# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1857_S264
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

264 Whether the Multitude of the Church Is by Its Nature Visible, as Rome Is, etc.

sacraments are administered according to Christ's command; but that multitude which properly is the church, that is, the congregation of believers and saints, is not visible and cannot be pointed out.

The reasons lie open to view: 1. because we can see only what is before our eyes, but cannot look upon hearts, 1 Samuel 16:7. But faith does not lie open before human eyes; it is hidden in the heart. 2. Because God knows His own, 2 Timothy 2:19; and God's we are through faith, Hebrews 11:6. Since, then, God alone knows this — namely, whether the heart of him who passes for a believer is sincere and without hypocrisy — how should men be able to recognize the faith that lies hidden in another's heart? 3. Because God alone tries hearts and reins, Jeremiah 17:10, Revelation 2:23. Therefore a mere man, as he cannot be a searcher of hearts, so also cannot distinguish believers from unbelievers. 4. Because Christ alone knows His sheep exactly, whom as the good Shepherd He also calls by name, John 10:3, 14, 15, and to whom He alone will give eternal life, vv. 27, 28. 5. Because the church is the spiritual house of God, 1 Timothy 3:15, built of nothing but living stones, 1 Peter 2:5, consisting of spiritual priests, of the royal priesthood, which is the chosen generation, the holy nation, the people of God's own possession, v. 9, to which belong those who hold their confidence firm, Hebrews 3:6, and who are spiritual temples of God and of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 17. How can these be seen and recognized, except by God alone, who dwells in them? 6. Because the church is so described by the holy apostle that its members are joined by the power of the Holy Spirit with the Head, Christ, into one body, and by means of faith hang together through every joint, whereby the one renders service to the other according to the working of each member in its measure, and makes the body grow to its own edification, and all this in love, Ephesians 4:16. Those joints, then, are faith, hope, and love; the spiritual body itself is the church; the members are the believers, who are bound to one another by love: Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Ephesians 1:23, Colossians 1:18, 24. But who does not see here that all this is invisible: the Head, the inflowing Spirit, the body, the members, the joints, the structure, the subordination, the life and the death? 7. Because the church is the bride of Christ, Song of Songs 4:20, Isaiah 51, and John 3:29, who is all glorious within, Psalm 45:14, 1 Peter 2:4, likewise holy and blameless, Ephesians 5:27. But who can behold with bodily eyes the inward glory or the inner holiness? 8. The church is often compared to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, which, however, has the peculiarity that it does not come with outward show, so as to be perceptible and thus visible; rather the kingdom of God is within us, Luke 17:20, 21. Neither will they say, See, here it is — as one can say of Rome — or, There it is, as one can say of the Venetians, but see, the