-33); the latter is seen in the addresses of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, which are set forth under the figure of “the seven golden candlesticks”.

Now if we had no more than this about the body of Christ, in scripture, we should have to accept what many, alas! have held from very early days in the history of the church, that this body is invisible, and only a thing of counsel and purpose in God’s mind. This thought came from confounding the visible, external body, or house, with the true body of Christ. The not seeing what the body of Christ was, and the distinction between it and the visible assembly around, forced those who could not accept the visible corrupt thing as His body, to invent the terms “visible” and “invisible church.”

Obviously this is extremely important, because what people think and talk about as the "invisible church" — though scripture never uses the expression — was substantially in existence before "the church;" and, in fact, this invisible state of things is what the Lord was putting an end to, when He formed the church. In Old Testament times, we all know, there was a nation which God accounted and called His people, in the midst of whom there were isolated believers, as no doubt there were other believers among the Gentiles. Thus, there was Job, for instance, in early days; and every now and then, throughout the scriptures, we have one Gentile and another who evidently manifested divine life in them, and a looking for the Redeemer, outside the limits of Israel. For all that, there was no such thing as "the church" — no gathering together of the scattered believers into one, till the death of Christ. The children of God had been scattered abroad, but then they were gathered together. Henceforth disciples in Israel were not only destined to salvation, but they were gathered into one upon the earth. This is the church. The assembly necessarily supposes a gathering of the saints into one body, separate from the rest of mankind. There was no such body before. Hence, to talk of "the church" in Jewish times, or in earlier days, is altogether a mistake. The mixture of believers with their unbelieving countrymen (i.e., what is called "the invisible church") was the very thing which the Lord was concluding — not beginning — when He "added to the church daily such as should be saved."

Now, I have shown you what the Church, the body of Christ is, in God's sight — a perfect thing, composed of living indefectible members — true believers; these the Lord Jesus will come to take to be with Himself, when His voice shall be heard in the air shouting for His saints. I have also shown you that which looks like it, but is not it; and which shall be left behind, when the saints are taken away.

Sad to say it would be very, very difficult to find some company in Bromley where this letter could be delivered for the sad reason that the church of God is no longer one, the testimony of the church of God is all divided up, and it will never be put back together again, not upon earth. There will be one supreme glorious moment when all true believers in Bromley and any other place in the world will be together never again to part, praise God for that, it might be very soon. All true believers await the coming of the Lord. What a marvellous thing, but we believe that in the eye of God, a better eye than ours, He can look down at Bromley (and at any other place in this world) and can see every true believer, everyone that is born again, saved, converted, whatever term you like to use, every person indwelt by the Spirit and see them as His church. They might belong to Methodist, Baptist, all kinds of companies, but primarily, without any of these labels attaching to them they are members of the body of Christ. That is how God sees them, they are stones in His building. That is how He views them, not with these labels upon them, but what they are in His sight as a result of the work of Christ, what they are as a result of the Spirit of God's activities upon them. That is something we have to keep in mind all the time to regulate our thinking in our dealings with each other as believers.