Belong to the Visible Church

The second half of the Revelation begins with the fourth heptad (group of sevens), the Seven Signs. The first two signs are studied: The Woman Who births the Christ Child (The Visible Church) and the Dragon (The Devil) who tries (through the seed of the serpent) to devour the Messiah (the Seed of the Woman, Gen. 3:15).

Christ is delivered successfully and accomplishes his mission and ascends to God’s throne room to reign as the Mediatorial King. We see that the Bible and The Revelation specifically is a visible witness written to the Visible Church represented by the visible churches of Asia to be a visible witness and a visible mother that raises and nurtures the true Invisible Church. Thus, as the Westminster Confession of Faith 25:2 says “The visible Church … is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.” Or, as J.C. Ryle says (who also wrote the “The True [Invisible] Church”), “It is amazing to my mind, that anyone can read the New Testament, and then say that visible Churches are not authorized in the Bible … To expect the kernel without the husk, is expecting that which is contrary to the common order of the laws of nature. To expect to find the true Church, and members of the true Church, without having an orderly and well-governed visible Church, is expecting that which God, in the ordinary course of things, does not give.”