Spouse and Kingdom

The rhetorical and metaphorical shift between Westminster Confession 25.1 and 25.2 is dramatic.

The invisible church is described in terms of their intimacy with Christ and with one another: They are gathered “into one” under “Christ the Head; the invisible church is the beloved “spouse” of Jesus, and His “body”; it is the “fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”

Section 2, on the visible church, turns political.

The visible church is marked not by marital or “bodily” intimacy with the Son but by profession of Christian faith. While the invisible church is “spouse” and “body,” the visible church is the “kindgom . . . house . . . family.” Family life may be intimate, but it’s not the intimacy of man and wife. The Larger Catechism (q. 63-64) makes a similar distinction, describing the visible church as a community “under God’s special care and government.”

It seems that the distinction of visible and invisible represents not merely two perspectives on the same reality, but two quite different kinds of communities – one a spiritually formed body and bride, the other a socio-political institution, the latter providing external casing for the community of intimacy that is the invisible church.

In other Reformed Confessions, the ecclesiology is worked out without this gap between political and personal. The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) gives a brief history of the “church militant” (17.4), and then adds (17.5) that “This holy Church of God” is a temple, the pillar and ground of truth, a “virgin” and “spouse,” a “beloved,” the flock of the good Shepherd, and the “body of Christ” since “the faithful are the lively members of Christ, having Him as their head.” These are all descriptions of “this holy church of God” described in 17.4 – namely, the “Church militant upon the earth.”

17.6 is still talking about “the church militant on earth” when it expands on the imagery of the body of Christ, united to the head “from whence the whole body receives life.” This visible church is “a spiritual body” and thus cannot be governed by any Head but Christ or by any spirit but the Spirit.

The “Federal Vision” is fundamentally a challenge to the shift from Westminster Confession 25.1 to Westminster Confession 25.2. It denies that the “political” description exhausts the reality of the visible church, and also that “intimacy” is confined to the invisible church. Positively, it says that visible church is also a community of intimacy. Perhaps more fundamentally, it’s a denial that the political and personal can be so sharply distinguished. Positively, it insists that a “purely legal” or “purely political” relationship with the Triune God is simply impossible. In short, the visible church is spouse and body, as well as kingdom, house, and family.

Here is the nub of the debate: Is the visible church a “great mystery,” or does that only describe the invisible church?