There are not two churches but only one.

John Murray’s comments are most apt from his book on baptism:

We may not properly speak of two churches, one visible and the other invisible. What
Scripture designates as “the church” is never regarded as something wholly invisible… To be quite concrete, our Lord himself did distinguish between those who might be disciples of his and yet not truly disciples (John 8:31) and between those who were in him by profession and external connection and yet not vitally and permanently (John 15)… In order to avoid the misconstructions and misconceptions frequently associated with the distinction between the church visible and invisible it is more proper to speak of the church as invisible and the church as visible or of the aspect of invisibility and visibility attaching to the church rather than of the visible church and the invisible church. The terms visible and invisible are aspect from which the church may be viewed. James Bannerman states well: “When we speak of the Church invisible and the Church visible, we are not to be understood as if we referred in these designations to two separate and distinct Churches, but rather to the same Church under two different characters. We do not assert that Christ has founded two Churches on earth, but only one; and we affirm that that one Church is to be regarded under two distinct aspects.”

“we see that the Scriptures divide the human race in various ways in relation to divine covenants. The universal covenants include all people, both believers and unbelievers. The national covenants excluded the vast majority of Gentiles, but also included both believers and unbelievers within Israel. And until Christ returns and purifies his church the new covenant excludes Jews and Gentiles who have no part in the Christian faith, but also includes both Jews and Gentiles who are believers and unbelievers.
Now that we have seen how humanity is divided into various groups as they relate to God’s covenants, we are ready to turn to another issue. How are the dynamics of covenants—divine benevolence, human loyalty and consequences of loyalty and disloyalty—applied to these various groups?

Application of Dynamics
As we read the Old Testament seeking to understand its original meaning and how to apply it to our day, it is important to remember that both Old Testament Israelites who first read the Old Testament and we Christians who read it now face a similar threefold division of the human race: those outside covenant, unbelievers in covenant, and believers in covenant.
This means that if we hope to understand how the dynamics of covenant applied to people living in the days of the Old Testament and then relate those dimensions of original meaning to our own day, we must always think in terms of these three kinds of people. First, we must consider unbelievers excluded from the national covenants with Israel and unbelievers excluded from the new covenant; second, we must consider unbelievers who are included in the national covenants with Israel and unbelievers who are included in the new covenant; and third, we must consider true believers included in the national covenants with Israel and true believers within the new covenant. –→
[to continue,
see video lesson at http://media.thirdmill.org/KOT3.mov
Or see lesson manuscript at http://myseminary.org/seminary/manuscripts/KOT3.docx ]

And if what you see are people baptized in a church, then they must be the true church.

In my opinion the tension point comes in the phrase, “…everyone in the visible church is in covenant with God, with special privileges and responsibilities.”

What covenant are visible church members in, and how does that differ from other covenants, if at all?

Kindest Regards,
Brian

Of course, anyone who rejects the invisible/visible church distinction is in error. But don’t you think that one of the problems we have in reformed churches is the failure to understand that everyone in the visible church is in covenant with God, with special privileges and responsibilities? While we don’t want people saying “too much” about the visible church, we also need to work to correct those who say “too little” about the visible church. For instance, it is commonplace in some PCA churches for people (even pastors) to speak of baptized children as “not really” being members of the church until they “join” by profession of faith. With this paradigm, communing members and/or mature members may be associated with the “invisible church” while other members are often seen as “only” being members of the visible church. This is a problem, in my opinion, that is much more wide-spread than the problem of confusing the visible church with the invisible church.
Therefore, while opposing FV errors (either real or perceived) I think we need to be regularly reaffirming our full doctrine of the visible church so people don’t make light of it or despise its members and thus fall into an error which is just as serious as that associated with FV.

I have found Third Millennium Ministries Curriculum to be very helpful in presenting a winsomely reformed understand of our doctrines of the Visible and Invisible church, without saying “too much” or “too little”, and I recommend it for your use in ministry. Here are some excerpts for your consideration, and I would be interested to know if you are okay with the perspective of IIM on the objectivity of the covenant:

“… in the Old Testament, the entire nation of Israel was part of the church, even though not everyone had saving faith. At the very least, they were all present within the nation. Beyond this, as God instructed in Genesis chapter 17, they had all been confirmed in God’s covenant through the circumcision of the males. In the New Testament, we see something similar. Everyone who was part of the church gatherings was counted as part of the church. This included everyone who professed faith, everyone who was baptized, the children and spouses of believers, and often their household servants and slaves.”

“Whereas the visible church includes everyone who is part of God’s covenant community, the invisible church is composed only of those who have been united to Christ in salvation. …”

“… traditionally, theologians have focused especially on three particular means of grace: the Word of God, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and prayer. All three of these means of grace belong to the visible church as a whole, including both its believers and its unbelievers. … Now, even though the benefits of redemption are only for those who are saved, that is, only for the invisible church, the ordinances themselves are for the entire visible church. Remember, the invisible church is just that: invisible. We don’t know who’s in it. It doesn’t hold its own worship services. It doesn’t have its own ministers. It doesn’t have its own church government. Those things are appointed to the visible church. In the same way, all our means of grace — our preaching, baptisms, celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, and prayers — can be observed by others. They are visible. They are things that the visible church shares in common, and therefore they are part of the communion of the visible church. “ …

“The fact of the matter is that salvation itself is a blessing of God’s covenant. … salvation in Christ’s blood comes only through his covenant.
Since God’s covenant is made with the visible church, salvation ordinarily comes through the visible church. This happens when people within the visible church come to faith, or when the visible church gains converts through evangelism. Of course, sometimes people also get saved apart from any interaction with the church. But when this happens, it’s important to recognize that something unusual is taking place — something extraordinary.
Because the invisible church is universal, only those who are faithful to God’s covenant can be saved. There is no hope that people in other religions will make it to heaven by being good by the standards of their own religions. We must evangelize. We must tell people about the only Savior. We must bring them into the only covenant community, the earthly kingdom of God, and teach them to love and obey its Lord and King.”

again, mere repetition ad-nauseum without showing why my reading of the Westminster standards is wrong is not helping anyone. Just because I disagree with your interpretation of the Wesminster standards does not mean that I am against the standards.

>These are the very terms preached in the free offer of the gospel to sinners by Peter at Pentecost in Acts 2

So in your view, are you saying that the Law is not present in a Gospel proclamation?

> One does have to believe in Christ in order to be saved. So in that narrow sense it is synergistic.

That is a non sequitur. The condition of faith cannot be fulfilled apart from the Spirit’s regenerating grace, and therefore it is monergistic.. The free offer is Law, not Gospel, because the offer does not create faith in and of itself.

> can you please support your contention that the command is law? If the grace is a gospel grace, then this same grace does not cease to be grace when it is set before sinners as the condition or imperative obligation to be saved.

The mere fact that the English language states that law and command are very much equivalent proves the point. The evangelical grace refers to the work of the Spirit through the means of the Gospel offer, it does not refer to the offer apart from the work of the Spirit.

>No, WCF 15:1 classifies repentance unto life as a grace.

Again, you are misreading the Confession. The Confession states that it is gracious because the Spirit uses the twin means of the Law and the Gospel (repentance, and faith, unto life) to bring Man to salvation.

>So that means, in your view, that WCF 15:1 is wrong where it refers to repentance unto life as an “evangelical grace?” i. e. gospel grace

No, WCF 15.1 is right. It is your interpretation of WCF 15.1 that is wrong.

I have said that the commnad to repent is first and foremost the 1st use of the law, not the 3rd use. The 3rd use of repentance comes later for Christians. And thus I refuse to defend a misreading of my position.

Not to pile on too much here, but I wanted to push back a little on “repent” and “be baptized” as fitting within the third use of the law. The third use of the law is as a guide for our gratitude, so from this I assume you’re saying the call to repent from sins and be baptized is actually a call to show gratitude for the salvation we’ve already been given? I suppose we could add “believe” into the list too, since that’s part of the call.

I can see a narrow sense where you could say that the regenerating work of the Spirit is what enables all of these actions, but I do wonder if that’s a helpful way to characterize the call that is intrinsic to the gospel. The message we bring is now, “the law only serves to condemn, but there is also no condemnation in Christ, listen now as I condemn you to repent and believe in Him.”

The more troubling application of this as third use is that there is no condemnation in the law, especially not in the third use, and yet someone who has not repented of their sin is not saved. We can repent and be forgiven of a multitude of transgressions against the law, even after salvation. Repentant prostitutes, adulterers, drunks, and murderers are all welcomed into our churches as true Christians, yet anyone who does not repent of these things would be expelled from a true church.

Perhaps we want to ameliorate the nature of repentance and belief until they are sufficiently passive or inactive to fall under an indicative; however, I think the more proper “gospel demands” statement that I would make is “the gospel demands a response.”

In fact, in this way, the gospel is like the law in that rejecting it actually multiplies condemnation. The condemnation of Jerusalem will be all the greater on the last day because of her rejection of the gospel, yet if the gospel is merely an indicative message of victory, a notice posted on the wall that there’s grace out there to be had, then one questions how it could increase condemnation.

The reason this sounds a little silly is that, as a grammatical matter, even things stated in an indicative voice can carry an unstated imperative. If I run into the house and scream “the house is on fire!” the unstated imperative is “get the heck out of here!” If you want to parse the clause, and say that “the house is on fire” is gospel, while the unstated law imperative is the part that would cause us to condemn a sleepy person who stayed inside to burn alive, I suppose I cannot dissuade you.

The way I see it, the proclamation that death and hell have been vanquished and that we are all free in Christ is very much like saying “the house is on fire.” It is a strictly indicative message on the one hand, but it carries an incredibly powerful imperative with it, and both of these are properly part of the gospel. While I can affirm a division of law and gospel, and I can appreciate the difference between indicative and imperative, I don’t think that the two sets are fully synonymous with one another, and that makes me very hesitant to reduce them to that.

You said that the commands to “repent” and “be baptized” are law, not gospel, but you didn’t prove it. Furthermore, I don’t believe it. These are the very terms preached in the free offer of the gospel to sinners by Peter at Pentecost in Acts 2. How can these imperatives be law? Since you didn’t offer any support to back-up your claim, I will disregard it for now. On the other hand I offered the secondary support of the Westminster Standards which describe repentance unto life as a gospel grace and yet as an imperative obligation.

Also, I said nothing of “good works of faithfulness.” So please don’t put words into my mouth. As dangerous and erroneous as the FV teaching is, that doesn’t mean we need to check our brains at the door an accept the unbiblical gospel-indicative/law-imperative paradigm. Honestly, this sounds like something that was dreamed up by an English teacher.

“Are you serious? That is the precise error behind Federal Vision. The Covnenant of Grace is monergistic by grace from beginning to end. Salvation is fully of God not of Man.”

Yes, I’m serious. One does have to believe in Christ in order to be saved. So in that narrow sense it is synergistic. The application is synergistic, though the source is monergistic. In other words salvation completely originates in God’s gift of grace, yet it is synergistically applied, i. e., a man is saved by believing in Christ. Did you not believe in Christ to be saved?

Another way to say this is that the covenant of grace is in its nature unconditional. God has chosen to save a people for himself, and effected all the means necessary to do it. Yet in its administration it is presented as conditional. Salvation is conditioned upon faith and repentance from sin, and it is expressed in these conditional terms in the free offer of the gospel. These conditions of faith and repentance are therefore gospel imperatives.

“>WCF 15:1 Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace, the doctrine whereof is to be preached by every minister of the Gospel, as well as that of faith in Christ.

What is meant by “evangelical grace”? What it teaches is that the Gospel of repentance unto life cannot be believed by Man in his unregenerate state, but only through the work of the Spirit alone. That is why it is an evangelical grace, for though the command is Law, the provision to fulfil that command is Gospel.”

David, can you please support your contention that the command is law? If the grace is a gospel grace, then this same grace does not cease to be grace when it is set before sinners as the condition or imperative obligation to be saved.

“WCF15:1 therefore teaches that ministers of the Gospel ought to preach the Law which God’s commands as well as the gracious provision to meet that command through Christ in His Gospel mediated by the Holy Spirit. This Gospel is therefore an evangelical grace as it provides for Man’s need of repentance unto life.”

No, WCF 15:1 classifies repentance unto life as a grace. Only you are classifying it as law. Ministers must preach the law as well as the gospel, but WCF 15:1 doesn’t mention the law.

“Repentance unto life is a saving grace precisely because it is God’s appointed process through which sinners are saved. Means and processes are not equivalent to Gospel.”

So that means, in your view, that WCF 15:1 is wrong where it refers to repentance unto life as an “evangelical grace?” i. e. gospel grace

Also, David, note that we are talking about the gospel, and salvation, broadly considered. We are not just speaking about Justification. There is a significant difference. Salvation cannot be reduced to only justification.

as broad categories, we can speak about “Gospel imperatives” in the sense that believing in the Gospel implies that the new man is obligated to live according to His new nature (cf Rom. 6).

However, I am speaking on, and the discussion is about, Law and Gospel in the narrower categories of “what we ought to do” (imperatives) and “what is done for us” (indicatives). When discussing the command “Repent, and be baptized”, I have stated that the command to be baptized is the Law in its 3rd use. So Christians do have to obey God, but this obedience is strictly speaking Law, in its 3rd use.

So pastorially, I am all for preaching of what Christians ought to do. However, that is Law, not Gospel. There are not technically speaking “Gospel imperatives”, but “Law imperatives”, which Christians are to obey (the Law).

So yes, I am adverse to the saying “the gospel commands/demands”. Not only is it wrong theology, but it diminishes both the graciousness of the Gospel and the demands of the Law. Pastorially, there is a possible subtle insinuation that the Gospel is not actually free because it requires something of us. And since the command is from the Gospel and not the Law, we breed a sortof doctrinal Antinomianism as the Law is downplayed since what is commanded is not Law-based but Gospel-based.

As for “average Christians,” at least in my case it does not apply. I am not of course not the standard, and it may be helpful to survey what others think when they hear of such terminology. From people I know however, it seems that confusing Law and Gospel is similarly detrimental. For me, when I hear the phrase “the Gospel commands,” the Gospel ceases to be all of grace but a contract whereby God has initiated my salvation for sure, but now that He has done His part, I must now fulfil my part of this salvation bargain, otherwise God will not love me and punish me for not obeying Him. Sure, I am still saved, but God’s favor depends on my doing good works.

I suspect this may be the case for many Christians.