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
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[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 return4). 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[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[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