Table of Contents
BACKGROUND
INTRODUCTION
Our hope should never change its focus from the Savior ever with us to the "signs of
the times" supposedly heralding His coming.
SECTION I - CONTEXT
A. Lure of the Unknown
The desire to know the Unknown is a characteristic of being human, and is heightened for
those who are touched by God's revelation of His purpose in the written Word, both the
actual writers and the hearers.
B. Historical Roots of Futurism
C. Summary of Millennial Definitions
1. Historic Premillennialism (Chiliasm)
2. Postmillennialism
3. Amillennialism
4. Dispensational Premillennialism
Across the ages of time, circumstances of persecution and peril on the one hand or peace
and progress on the other have inspired various interpretations of the Consummation to
meet those conditions; the first in terms of imminent rescue of church and world by the
Second Advent, the second in reaffirmation of faith in the Divine instrumentality of the
church to prepare or introduce either the temporal Golden Age or the Final State.
SECTION II - ESCHATOLOGY IN THE REFORMED TRADITION
A. Up to the Westminster Assembly (A.D. 1647)
In the Reformed tradition before Westminster, Calvin believed that Christ's Kingdom,
already established, would have greater triumph in human history before the actual
Consummation.
B. Westminster Confession and Catechisms
1. "That Day Unknown"
The Westminster Confession and Catechisms refused to compress the hope of the future into
a set of predictions but insisted that God holds the time unknown in order to preserve the
immediacy and urgent watchfulness of our expectation of that Day.
2. Scripture Interprets Itself
The refusal of Westminster to boil the biblical hope down to a schedule was their witness
that we trust in God, not in special knowledge.
3. The Hope for Church and World
In Westminster, the hope for the full manifestation of the Kingdom of God
includes the hope for the overcoming of sin and Satan in this world before the time of the
end as well as for the flourishing of the Church.
C. Reformed Tradition Since Westminster
Since Westminster, the movement has been toward a theology of hope, a latter-day glory
vision of the Church's future in the world and in this age.
SECTION III - ESCHATOLOGY IN BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE
A. The End as the Fulfillment of God's Purpose in Creation
God's sovereignty is the first and most important affirmation in our understanding of
God's final purpose, such purpose assured by the work of Jesus Christ; and God is on His
way toward the fulfillment of His purpose wherein He will at last be everything to
everybody.
B. God's Act in Christ, Basis for Hope in the Future
In light of the fact that God's purpose, revealed and accomplished in Christ Jesus, will
be brought to full fruition, our response is to work to make visible in the world the
reality of God's love, and to declare the good news that in Jesus Christ the future is
secure.
SECTION IV - IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL AND CHURCH
The Cosmos will at last be redeemed in all its fullness from its bondage to sin, decay,
and death; not as the end result of any historical process which can now be observed, but
purely and only because God has determined that it will be so.
A. Implications For Personal Faith
The reward God gives to those who trust His power to complete the work of redemption is
hope; not the optimistic conviction that by our own account we bring in the Kingdom but
that we can learn to prefigure and show it forth in our present lives, if only brokenly.
B. Implications for the Mission of the Church
Confidence in the future vindication of God's way with evil and the redemption of the
world enables us as a community of faith, hope, and love to put ourselves collectively on
the line in the struggle against corruption and decay.
SECTION V - PRINCIPLES OF FAITH RELATED TO ESCHATOLOGY
There is considerable latitude for variations in eschatological position within the
Reformed tradition, but strong principles brought from other branches of Reformed Theology
provide boundaries which must be preserved.
APPENDIX: REPORT ON DISPENSATIONALISM (1944 GA)
Background
In 1944, the Ad Interim Committee on Changes in the Confession of Faith
and Catechisms presented a report refuting dispensationalism, which was adopted by the
General Assembly (1944 GA Minutes, pp 123-127, and see Appendix).
While noting that dispensationalism is a premillennial position the 1944
General Assembly specifically noted that the report was "not in any sense a criticism
of premillennialism as such."
Nearly three decades later (1973) the 113th General Assembly referred an
overture concerning premillennialism and other forms of eschatology from the Transylvania
Presbytery to the Council on Theology and Culture for the following action which
subsequent General Assemblies have continued:
a. to deal with this question, preparing in that connection an
interpretive study of eschatological doctrine which will reflect what is in accord with
the system of doctrine set forth in the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms
of this church; and
b. to prepare for presentation for adoption to a future General Assembly
an interpretive statement of belief in the area of eschatology which will reflect the
system of doctrine set forth in the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms
of this Church and will, therefore, set forth the understanding which the Presbyterian
Church in the United States has to eschatology in its various dimensions. (Cf. 1973 GA Minutes,
p. 48).
The statement is constructed for logical flow, beginning with the
observation that from the outset of human history, the unknown, of which future time is an
element, is always a lure to human curiosity, a truth evident even in the enquiries of
Bible writers themselves and in the history of eschatological projections both religious
and secular (I). The
Reformed heritage stands as a beacon in time, avoiding pitfalls of futurism in a
deliberate, theologically consistent frame of reference viewing the future within the
clear limits God has imposed. This Reformed heritage continues through pre-Westminster,
the Westminster event itself,
