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Examined Doctrine

Huldrych Zwingli on the millennium & Christ's return

1484 – 1531 · REFORMED
DISPUTED AMONG SCHOLARSNO POSITION FOUND
NO STANCE — AND WHY

No position located in this corpus

Searched in the sources read for this figure and not found. A limit of the reading rather than a claim about the figure — a source not yet read could settle it.

THE POSITION

No position, and for a specific reason rather than a gap in the record. Zwingli did not regard Revelation as an apostolic book — 'it does not savour of the mouth and genius of John,' he said — and on that ground never used it for doctrine at all. A reading of Revelation 20 was therefore not something he was going to produce. Nothing in the Sixty-Seven Articles, the Declaration Regarding Original Sin or the Fidei Ratio — the works read in full here — sets out a scheme for Christ's return beyond the creedal affirmation that he will come to judge the living and the dead. The Exposition was read only in its chapter on eternal life and is not reported on.

WHY THERE IS NO QUOTATIONFive positions carry no quotation, for two different reasons. On the canon, the miraculous gifts, the millennium and the unseen realm nothing in the works read poses the question; on the final state he assumes the answer rather than arguing it. Zwingli died at 47 leaving no systematic theology, and several of his works were not reachable in a public-domain English text for this run, so these are blanks in a partial corpus rather than proof that he was silent everywhere.

WHAT OTHERS HOLD HERE

Amillennial — the millennium is the present church ageAQUINAS · AUGUSTINE · CALVIN · TIM KELLER · LUTHER · PHILIP MELANCHTHON · R.C. SPROUL
Premillennial — Christ returns before a future millenniumIRENAEUS · JOHN MACARTHUR · JUSTIN PETERS · JOHN PIPER
Postmillennial — the gospel triumphs before Christ returnsJONATHAN EDWARDS · JOHN OWEN
No required position; several views held faithfullyATHANASIUS · M. HEISER · JOSH HOWERTON · SECOND LONDON BAPTIST CONFESSION · WESTMINSTER CONFESSION
See all 23 figures on the millennium & christ's return →

ABOUT THIS FIGURE

Reformer of Zurich and the first Reformed theologian to leave a confession — the Sixty-Seven Articles of 1523 predate Augsburg by seven years. He pushed further than Luther on the Supper, which split the early Reformation at Marburg in 1529, further than anyone on the reach of election, and further than any other Reformer on who might finally be saved. This entry rests on the Sixty-Seven Articles (1523), the Declaration Regarding Original Sin (1526), the Fidei Ratio sent to Charles V (1530) and the Exposition of the Christian Faith written weeks before he died in battle — the last of these read only in its chapter on eternal life.

13 OF 18 POSITIONS QUOTED
Everything Zwingli holds →
Cite this page

"Huldrych Zwingli on the millennium & Christ's return", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/zwingli/millennium (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/zwingli/millennium).

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