The Visibility of the Church

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"Let us always keep this statement of Paul in mind, 'Whom He chose them He also called' [Rom 8:30]. Whenever we think about the Church, we should consider the congregation of the called, which is THE VISIBLE CHURCH, nor should we imagine that somewhere else there are any chosen ones except in this VISIBLE ASSEMBLY itself. For God wants to be invoked and known in no other way than as He has revealed Himself, and He has revealed Himself in no other place than in the VISIBLE CHURCH in which alone the voice of the Gospel is proclaimed. Nor should we devise some other INVISIBLE and silent Church of people still living in this life, but the eyes and mind of the assembly of the called, that is, of those who confess the Gospel of God must be looked at, and we should know that the voice of the Gospel must sound forth among people PUBLICLY, as it is written, 'Their sound has gone out into all the world' [Ps. 19:4]. We should understand that there must be the public ministry of the Gospel and public gatherings, as it says in Eph. 4[:8ff], and to this assembly we should join themselves. We are citizens and members of this visible gathering, as it is enjoined in Ps. 26:8, 'I have loved the beauty of Your house'; and Ps. 84[:1], 'How amiable are Your tabernacles, O Lord.' These and similar passages speak not of a Platonic idea but of the visible church in which the voice of the Gospel rings out and in which the ministry of the Gospel is seen through which God reveals Himself and through which He is efficacious."

Philip Melanchthon, Locus XVII, The Church, cited in Martin Chemnitz's Loci Theologici, Part II-III, 1287.

"Is it possible to discern a pattern in the ecclesiologies of these major versions of Christianity? Without oversimplifying unduly, we may say that traditional Roman Catholicism (before Vatican II) particularly, but also Eastern Orthodoxy, externalize the Church, while Calvinism spiritualizes her. Lutheran theology, by its innermost logic, understands the church incarnationally. To put this in Christological terms, the traditional Roman ecclesiology tends toward 'Eutychianism,' in that it confuses Christ's mystical body with the visible organization headed by the pope. Calvinist ecclesiology is 'Nestorian' in letting an 'invisible church' and a 'visible church' stand side by side, without any real integration or bonding between them. The 'Chalcedonian' approach of Lutheran ecclesiology distinguishes-without separating!-the church as inward communion of faith and as outward participation in the means of grace. Since the external Gospel and sacraments are the indispensable, God-given source, foundation, and sustenance of all faith and spiritual life, these means of grace bind in one the two 'modes' of the church, and keep them from flying apart into two churches."

The Rev. Dr. Kurt Marquart, The Church and Her Fellowship, Ministry, and Governance, 10.

"[Jesus] teaches that the church has been hidden under a crowd of wicked people in order that this stumbling block may not offend the faithful, and so that we might know that the Word and Sacrament are efficacious even when they are administered by wicked people."

Apology VII/VIII.19