Eschatology

Eschatology is the doctrine of last things — the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the new heavens and new earth. Historic Christianity has been diverse on the millennium but united on the essentials: Christ will return bodily, the dead will be raised, the righteous will inherit eternal life, and the wicked will face eternal punishment (WCF 32–33; Belgic 37).

Most Reformed theologians have held either amillennialism (the "already and not yet" kingdom between the first and second advents, with no earthly millennium) or postmillennialism (a gradual triumph of the gospel culminating in Christ's return). Premillennialism in its historic form is also represented. The dispensational system — pretribulational rapture, seven-year tribulation, distinct Israel-church programs — is a 19th-century development largely rejected by confessional Reformed churches.

These questions treat the second coming, the millennium views, the intermediate state (where believers go at death), heaven and hell, the last judgment, and the various end-times symbols — the antichrist, the tribulation, the mark of the beast. Eschatology is not the most speculative doctrine but the most comforting: "We look for the resurrection of the dead."