Is Modern Postmillennialism Confessional?

By Jeremy Sexton

Notes

[1] Richard B. Gaffin Jr., “Theonomy and Eschatology: Reflections on Postmillennialism” in Word and Spirit: Selected Writings in Biblical and Systematic Theology, eds. David B. Garner and Guy Prentiss Waters (Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2023), 718.Vern Poythress (“2 Thessalonians 1 Supports Amillennialism,” JETS 37 [1994]: 534–35) affirms the doctrine of Christ’s imminent return while explaining the difference between postmillennialism and optimistic amillennialism: “2 Thessalonians 1 helps to indicate one difference that remains. 2 Thessalonians 1, I claim, asks us to focus our hopes on the second coming of Christ, not on a hypothetical millennial prosperity taking place before the second coming. The rest of the NT has a similar focus. Thus in my mind the main issue separating contemporary amillennialists and postmillennialists is not the issue of mere possibility—that is, the issue of what might possibly happen if Christ’s return is still some decades away. Rather, the issue is whether Biblical promise and prophecy invite Christians to focus hopes on such a millennial possibility. Is such a prosperity the main focus of prophetic expectation, and is it a certainty guaranteed by prophecy? Postmillennialists say yes, and on that basis they expect confidently that the second coming is still quite a long way off. Hence they find it theologically inappropriate and psychologically impossible to focus their most urgent, immediate hope and expectation primarily on the second coming. In contrast, premillennialists and amillennialists think that the second coming is the next main event in God’s plan for history. It may be very soon, and they hope and pray for the Lord’s coming.”
[2] Keith A. Mathison, Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1999), 204, quoting Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church (Philadelphia: P&R Publishing, 1947), 169.
[3] Mathison, Postmillennialism, 204.
[4] The doctrine of the imminent return of Christ does not insist that he can come back at any moment simpliciter. For example, one can hold to the nearness of the second coming while believing that 2 Thess 2:1–12 describes recognizable (at least to some) future events that must take place before Jesus returns. See Sam Waldron, “Christ Will Not Return at Any Moment,” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christ-return-any-moment.
[5] The same teaching appears at the end of The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order (1658) and The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)
[6] Francis X. Gumerlock, Revelation and the First Century: Preterist Interpretations of the Apocalypse in Early Christianity (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2012). Gumerlock says his book “contains no comments on the coming of Christ in Revelation (cf. Rev. 1:7; 2:5, 16; 3:3, 11; 22:7, 20), as I did not find any of the Apocalypse commentaries of the early church that interpreted the coming of Christ in those passages as a ‘judgment coming’ of Christ in 70 A.D.” (p. 18).
[7] Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., The Divorce of Israel: A Redemptive-Historical Interpretation of Revelation, 2 vols. (Vallecito, CA: Chalcedon Foundation, 2024), 2:1762.
[8] Gentry, Divorce of Israel, 2:1762
[9] Douglas Wilson, When the Man Comes Around: A Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Moscow ID: Canon, 2019), 261–62.
[10] Greg L. Bahnsen, Victory in Jesus: The Bright Hope of Postmillennialism, 3rd ed. (Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media, 2020), 8, 17.
[11] David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Horn Lake, MS: Dominion Press, 2006), 64.
[12] Gary North and Gary DeMar, Christian Reconstruction: What It Is, What It Isn’t (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1991), 179, cited in Martyn McGeown, “Preterist Gangrene: Its Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Cure,” https://www.cprf.co.uk/articles/preteristgangrene.htm.
[13] North and DeMar, Christian Reconstruction, 179.
[14] David Chilton, Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (Horn Lake, MS: Dominion Press, 2007), 221–22.
[15] James B. Jordan, “Thousands of Generations,” Biblical Horizons 61 (1994).
[16] Chilton, Days of Vengeance, 575, 577.
[17] Mathison, Postmillennialism, 205.
[18] Mathison, Postmillennialism, 205.
[19] Peter J. Leithart, Revelation 12–22, ITC (New York: T&T Clark, 2018), 419, 431.
[20] Leithart, Revelation, 431.
[21] A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith: A Handbook of Christian Doctrine Expounding The Westminster Confession (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1983), 395–96
[22] Hodge, Confession of Faith, 396 (italics his)
[23] Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), 216
[24] In an article under review titled “Hope Misplaced: Postmillennialism’s Rejection of Eschatological Imminence—How It Happens and Why It Matters,” I interact critically with this “by faith” approach and show how it gave way to partial preterism during the recovery of postmillennialism in the 1970s.
[25] Jeremy Sexton, “Postmillennialism: A Biblical Critique,” Themelios 48 (2023): 572.
[26] John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. Ross Mackenzie, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries 8 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 287.
[27] John Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. William B. Johnson, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries 12 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 303 (italics mine).
[28] Calvin, Hebrews and First and Second Peter, 145.
[29] John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke and the Epistles of James and Jude, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. A. W. Morrison, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries 3 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 309 (italics mine).
[30] However, these Creeds also seem to leave little or no room for any partial-preterist belief in a coming of the Son of Man in clouds (Matt 24:30; Rev 1:7) between his ascension into heaven and his second coming. For his next act in redemptive history, after ascending to the Father’s right hand, is to “come” “from there” “to judge the living and the dead.” Whereas partial preterists confess an additional “coming” of Jesus in AD 70 as central to biblical theology and as critical to interpretation of the NT, the framers of the Creeds demonstrate awareness of one post-ascension coming, not two. The Didache (AD 80–100), a first-century handbook for believers and Christian congregations, bears witness to the early church’s futurist interpretation of the coming of the Son of Man in clouds. Here is Didache 16.1–8 (my translation), the chapter on eschatology:
(1) Stay awake for the sake of your life. Do not let your lamps go out or let your loins be ungirded, but be ready, for you do not know the hour in which our Lord is coming. [Matt 24:42, 44; 25:13]
(2) Meet together often, seeking the things that benefit your souls, for the whole time of your faith will not profit you unless you are perfected in the last hour.
(3) For in the last days false prophets and corrupters will be multiplied, and the sheep will be turned into wolves, and love will be turned into hate. [Matt 24:11–12]
(4) For as lawlessness increases, they will hate and persecute and betray one another. And then the deceiver of the world will appear as a son of God and will do signs and wonders, and the earth will be delivered into his hands and he will do abominable things that have never been done since the beginning of time. [Matt 24:10, 12, 21, 24]
(5) Then created humanity will pass into the testing fire and many will fall away and perish, but those who persevere in their faith will be saved by the Accursed One himself. [Matt 24:10, 13]
(6) And then will appear the signs of the truth: first, the sign of an opening in heaven; then, the sign of the trumpet call; and third, the resurrection of the dead— [Matt 24:30–31]
(7) not of all, but as it has been said, “The Lord will come and all the saints with him.”
(8) Then the world will see the Lord coming on the clouds of heaven. [Matt 24:30]
[31] Thanks to Vern Poythress for this point. Consider Calvin’s pastoral urgency in his exposition of Paul’s promise that “the crown of righteousness” awaits those “who have loved his appearing” (2 Tim 4:8): “Wherever faith is strong it does not let our hearts fall asleep in this world but raises them up to hope in the final resurrection. His meaning is that all who are so devoted to this world and love this passing life so much that they do not care about Christ’s coming and do not feel any desire for it, deprive themselves of immortal glory. Alas for our stupidity which so dominates us that we never think seriously of Christ’s coming, when we should be giving it our whole attention.” John Calvin, The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians and the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. T. A. Smail, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries 10 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 339.
[32] Calvin, Hebrews and First and Second Peter, 365 (italics mine).

Three and a half decades ago, Reformed theologian Richard Gaffin cautioned the Calvinist community that “postmillennialism deprives the church of the imminent expectation of Christ’s return and so undermines the quality of watchfulness that is incumbent on the church.”^[1] Postmillennialist Keith Mathison, rather than heeding this pastoral warning, countered that Gaffin’s words “demonstrate how influential dispensational thinking has become,” since “the doctrine of the imminent return of the Lord is one of the ‘great fundamentals of Dispensationalism.’”^[2] According to Mathison, Gaffin’s teaching on the imminence (nearness) of the second coming “is not a historically Reformed doctrine” and “the use of this argument by a Reformed theologian is ironic.”^[3]

The irony, however, lies elsewhere.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)—along with its confessional offspring, The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order (1658) and The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)—affirms the doctrine of Christ’s imminent or near return (to be distinguished somewhat from the notion of an any-moment return^[4]). Specifically, Westminster affirms that the day and hour of the second coming are unknown but that believers ought to watch and pray expectantly for it, believing that it is near. The WCF thereby makes no allowance for modern—that is, partial-preterist—postmillennialism. In the final portion of its concluding chapter, “Of the Last Judgment,” the Confession delivers a clear vision of eschatological expectancy:

so will he [Christ] have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen.
—The Westminster Confession of Faith 33.3

The verbiage of the prescribed prayer at the end of WCF 33.3 (“Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen”) derives from the King James Version of Revelation 22:20. Note well that Revelation 22:20 is not a mere prooftext appended to WCF 33.3. Rather, this verse’s fervent plea for the Lord to come back soon is an integral component of the Confession’s original text.^[5]

Westminster Excludes the Partial-Preterist Interpretation of Revelation 22:20

WCF 33.3 requires pastors who subscribe to it to confess that the near coming of the Lord Jesus depicted in Revelation 22:20 refers to his second advent. Moreover, the Confession here enjoins subscribing pastors to pray in accordance with its futurist interpretation of Revelation 22:20, a verse that by all accounts portrays the same coming prophesied in 1:7, 22:7, and 22:12. Thus, the Confession rules out postmillennialism’s partial-preterist belief that Revelation 22:20 (along with 1:7, 22:7, and 22:12) refers to a supposed “judgment-coming” of Jesus in AD 70, a view that historian Francis Gumerlock could not find in any source predating the modern era.^[6]

Kenneth Gentry defends this recent interpretation in his new commentary on the Apocalypse, not least in his remarks on Revelation 22:20: “Jesus is here referring to his judgment-coming in AD 70. The whole book of Revelation has been emphasizing the Jewish oppression of Christians and promising Christ’s judgment-coming against Israel.”^[7] Gentry contends that the prayer in Revelation 22:20 pertained to “the beleaguered first-century Christians” and that the vindication they longed and prayed for “came in the AD 70 judgment.”^[8]

In his comments on Revelation 22, after stating that “one of the neglected themes of the book is that the Lord is coming quickly” (22:7, 12, 20), Doug Wilson similarly strays from traditional exegesis and confessional eschatology. He claims that these predictions of Christ’s imminent coming were “fulfilled at that time [the first century]” and denies that this prophesied event could have been “20 centuries or more in coming to pass.”^[9] Greg Bahnsen likewise argues in his essay “Understanding the Book of Revelation” that “the main body of teaching in this book,” including each mention of eschatological nearness “at the very beginning and at the very end of the book,” relates to “John’s own day”—specifically to the time when “the Gentiles trampled Jerusalem down in A. D. 70”—rather than to “some future day.”^[10] David Chilton agrees that “the theme of the book” of Revelation “is not the Second Coming of Christ, but rather the Coming of Christ in judgment upon Israel.”^[11]

Gary North and Gary DeMar, citing works on the Apocalypse by Gentry and Chilton, address the petition in Revelation 22:20 and WCF 33.3 with a striking contra-confessional assertion: “This is surely not a prayer that is appropriate today.”^[12] They write,

“Come quickly, Lord Jesus” … is legitimate only when the one who prays it is willing to add this justification for his prayer: “Because your church has completed her assigned task faithfully (Matthew 28:18–20), and your kingdom has become manifest to many formerly lost souls.” This is surely not a prayer that is appropriate today. (It was appropriate for John because he was praying for the covenantal coming of Jesus Christ, manifested by destruction of the Old Covenant order. His prayer was answered within a few months: the destruction of Jerusalem.)^[13]

Those who subscribe to the partial-preterist interpretation of Revelation 22:20 (along with 1:7, 22:7, and 22:12), which may include amillennialists influenced by modern postmillennialism, find themselves in disagreement with the eschatology of Westminster.

Westminster Affirms the Historic Doctrine of the Imminent Second Coming

WCF 33.3 compels pastors who subscribe to it to “be always watchful” for the near return of Christ and to pray fervently that he will “come quickly,” that is, “come soon.” Consequently, the Confession challenges the viewpoint of modern postmillennialists, who deny that the language of eschatological imminence pervading the NT relates to the parousia (the second coming).

Of course, the old-school postmillennialists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Jonathan Edwards and the Old Princetonians, also believed that deep time lies ahead. They envisioned enough time for a future multi-generational worldwide golden era before the second advent. This belief is the hallmark of postmillennialism. Nevertheless, these eschatological forebears of modern postmillennialism did not apply a preterist framework to the NT’s teaching on the Lord’s near coming, particularly as it is taught in Revelation. Rather, they upheld Scripture’s and Westminster’s doctrine of the impending second coming (more on this in the next section).

Modern postmillennialists, on the other hand, contest the doctrine of Christ’s near return. They, unlike their forerunners, apply a preterist framework to the dozens of texts (such as Rev. 22:20) that have traditionally supported this doctrine. They also argue with more specificity and zeal than their predecessors for the necessity of deep future time. Chilton declares, “This world has tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years of increasing godliness ahead of it, before the Second Coming of Christ.”^[14] James Jordan elaborates provocatively,

Human history will last for at least 100,000 years, I am confident. One thousand generations is 30,000 years, and the word [“thousands” in Exod 20:6] is plural. Three thousand generations is 90,000 years, but why should the plural only imply three? If Jesus returns before that time, Satan can say, “Well, You said You would show Your mercy to thousands of generations, but You did not do so. You ended history after only a few hundred generations.”^[15]

In his interpretation of Jesus’s repeated prophecy in Revelation 22, “I come quickly” or “I am coming soon” (vv. 7, 12, 20), Chilton acknowledges “the apostolic expectation of an imminent Coming of Christ,” yet he insists, contrary to the Confession, that this expectation concerns “not the Second Coming” but “His first-century Coming.”^[16] Mathison similarly states that the prophetic utterances in Revelation 22:7, 12, 20 “do not support” “the doctrine of Christ’s imminent return,” since they “refer to Christ’s first-century coming in judgment on Jerusalem, not to his personal return at the end of the age.”^[17] This paves the way for Mathison’s declaration that Scripture nowhere teaches the Reformed doctrine of Christ’s impending final advent: “Passages that refer to Christ’s second coming … do not include time references such as ‘soon’ or ‘near.’ Nothing is said [in the NT] regarding the nearness of the Second Coming.”^[18] Peter Leithart asserts, “The Bridegroom has come,” for if he did not come in the first century, “then John [having prophesied that Jesus was coming ‘soon’] is a false prophet and Revelation [is] a record of false prophecy.”^[19] Leithart abandons the historic doctrine of the impending second advent of Christ in favor of the belief that “his final arrival is many millennia in the future.”^[20]

Those who challenge the need to “be always watchful” for the imminent second coming as urged by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse, or who deny that believers should eagerly pray “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly” concerning his final advent, find themselves at odds with the Confession’s futurist eschatological expectancy.

A. A. Hodge: A Case Study in Historic Postmillennialism’s Confessionalism

While the older postmillennialists did (naturally) hold to deep future time, they did not interpret prophecies of the near coming of Jesus in Revelation 1:7, 22:7, 22:12, and 22:20 preteristically. As a rule, they did not adopt preterist interpretations of NT passages that speak of the imminent second appearance of Christ. In principle, they stayed committed to the classical doctrine of the impending parousia taught in the Confession.

The teaching of A. A. Hodge provides a helpful case study here, particularly since this Old-Princetonian postmillennialist wrote a commentary on The Westminster Confession. In his comments on WCF 33.3, Hodge affirms the traditional doctrine of the near return of Christ and puts forth futurist interpretations of several eschatological texts that modern postmillennialists tend to read as references to AD 70, passages such as Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32; Luke 12:35–37; 12:40; 1 Corinthians 1:7–8; 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10; 5:2; James 5:7; 2 Peter 3:10–12; and Revelation 16:15; 22:20.^[21] Hodge concludes,

The designed effect of the attitude of uncertainty with regard to the time of the second advent and general judgment in which the saints are placed is, that they should regard it as always immediately impending; that they should look forward to it with solemn awe, and yet with joyful confidence; and hence, in view of it, be incited to the performance of duty and the attainment of holiness, and comforted in sorrow…. It is their duty also to love, watch, wait for, and hasten unto the coming of our Lord.^[22]

How did historic postmillennialists like Hodge—and before them the Puritans—reconcile their expectation of deep future time with Scripture’s teaching on the nearness of the second coming? They did so, Iain Murray argues, by suggesting that believers experience the nearness of the presumably far-off parousia by faith. Murray explains, “Faith has a peculiar power at precisely this point. The exercise of faith can bring very near events which, chronologically considered, may lie a long way from us. Faith annihilates distance.”^[23] Murray, representing the proto-postmillennial Puritans in particular, imagines that the NT’s teaching on eschatological expectancy regarding the second coming involves bringing near spiritually, through faith, an event that believers supposedly know to be remote chronologically.^[24]

This line of reasoning, whatever else one might say about it, at least attempts to maintain both an expectation of deep future time and the NT’s pervasive teaching on Christ’s imminent return. But this is not how partial-preterist postmillennialists reconcile their expectation of deep future time with the language of imminence in eschatological texts. No, modern postmillennialists, who interpret passages about the impending parousia preteristically, have abandoned any commitment to the doctrine of the near return of Jesus—a commitment that persisted in some form or another among the Puritans and Old Princetonians, and certainly among the early church fathers and Reformers, especially Calvin.

An Excursus on Eschatological Expectancy in the NT and in Calvin

The traditional and biblical understanding of eschatological imminence, which differs from the “by faith” approach described by Murray above, anticipates the chronological nearness of the second coming while acknowledging that only the Father knows the actual time frame, since it is his prerogative to continue delaying the near parousia as long as he wants. I have written elsewhere that

believers should eschew “Jewish dreams that there will be a golden age on earth before the Day of Judgment” (Second Helvetic Confession XI) and keep a lookout for Christ’s imminent second coming (Matt 24:36–25:13; Luke 12:40; Rom 13:12; Jas 5:8; 1 Pet 4:7; 2 Pet 3:12; 1 John 2:18; Rev 1:1, 3; 2:16; 3:11; 22:6–7, 10, 12, 20), knowing that our eschatological “salvation” is ever “ready to be revealed” (1 Pet 1:5). Triumphalist expectations about what must transpire on earth before Jesus comes back diminish the comfort and motivation to godliness that stem from loving and anticipating his near return (Mark 13:32–37; Phil 3:20; 4:5; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:15–18; 5:6–11; 2 Tim 4:8; Titus 2:11–13; Heb 10:24–25; Jas 5:9; 2 Pet 3:10–12; 1 John 3:2–3). As long as the Father continues to delay (Matt 24:48; 25:5, 19; 2 Pet 3:4) the paradoxically fixed day of the parousia (Matt 24:36; Acts 1:7; 17:31) to allow more time for repentance (2 Pet 3:8–9) and to complete the divinely preset amount of suffering and martyrdom assigned to the church (Col 1:24; Rev 6:11), we must hasten that final day by living godly lives (2 Pet 3:11–12). And we must use the borrowed time to deepen and widen the victory of the Great Commission achieved by the apostles, eagerly anticipating the redemption of our bodies and continually praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20; cf. 1 Cor 16:22; Westminster Confession of Faith XXXIII.III).^[25]

In his NT commentaries, Calvin expounds the scriptural understanding of eschatological imminence with characteristic clarity and acumen. Commenting on Romans 13:12, he writes, “As soon as God begins to call us, we ought to direct our attention to the coming of Christ, just as we conclude from the first rising of the day that the full light of the sun is at hand.”^[26] In his exposition of 1 Peter 4:7, after affirming that “Christ will shortly come, and He will put an end to all things,” Calvin says,

It could be objected that a long series of ages has passed away since Peter wrote this, and yet that the end is not yet in sight. My reply to this is that the time seems long to us, because we measure its length by the extent of this fleeting life, but if we could understand the eternity of the life to come many ages would appear to us like a moment, as Peter will also tell us in his next letter. Besides, we must remember this principle, that from the time when Christ once appeared there is nothing left for the faithful [to look forward to] except to look forward to His second coming with minds alert.^[27]

Calvin explains how Hebrews 10:25 can meaningfully affirm that believers living, as it turns out, many generations before the second coming nevertheless

saw the day at hand and almost upon them…. They [the original audience of the book of Hebrews] were not deceived by any false imagination when they were prepared to receive Christ at almost any moment, for the condition of the Church from the time of the promulgation of the Gospel was such that the whole period was truly and properly called the last days. Those who have been dead for many generations lived in the last days no less than we do. Artful and sarcastic men, to whom it is ridiculous that we have any faith in the resurrection of the flesh and the last judgment, laugh at our simplicity in this direction; but in case they shake our faith by their mockery, the Holy Spirit teaches us (II Peter 3.8) that with God a thousand years are as one day, so that whenever we think of the eternity of the heavenly kingdom no period of time should seem long to us. Further, since the time that Christ completed all the work of our salvation and ascended into heaven, it is right and proper that we should continually expect His second revelation and think of each day as though it were the last.^[28]

Writing on James 5:8, Calvin declares that “the Lord is at hand” and “His coming is near,” concluding, “We must gather strength, and be firm, and from what better source, than from the hope, the virtual sight, of the close coming of the Lord!”^[29]

Conclusion: A Call to Eschatological Expectancy and Confessional Honesty

Doug Wilson has suggested on occasion that the ecumenical Creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian) make only one eschatological determination, namely, that full preterism is wrong: Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead. True enough.^[30] Significantly, the eschatological stance of The Westminster Confession requires an additional inference, namely, that partial-preterist postmillennialism is also wrong: Jesus is coming back soon to judge the living and the dead, and believers should pray expectantly for his imminent return using the words of Revelation 22:20.

This is not to claim that the Westminster Divines intended to address partial-preterist postmillennialism, a view that took root during the twentieth century’s Christian Reconstruction movement. Rather, the Divines simply stated the doctrine of Christ’s imminent return, in line with classical Christian thought, which contradicts partial-preterist postmillennialism. Modern postmillennialism, which interprets the coming of Christ prophesied in Revelation 22:20 (along with 1:7, 22:7, 22:12, and Matt 24:30) as already fulfilled, stands in direct contrast to the basic eschatological framework of the Confession and the Bible, both of which teach believers to cultivate a fervent eschatological expectancy regarding the parousia. Those who subscribe to The Westminster Confession of Faith (or The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order or The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith) ought to adhere to this document’s scriptural teaching on the near return of Christ, which is integral to biblical piety and the Christian’s blessed hope.

Ecclesiastical governing bodies should at the very least require honesty from subscribing pastors who deviate from the Confession’s summary of Scripture’s teaching on the nearness of the Son of Man’s future coming, found principally in the Olivet Discourse and the Apocalypse. Any failure to uphold the Confession’s exhortation to “be always watchful” for the parousia, or to “be ever prepared to say Come Lord Jesus, come quickly” with reference to the second coming, necessitates at minimum an acknowledgment of exception to WCF 33.3 (or SDFO 32.3 or SLBCF 32.3) to maintain confessional integrity. Ecclesiastical authorities must then determine whether an exception to the Confession at this point strikes at the heart of Westminster’s theology. Arguably, an exception to this basic biblical doctrine should lead to serious reservations about a man’s fitness to preach and teach in a Reformed church. Rejection of the second coming’s imminence strikes at the heart of Christian theology, including Westminster’s system of doctrine. After all, is not Christ’s impending return more basic than paedobaptism, concerning which no ecclesiastical body governed by the Westminster Standards would normally allow an exception for men with baptistic views?

Gaffin’s warning to be watchful for the imminent parousia reflects a crucial teaching of confessional Calvinist theology, one with profound practical implications. The pastoral dimension makes this issue of utmost concern; it is a matter with discernible effects on Christian living.^[31] Accordingly, Pastor John Calvin admonishes us still today with his comments on 2 Peter 3:10:

[Peter] shakes our sleepiness off us, so that we may look expectantly for the coming of Christ at any time, and not give up as we are accustomed to do. How does it come about that we indulge our flesh unless by reason of the fact that we have no thought of the near advent of Christ?”^[32]