Matt 13:24–30, 36–43; Matt 7:21–23; Rom 9:6; Rom 2:28–29; 2 Tim 2:19; 1 John 2:19; Eph 1:22–23; Col 1:18; Rev 2–3
The church is the ekklesia — the called-out assembly of all who are born of the Spirit and joined to the risen Christ, the Body of which he alone is Head.
## Core Position
The church is the ekklesia — the called-out assembly of all who are born of the Spirit and joined to the risen Christ, the Body of which he alone is Head. Scripture presents this one church under two aspects: the whole company of the regenerate, known infallibly only to God ("the Lord knows those who are his"), and the local, visible assemblies in which wheat and tares grow together until the harvest. Not all Israel is Israel; not all in the assembly are in Christ. Membership in the visible body and birth into the living Body are not the same thing — and only God finally distinguishes them. The church therefore receives members on credible profession, exercises discipline because the visible body can contain the unregenerate, and preaches the new birth to its own rolls.
Matt 13:24–30, 36–43 (wheat and tares); Matt 7:21–23; Rom 9:6; Rom 2:28–29; 2 Tim 2:19; 1 John 2:19; Eph 1:22–23; Col 1:18; Rev 2–3 (mixed congregations addressed by Christ as churches — Sardis alive in name, dead in fact).
Because only God infallibly knows the regenerate, no earthly roll is the book of life, and no church may equate its membership with salvation. The parable of the tares forbids the presumption of a purely regenerate visible church this side of the harvest — while the letters to Sardis and Laodicea forbid making peace with the mixture.
The vocabulary "visible/invisible church" comes from Augustine and the Reformers — the terms are tradition, though the distinction they name is textual, and GLM uses the terms while saying so. Rome's identification of the church with its institutional hierarchy is tradition. Equally, any claim that one denomination or network is "the true church" is tradition against Eph 4:4–6.