Westminster Confession on the millennium & Christ's return
No required position; several views held faithfully
At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the self-same bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever.
THE POSITION
The Confession requires no millennial position. It never mentions a millennium, never cites Revelation 20, and never uses the word. What it does fix is the shape of the end: one last day on which the living are changed and 'all the dead' - just and unjust together - are raised (32.2-3), followed immediately by one general judgment of angels and of 'all persons, that have lived upon earth' (33.1), followed by the two eternal states. For a confessional document, that silence is normative rather than accidental: what the Confession does not require, ministers subscribing it are not bound to hold.
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
4 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
The confessional standard of English-speaking Presbyterianism, completed by the Westminster Assembly in 1646 and adopted with its Scripture proofs. This entry rests on the 1646 text from the manuscript of Cornelius Burges as edited by S. W. Carruthers (1937) for chapters 1-24, and on the 1647 text for chapters 25-33; the Assembly's own proof texts attached to each paragraph supply every reference below.
Cite this page
"Westminster Confession on the millennium & Christ's return", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/westminster/millennium (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/westminster/millennium).