Augustine, one of the key sources for this invisible-visible church distinction, can be improved on by reference to eschatology. In other words, the proper distinction is not between two types of churches, one “inner” and another “outer,” but rather two eras of the one church’s existence: “this present age” and “the age to come.” This is the import of the parable of the wheat and weeds: Jesus will sort things out in the end. But for now, the visible church is a garden of wheat and weeds and sometimes we cannot tell them apart. In this age, the church is compromised; in the next, it is glorified — completely purged of being, as we lament in the hymn, “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.” The distinction between the present and the future condition of the church is the corporate analogue to the paradoxical life of the individual believer as “simultaneously justified and sinful.” But just as we are definitively new creatures in Christ, despite our continuing battle with sin, the church really is the site of God’s covenantal grace. Like any family, it has its problems, but because it is Christ’s family, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). To this church Christ has entrusted the keys of the kingdom, so that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (v. 19). Just as the individual believer is a work in progress, so corporately the church even in its weakness is the place where the age to come breaks in on this present evil age. It is not because of anything intrinsic to the church itself, but because the ministry of the keys has been entrusted to her. It is through its ministry of Word and Sacrament, as well as discipline, that the Spirit makes us taste the heavenly reality of God’s sabbath rest. Even the nonelect in the visible church experience through this ministry some measure of the kingdom reality, as they have been “enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:4-5) [emphasis added]
Can We Be Confessional & Catholic?:
At the same time, the kingdom of Christ is not an entirely future reality, but has dawned in history. Denominational committees for ecumenical relations are not mere bureaucracies that are to be trodden under foot by grassroots efforts, but they are hallways in the courts of Zion. We cannot use the so-called invisible church and grassroots ecumenism as a cop-out for ignoring our commission to realize visibly, in concrete if imperfect ways, that unity that will be finally and fully consummated at the end. [emphasis added]
And finally, more pious bias from Dr. Clark.
By the way, the “permanant address” article by Horton is simply outstanding. If it disappears anytime soon, or if certain passages suddenly disappear, as has been know to happen in other faithful anti-FV crusader documents, let me know and I’ll post my .pdf document of the website
I would be interested to find out more about this.
Horton’s reformulation of the invisible/visible distinction sounds almost identical to Doug Wilson’s proposal at the infamous Auburn Avenue Conference. But, of course, that is the point.
I give Horton 5-7 more years before he becomes a Lutheran.
I mean, why isn’t he?
Leonard Payton (a onetime PCA ACE/MR guy) became one. Why not Mike?
And the reason this is relevant is not simply so we can tu quoque them. The bottom line is that theological formulation, even in creative ways, has never been only the province of church courts. Horton pushes the tradition forwards and has never, as far as I know, submitted a manuscript to a presbytery or synod prior to publication (as Ligon Duncan has said is ideal). In an ideal world, Leithart and Horton would be exchanging emails and discussing theology as Hodge did with Kuyper. How can we foster collegiality moving forward? Academic freedom?
Hodge and Kuyper exchanged e-mails? Wow, the things you learn!
j/k, it made me smile.
“I mean, why isn’t he?”
Because Baptism would have to DO something. That’s why. 🙂
At one time, Horton was a deacon in the Reformed Episcopal Church.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Horton
That influence may explain some things he wrote in the pre-FV 1990s.
Nope, the article was 2004.
What’s the purpose of the Woodruff Road link? What did they take out? I’d read that document before, but I didn’t understand your reference to it here.
Icons? You have got to be joking.
The document used to say that “many FV advocates” had “moved into the realm” of using icons in worship. After about a year and a half, this gratuitous false assertion was silently removed even though the document still says “adopted by the session of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church on October 4, 2005.” Of course, beyond that I can’t say for sure what other changes might have been made. Obviously they aren’t notifying us of edits.
Steven,
http://new.hornes.org/mark/?p=237
In all fairness to Woodruff Road, this was from several years ago when Mark was briefly installed as Grand Metropolitan of the “Eastern Rite” branch of the North Southwestern Wilson Sect.
I don’t want to be yet another cranky contrarian, but seriously, WHY should I ever believe anything coming from the critical sect anymore? The wild accusations keep getting worse and worse.
Thanks for the explanation. At least they such total nonsense off, even if that first section condemning different language is absurd.