He Gave Us Prophets: The People Of The CovenantSample

Salvation: Romans 9:6-7

Now we come to the third category of people with whom the prophets dealt: the invisible covenant community. Once again, traditional Protestant theology gives us some help in this area. Within the visible church, there is a select group known as the “invisible church.” In the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 25, paragraph 1, the invisible church: 

Consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. 

In this confessional statement, the invisible church is described from God’s perspective. It’s defined from an eternal perspective as the full number of human beings who will come to saving faith and will spend eternity in the blessing of God. 

From this description of the invisible church, we can see at least two basic ideas. First, the invisible church is made up of true believers only. These true believers are within the visible church, but they have exercised saving faith, and as a result they enter into the smaller community of the invisible church. Second, we can see that the invisible church has a secure destiny of salvation. Because these people have given their hearts to the service of Christ, their salvation will be kept sure until the end. 

The apostle Paul pointed to this kind of distinction between the visible and invisible covenant community even within the nation of Israel. In chapter 9 of Romans, verses 6 and 7, he says these words: 

For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Or because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. 

Paul's idea is this — to be a physical child of Abraham may bring you into the nation of Israel, but it was not enough to bring salvation. A true child of Abraham must have saving faith, like Abraham. For this reason, we may speak of an Israel within Israel — an invisible, redeemed people of God within the visible community of the people of God. 

This idea of the invisible church parallels the thinking of Old Testament prophets. They looked at the nation of Israel and believed that there was an invisible covenant community. Some people within the nation of Israel were always faithful; they were the faithful remnant because they had exercised saving faith. Their eternal destinies were secure even when the nation as a whole went through times of terrible judgment from God. This distinction of a redeemed people within the visible covenant community becomes clear in a number of passages in the prophets.

Time and again, the prophets distinguished between Israelites who were merely externally in the visible covenant community from those who genuinely repented and were among the invisible, true believers whose destinies were eternally fixed. For example, in Jeremiah 4:4 we read these words addressed to the visible nation of Judah: 

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire (RSV). 

When Jeremiah ministered to the nation of Judah, all the men of Israel had been physically circumcised. For this reason, they and their families were in the visible covenant community. At the same time, however, Jeremiah knew that the hearts of most of the people of Judah were not right with God. So, he exhorted them to be saved from God’s wrath by circumcising their hearts through true faith.

The prophets knew that within the nation of Israel was an invisible community. This was the righteous remnant of God’s people, the faithful who truly believed. And although they would go through difficult times, and although the remnant was often far from perfect, still, they had trusted Yahweh like Abraham, and they had been made righteous by their faith alone. 

Click here to watch He Gave Us Prophets: The People of the Covenant, lesson three in the series He Gave Us Prophets. thirdmill.org