The WESTMINSTER LARGER Catechism

WLC 65. What special benefits do the members of the invisible church enjoy by Christ?

A. The members of the invisible church by Christ enjoy
union and communion with Him in grace and glory.1

Proofs

1Jn 17:21; Eph 2:5–6; Jn 17:24

Comments

As the visible church has ‘special privileges’ not enjoyed by people in the world (WLC 63), so the invisible church has ‘special benefits’ that not everyone in the visible church enjoys.

These benefits will be described and developed in great details from WLC 66 to 90, and therefore we shall not say much here, except to say that they are all on account of our relationship with Christ which may be described as a union and communion with Him.

And moreover, we should notice that these benefits would not only be enjoyed when we are in glory in heaven. They are benefits that all true believers have already begun actually to enjoy in the state of grace. The Christian life is not imaginary or merely a description of future hope. It involves real benefits and experiences in which the Christian can honestly identify with the apostle Paul’s exuberance when he says:

"4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:4-7). W