In other words it accompanied His person to answer your question.
As Person what is He? Isn't He a Divine Person
(the second Person of the Trinity) with two Natures? A 100% Divine Nature
(that He shares with both the Father and Holy Spirit) and a 100% Human Nature
(that He shares with humanity)? If so then the Kingdom is not Invisible only for He is not Invisible only! We become citizens of this Kingdom when we are united with Him
(being INCHRIST), when we are in union with Him, and this happens when we believe, repent, are Baptized, and Chrismated/Confirmed.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2908.htm (The Great Catechism)
Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Quote:
"Chapters XXXIII., XXXIV., XXXV., XXXVI.— The saving nature of Baptism depends on three things; Prayer, Water, and Faith. 1. It is shown how Prayer secures the Divine Presence. God is a God of truth; and He has promised to come (as Miracles prove that He has come already) if invoked in a particular way. 2. It is shown how the Deity gives life from water. In human generation, even without prayer, He gives life from a small beginning. In a higher generation He transforms matter, not into soul, but into spirit. 3. Human freedom, as evinced in faith and repentance, is also necessary to Regeneration. Being thrice dipped in the water is our earliest mortification; coming out of it is a forecast of the ease with which the pure shall rise in a blessed resurrection: the whole process is an imitation of Christ."
There is also a unity between Baptism and Chrismation
quote:
"As with St. Irenaeus, there is an ecclesiological and sacramental dimension to the doctrine of Recapitulation. Baptism is an essential component of the mystery and for the spiritual life, since the believer must recapitulate that which Christ Himself fulfilled and repeated in His own Recapitulation. As was the case with Sts. Irenaeus and Athanasius, one cannot separate the divine and invisible nature from the works which He does in His human and visible nature, and therefore one cannot separate water and the Spirit into two separate baptisms or events, as this would be a kind of sacramental Nestorianism. [1]
And so we can know who is of God when it comes to initial Salvation, the problem is Salvation is a process. One must persevere till the end. And this happens within the Church which can't be separated from it's visibleness.
I agree. I think we differ in the church model at the time of the Apostles.
If you agree then what was the Church in the first century? Was it not visible? If the invisible theory was true then there would of been no need to send the Roman military commander to Peter and Saul to Ananias.
The size of your text won't suddenly make what you're saying true. I don't think i stated anywhere that He was invisible "only". Like i said, i have answered this already.
If He is God Incarnate and if We are His Body then there is no way you can say that
only the invisible church is the Bride.
Could you repeat that please?
Docetists
Jesus' physical body was not an illusion
Then it must also be the bride that Jesus is coming back for. The Bride is the Church and the Church is simultaneously both invisible and visible. Thus the Bride is simultaneously both invisible and visible.
Jesus' physical body was not an illusion.
Nor is the visibleness of the Bride/Church which is also Christ's Body! Is Christ's Body only spiritual? The answer is no.
Aren't you stressing the invisible church theory?
Ok, so what is it? I know you say it's important, but if it's not the Bride then is it
really important?
What meaning does the word
"important" really have if it's not the bride?
No. I covered this already earlier on when i said i didn't see them as separate but aspects of one whole.
If they are aspects of one whole then the visible is also the bride.
Then the visible is also the bride
Then the visible is also the bride
Well done! You actually read something i did say.
Thank you, I'm just trying to understand you.
The physical, visible church is a very important part of a whole which includes The Bride.
This is confusing, for how can it include the Bride when you said only the spiritual is the bride? If you made a mistake earlier on then that's ok for we all make mistakes. I know I do.
There are many people within the visible church who are not His and never will be His.
Hmm, I know you are speaking of the present and future tenses, but you are Reformed and so I am going to speculate that you may also have in mind some other Calvinistic or Reformed beliefs in this area. I quoted Saint Gregory of Nyssa earlier in where Baptismal Regeneration was advocated and so a person can start out as being His when Baptized and Chrismated into the New Testament Covenant Community...A.K.A. the Church. Later in time a person can fall away and so in this sense there are many people within the Visible Church who are not His
(present tense), but if they repent before death then they will be His again, but only God knows who will repent before death and so in that sense we can talk about the future tense.
For that reason only those sealed with the Spirit, given by the Father (which can only be known and identified by the Father), are the ones being made ready.
The second quote I posted above is also relevant here. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit at Chrismation and so we can know and do know. What happens later in time is a different story, for a person can fall away.
The wheat and tares cannot be separated by man. They grow as one unit until the one who can separate them, does.
They grow as one unit in the Visible Church! Christ founded a Visible Church for not only do we have the example of being united with Him by way of Baptism, but we also have the example of Holy Communion, for we are united with Him also by way of partaking of His Body and Blood!
1st Corinthians 10:16-17
"Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf."
I don't think i am making it seem like anything.
I could be wrong, but I think I am starting to understand you better.
It's not my interpretation, it's part Holy Scripture and part teachings from your very own church fathers that also agree the wheat and the tares abide and grow together until they are separated by the only one who can possibly tell the difference between them.
If there is only
one body then this would mean that both the wheat and tares would grow together side by side within the
Visible Church. The Church is filled with both good and bad fish. With both wheat and tares! But guess what? Each individual in the Church can change back and forth from one to the other.
Saint Irenaeus (180 A.D.)
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vi.v.html(Saint Irenaeus)
quote:
"For He who makes the chaff and He who makes the wheat are not different persons, but one and the same, who judges them, that is, separates them. But the wheat and the chaff, being inanimate and irrational, have been made such by nature. But man, being endowed with reason, and in this respect like to God, having been made free in his will, and with power over himself, is himself the cause to himself, that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff."
I wanted to make some words very big, but I thought you wouldn't like that this time around and so I didn't do it.
I am starting to see why we might differ.
There is only one body in where everyone who starts out in it, starts out the same. The difference is in the perseverance of each individual within the Visible Church.
I've answered this already.
I am starting to understand why we differ. Thanks for the interaction.
[1] pages xii - xvi from the preface of the book The disputation with Pyrrhus of Our Father Among the Saints Maximus the Confessor