He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end

The Text

The clause closes Article 2. The eternal Son who descended, was incarnate, was crucified, rose, ascended, and is seated at the Father’s right hand is the same Son who will come again. The catholic faith is structured by this expectation. The church lives between the times — between the first coming and the second, between the resurrection and the parousia, between the ascension of the Son and his return. The clause names the not yet of Christian existence: the same Christ confessed in the previous clauses is also the Christ we await.

The clause is dense with biblical-eschatological language. The coming in glory echoes Daniel 7:13 (the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven), the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), the Pauline parousia teaching (1 Thess. 4:13–18; 1 Cor. 15:20–28, 51–58; 2 Thess. 1:5–10), the Petrine teaching (1 Pet. 4:5; 2 Pet. 3:1–18), the Johannine teaching (1 John 2:28; 3:2–3), and the entire Book of Revelation. The judging echoes the great judgment scenes of Matt. 25:31–46, John 5:22–29, Acts 10:42, Romans 2:6–11 and 14:10, 2 Corinthians 5:10, and Revelation 20:11–15. The kingdom without end echoes Luke 1:33 (the angel’s annunciation to Mary) and the entire biblical-prophetic tradition of the eternal reign of the Messiah.

The clause is one of the most contested in pastoral practice. The doctrine of the second coming and the last judgment has been the subject of enormous theological reflection, ecclesial dispute, and pastoral confusion. The catholic creed gives the dogmatic substance in brief: the Son will come; he will come in glory; he will come to judge; the judgment will be of the living and the dead; his reign is eternal. The detailed eschatological frameworks (premillennial, postmillennial, amillennial; the various readings of Revelation 20; the various dispensational schemes that have arisen in the modern period) are not in the creed. The catholic faith confesses what the creed confesses; the further detail is, in important measure, theological speculation.

Translation Notes

Palin erchomenon / iterum venturus est — he will come again. The verb of the parousia. Parousia (παρουσία) is the Greek word for the arrival or presence of a king or other dignitary; it has come, in Christian theological vocabulary, to be the standard term for the second coming of Christ. The clause’s will come again names the catholic confession that the same Christ who came once (at the incarnation) will come a second time (at the end of the age). The two comings are dogmatically related but distinct: the first was in hiddenness (the eternal Son veiled in flesh, born in obscurity, dying in humiliation); the second will be in glory (the eternal Son openly manifested as the divine ruler before whom every knee will bow).

Meta doxēs / cum gloria — in glory. The phrase that contrasts the parousia with the incarnation. The incarnation was characterized by the hiddenness of the eternal Son under the conditions of fallen creaturely existence; the parousia will be characterized by the manifestation of the eternal Son in his proper divine glory. The catholic confession refuses any reading that would conflate the parousia with the first coming or with the church’s experience between the comings.

Krinai zōntas kai nekrous / iudicare vivos et mortuos — to judge the living and the dead. The phrase of universal judgment. The contrast between the living and the dead names the comprehensive scope: every human being, whether already deceased at the parousia or still alive at the parousia, will be judged. The dogmatic point is the universality of the judgment, not a temporal-ordering of two judgments (the doctrine of two judgments, distinguishing a judgment of the living and a judgment of the dead, has not been received by the catholic mainstream; the creed names one judgment with universal scope).

The English the living and the dead (modern translations) replaces the older the quick and the dead (BCP 1662). The change is purely linguistic: quick in older English meant living, alive, with no implication of speed; in contemporary English quick has come to mean rapid, and the older sense has been largely lost. The change to the living preserves the meaning.

Hou tēs basileias ouk estai telos / cuius regni non erit finis — of whose kingdom there will be no end. The addition to the 381 Constantinopolitan revision. The phrase is drawn from Luke 1:33 (Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary: of his kingdom there will be no end). The clause was added at Constantinople (381) to refuse the teaching of Marcellus of Ancyra (d. c. 374), who had held that the eternal Son’s reign as Mediator was a temporary reign that would end when the redemptive economy was complete (Marcellus read 1 Cor. 15:24–28, the great Pauline subjection text, in this direction). The catholic refutation: the Son’s reign is the eternal reign of the eternal Son, and 1 Cor. 15:24–28 is not to be read as predicting the end of the Son’s reign but as predicting the completion of the present economic mediation and the consummation of the Son’s eternal reign in its unmediated form.

Historical Context

The clause has a complex textual history. The 325 Nicene Creed contained the substance of the eschatological confession (and is coming to judge the living and the dead) but did not contain the of whose kingdom there will be no end phrase. The 381 Constantinopolitan revision added the phrase as an explicit refutation of Marcellus of Ancyra and his followers.

Marcellus of Ancyra was a contemporary of Athanasius and an ally in the anti-Arian cause; his theological positions were, however, eventually judged unsatisfactory by the Cappadocians and the broader catholic tradition. Marcellus held a monarchian theology in which the Word and the Spirit were not personally distinct from the Father in eternity but only became distinct in the divine economy (the Word becoming personal in the incarnation, the Spirit becoming personal at Pentecost). On this reading, the Son’s reign as Mediator was a temporary economic state that would, at the eschaton, give way to the one God being all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). The catholic refutation insisted that the Son’s reign is the eternal reign of the eternally personal Son, and 1 Corinthians 15 is not to be read as predicting the end of the Son’s personal existence as Son.

The clause has done dogmatic work in several areas of the catholic tradition. In Christology, the will come again preserves the dogmatic distinction between the first and second comings and refuses every conflation. In eschatology, the living and the dead names the universal scope of the judgment. In trinitarian theology, the kingdom without end preserves the eternal personal existence of the Son against monarchian collapse. In political theology, the kingdom without end relativizes every earthly kingdom: no human empire is eternal; only the kingdom of the Son endures.

The clause has been the foundation of the church’s eschatological hope. The creed does not specify when the second coming will be (and the New Testament refuses to specify; Matt. 24:36 — of that day and hour no one knows), but it confesses that it will be, and the church’s life between the times is characterized by expectation. The Maranatha prayer (1 Cor. 16:22; Rev. 22:20: Come, Lord Jesus) is the apostolic prayer of the expectant church.

The modern proliferation of eschatological frameworks — dispensational premillennialism, classical premillennialism, postmillennialism, amillennialism, preterism, futurism, historicism — has often obscured what the creed itself confesses. The creed does not specify a millennial reading of Revelation 20, does not specify a pre-tribulation rapture, does not specify a particular sequence of events. The catholic dogmatic substance is broader and simpler: the Son will come, in glory, to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. The detailed frameworks are theological-interpretive schemes that have varying levels of biblical warrant and ecclesial reception; the creed itself is content with the dogmatic substance.

Lines of Interpretation

Patristic

Tradition: Irenaeus, Against Heresies V; Tertullian, Against Marcion, Against Praxeas; Athanasius, Against the Arians; Basil and the Cappadocians (especially on Marcellus); Augustine, City of God XX–XXII; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XV; Gregory the Great, Moralia

The patristic settlement on the parousia and judgment is the foundation of all subsequent catholic eschatology. The Fathers articulated the doctrine under several integrated heads.

Irenaeus’s Against Heresies V develops a substantial eschatology that integrates the second coming with the recapitulation theme: the parousia is the climax of the Son’s recapitulating work, the final gathering up of the human race in him. Irenaeus’s millennial reading (a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth before the final consummation) is one of the earliest substantive Christian millennial articulations, but its level of detail was not received by the broader catholic mainstream.

Tertullian’s writings against Marcion and against Praxeas develop the doctrine of the second coming with characteristic North African polemical vigor, against both the dualist denial of bodily resurrection (Marcion) and the monarchian collapse of the trinitarian persons (Praxeas). His Against Praxeas anticipates the dogmatic substance of the kingdom without end clause.

Augustine’s City of God XX–XXII gives the major Latin patristic articulation of eschatology. Augustine’s amillennial reading of Revelation 20 (the thousand-year reign of Christ is the present church age, between the resurrection and the parousia) became the catholic mainstream and has remained so in most of the catholic tradition (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican). Augustine’s careful distinction between the city of God (the church) and the earthly city (the human empires and societies) preserves the eschatological distance between every present human institution and the eternal kingdom of the Son.

The patristic refutation of Marcellus of Ancyra by the Cappadocians (especially Basil, Against Eunomius; Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius; Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Orations III–IV) is the specific theological work that the kingdom without end clause encodes. The Cappadocians insisted that the eternal personal distinction of the Son from the Father is not a temporary economic state but the eternal trinitarian reality, and 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 must be read in this light.

Strengths

• The patristic settlement is the foundation of all subsequent catholic eschatology
• Augustine’s City of God XX–XXII is one of the great works of Christian theology
• The Cappadocian refutation of Marcellus is the catholic dogmatic settlement
• The patristic restraint on detailed eschatological speculation is exemplary

Weaknesses

• Some patristic articulations drifted toward speculative refinement of the eschatological scenery
• Irenaeus’s millennial reading has not been universally received and remains a matter of interpretive dispute

Scholastic

Tradition: Anselm, Cur Deus Homo; Peter Lombard, Sentences IV (the last things); Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.59 (the judiciary power of Christ), Supplementum (on the last things); Bonaventure, Sentences IV; Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy

The scholastic tradition received the clause and articulated the doctrine of the novissima (the last things) under multiple heads: the coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, the eternal states (heaven, hell, purgatory in the Roman Catholic tradition), and the renewal of creation.

Aquinas’s treatment in ST III.59 articulates the judiciary power of Christ: the eternal Son has been given the authority to judge because (1) he is the eternal Son, with the divine authority proper to the second person of the Trinity, and (2) he is the incarnate Son, who has actually lived the human life that he will judge — and therefore the judgment is the judgment of one who knows the human condition from the inside.

Dante’s Divine Comedy (early 14th c.) is, in many ways, the great medieval imaginative articulation of the eschatology of judgment. The poem’s vision of the eternal states (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) and its dramatic representation of the divine judgment are, in their dogmatic substance, the catholic articulation of the present clause. Dante’s particular detail (the geography of hell, the rings of purgatory, the spheres of paradise) is poetic-imaginative articulation, not catholic dogma; but the dogmatic substance — that the eternal Son judges, that the judgment is real and consequential, that the eternal states are distinct — is the catholic settlement.

Strengths

• Aquinas’s articulation of the judiciary power of Christ integrates the two natures
• The scholastic articulation of the novissima gives the doctrine its mature medieval form
• Dante’s imaginative articulation has shaped Western Christian eschatology

Weaknesses

• The Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory (developed in the medieval period, formally defined at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 and the Council of Florence in 1439) has not been received by the Protestant traditions
• Some scholastic speculation on the eschatological details outran the biblical witness

Lutheran

Tradition: Luther, On the Last Days, Sermons on the End Times; Augsburg Confession XVII; Formula of Concord XII; Lutheran scholastic theology

The Lutheran tradition has held the clause in catholic form. The Augsburg Confession XVII gives the dogmatic articulation: Our churches teach that at the end of the world Christ will appear for judgment and will raise up all the dead. He will give to the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but he will condemn ungodly men and the devils to be tormented without end.

Luther retained the Augustinian amillennial reading and rejected the chiliastic (literal millennial) interpretations. His writings on the end times often expressed a high sense of the nearness of the parousia (Luther frequently expected the second coming in his own generation), but his dogmatic articulation was restrained and catholic.

The Formula of Concord XII addresses several specific eschatological errors (the Anabaptist chiliasm, the universalist doctrine that all will eventually be saved, and others) and affirms the catholic dogmatic substance.

The Lutheran integration of the doctrine with the gospel of justification is permanent. The judgment is not a piece of dispassionate divine accounting; it is the moment at which the believer’s faith in the crucified-and-risen Christ becomes the foundation of the eschatological verdict. The believer who has been justified by faith is the believer who will be acquitted in the judgment — not because of their works, but because they have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Strengths

• The Lutheran integration of judgment with justification is permanently valuable
• The Augsburg Confession XVII gives the dogmatic substance with clarity
• Luther’s restraint on speculative detail is exemplary
• The Formula of Concord XII addresses specific eschatological errors with precision

Weaknesses

• Some Lutheran scholastic articulations drifted toward forensic-juridical refinement
• The Lutheran tradition has occasionally underdeveloped the cosmic dimension of the parousia

Reformed

Tradition: Calvin, Institutes II.16, III.25; Heidelberg Catechism QQ. 52, 56–58; Belgic Confession Article 37; Westminster Confession Ch. 33; Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3 §73; Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God; T. F. Torrance, Apocalypse Today

The Reformed tradition has held the clause in catholic form. Calvin’s articulation in Institutes II.16.17–18 is patristic in inheritance and dogmatically careful: the same Christ who is now seated at the Father’s right hand will come again; his coming will be in glory; he will judge the living and the dead; the justified in faith will be acquitted, and the unbelieving will be condemned.

The Heidelberg Catechism Q. 52 gives the catechetical-pastoral form: What comfort is it to thee that “Christ shall come to judge the quick and the dead”? That in all my sorrows and persecutions, with uplifted head, I look for the very same person, who before offered himself for my sake to the tribunal of God and has removed all curse from me, to come as Judge from heaven. The pastoral integration with the believer’s present hope is permanently valuable.

The Westminster Confession Ch. 33 articulates the doctrine in full Reformed scholastic form. God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds.

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics IV/3 §73 articulates the eschatology in 20th-century Reformed register. The parousia of Christ, for Barth, has three moments: the resurrection of Christ (the first parousia, in which the divine Yes is decisively spoken); the present sending of the Spirit (the second parousia, in which the divine Yes is communicated to the church); and the final parousia (in which the divine Yes is universally manifest). Barth’s threefold articulation has been broadly influential in 20th-century Protestant theology.

Jürgen Moltmann’s The Coming of God (1995) is the major late-20th-century Reformed-ecumenical treatment of eschatology. Moltmann’s articulation of the coming God (rather than the future God) emphasizes that the parousia is not a piece of yet-to-be-actualized future but the coming of the God who is already on his way to the world.

Strengths

• The Reformed tradition has held the catholic substance with great care
• The Heidelberg Catechism Q. 52 gives the pastoral form its definitive Reformed shape
• Barth’s threefold parousia is a substantial 20th-century contribution
• Moltmann’s Coming of God is the major recent treatment

Weaknesses

• Some Reformed scholasticism pressed the doctrine into forensic-juridical refinement
• The Reformed tradition has occasionally separated the judgment of the elect from the judgment of the reprobate in ways the creed does not warrant

Eastern Orthodox

Tradition: the Last Judgment iconography; John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith IV; Symeon the New Theologian; the Synodikon of Orthodoxy; modern: Sergei Bulgakov, The Bride of the Lamb; Vladimir Lossky

The Eastern tradition has held the clause in catholic form, with characteristic emphasis on the iconographic and liturgical dimensions. The Last Judgment icon (the Doomsday Sunday icon, displayed in the Eastern Orthodox churches on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Sunday before the start of Great Lent) is one of the most theologically dense Eastern icons. The icon depicts Christ enthroned in judgment, with the dead being raised, the saved being separated from the damned, and the cosmic transformation underway. The iconographic detail is rich and well-developed.

The Eastern liturgical observance of the parousia is woven throughout the liturgical year. The Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee, the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, and the Sunday of Forgiveness — the four Sundays of the Triodion before Great Lent — together form the pre-Lenten meditation on the parousia and judgment.

The Eastern eschatology has been less developed than the Western on the specific eschatological frameworks (millennial readings, dispensational schemes) and more developed on the iconographic-liturgical expression of the parousia and the theotic transformation of the cosmos. The Eastern emphasis on theōsis shapes the eschatology: the final state is not merely the vindication of the justified but the deification of the redeemed in eternal participation in the divine life.

The Eastern Orthodox tradition has been ambivalent on the question of apocatastasis (the doctrine that all will eventually be saved, associated especially with Origen). The Council of Constantinople II (553) condemned a list of Origenist propositions including apocatastasis, but the patristic basis of the condemnation has been disputed, and some major Eastern theologians (Gregory of Nyssa most notably, in the 4th century; Sergei Bulgakov in the 20th) have held forms of universal restoration. The catholic mainstream has held that the possibility of eternal loss is real, while making no positive dogmatic claim about the actual eschatological fate of any individual.

Strengths

• The iconographic tradition makes the doctrine visible in the liturgy
• The pre-Lenten observance of the Sunday of the Last Judgment is pastorally powerful
• The integration with theōsis gives the eschatology its proper cosmic depth
• The patristic-Eastern restraint on speculative detail is exemplary

Weaknesses

• The Eastern openness to forms of apocatastasis has been disputed within the tradition itself
• Some modern Russian sophiology has pressed the eschatology in directions the catholic tradition has not received

Wesleyan

(See Wesleyan Voice below.)

Modern Ecumenical

Tradition: Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3 §73; Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, The Coming of God; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology III; N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope; Sarah Coakley; Robert Jenson; Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope

The 20th- and 21st-century theological recovery of eschatology has been substantial. Moltmann’s Theology of Hope (1964) inaugurated a major modern revival of the doctrine, against the tendency of much modern theology to spiritualize or demythologize the parousia. Moltmann’s claim: Christian theology is, in its very form, eschatological theology — theology done from the standpoint of the not yet of the coming kingdom — and the parousia is not a piece of mythological scenery but the future toward which the present Christian life is oriented.

Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology III gives a substantial Lutheran-Reformed-ecumenical articulation of eschatology in dialogue with modern philosophy and science. Pannenberg’s reading: the parousia is the retroactive divine confirmation of what has been anticipated in the resurrection of Jesus.

N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope (2008) is the major recent popular-academic Anglican articulation of the doctrine. Wright’s central concern is to recover the embodied, cosmic, new-creation character of the Christian hope, against various forms of Platonist-spiritualist reduction that have made the Christian hope into a doctrine of the soul going to heaven when you die.

Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? (1986) is a major Catholic articulation of a hopeful universalism (the position that the church may hope that all will be saved, while making no positive dogmatic claim that all will be saved). The position has been controverted in Catholic theology and remains a matter of ongoing dispute.

Strengths

• The modern recovery has restored eschatology to its proper place at the center of Christian theology
• Moltmann’s Theology of Hope is a foundational 20th-century articulation
• Wright’s Surprised by Hope has shifted popular Protestant eschatology in directions friendly to the catholic confession
• The ecumenical convergence on the recovery of cosmic, new-creation eschatology is remarkable

Weaknesses

• Some modern reconstructions have so emphasized the imminence of the parousia that the not yet has been collapsed into the already
• The doctrine of hopeful universalism (Balthasar; certain readings of Barth) remains a point of ongoing dogmatic dispute

Wesleyan Voice

Wesley’s confession of the parousia and the last judgment is unambiguous, deeply pastoral, and characteristically integrated with the doctrine of sanctification and Christian perfection. The Methodist Articles of Religion (1784) imply the doctrine throughout. Sermon 15, “The Great Assize,” is the great Wesleyan sermon on the parousia and the judgment, preached at the assizes (the regular court sessions in Bedford) on 10 March 1758; the sermon is one of Wesley’s most sustained and pastorally powerful treatments of the doctrine.

Wesley’s articulation in the Great Assize sermon: the parousia is certain; the judgment is universal (every human being will be judged); the judgment is thorough (every thought, word, and deed will be brought to light); the judgment is just (the divine standard is the standard of true righteousness, not the standard of human convention); the judgment is consequential (the eternal states are real, and the difference between salvation and damnation is the most consequential question a human being can face).

What is distinctively Wesleyan is the integration of the parousia and the judgment with the doctrine of sanctification. The Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection (the doctrine that the believer may, in this life, be perfected in love, by the power of the indwelling Spirit) is grounded in the doctrine of the judgment: the eschatological standard is the standard of holiness (Heb. 12:14 — without holiness no one will see the Lord), and the gospel offers not merely the forensic acquittal of justification but the real transformation of sanctification. The pastoral consequence: the believer is to seek the holiness that the judgment will require, in confidence that the same Christ who will judge is the Christ who has provided, in the Spirit, the means by which the holiness is made available.

The Wesleyan integration with the doctrine of universal grace gives the doctrine of the judgment its proper pastoral framework. Because Christ died for all (clause 12), and because the offer of grace is held out to all by the prevenient work of the Spirit, no one will be judged who has not first been offered the grace by which they could have been saved. The eschatological judgment is therefore just: those who are condemned are not condemned because the grace was not available to them, but because they have refused the grace.

Wesley’s pastoral practice on the doctrine of the judgment was direct. He preached the parousia and the judgment as a means of awakening the sinner to the actual weight of their condition and the actual availability of grace. His Field Preaching sermons frequently included the parousia as one of the dogmatic substances of the gospel call. The Methodist class meetings and band meetings were structured around the question of preparation for the judgment: the disciplines of mutual confession, encouragement, and accountability were the means by which the early Methodists prepared one another for the parousia.

Charles Wesley’s hymnody confesses the parousia with characteristic passion. Lo! he comes with clouds descending, / once for favored sinners slain; / thousand thousand saints attending / swell the triumph of his train: / Alleluia! Alleluia! / God appears, on earth to reign. The hymn is one of the great Advent confessions of the parousia, and it is the dogmatic substance of the present clause in hymnic form. The hymn continues: Every eye shall now behold him / robed in dreadful majesty; / those who set at naught and sold him, / pierced and nailed him to the tree, / deeply wailing, deeply wailing, / shall the true Messiah see.

Rejoice, the Lord is King — Rejoice in glorious hope: / our Lord, the Judge, shall come, / and take his servants up / to their eternal home: / We soon shall hear th’archangel’s voice; / the trump of God shall sound, rejoice!

Soldiers of Christ, arise (Charles Wesley, 1749) integrates the parousia with the believer’s present struggle: Soldiers of Christ, arise, / and put your armor on; / strong in the strength which God supplies / through his eternal Son.

The pastoral Wesleyan posture: confess the parousia and the judgment without modification; receive them as the actual horizon of Christian life, not as a piece of remote eschatological scenery; integrate the doctrine with sanctification and Christian perfection (the holiness that the judgment will require is the holiness the Spirit offers); preach the parousia as both awakening (to the actual weight of the human condition) and consolation (to the believer’s hope of glorification); refuse every reduction of the doctrine to a piece of otherworldly speculation and confess instead its present-tense shaping of the Christian life.

Hymnody

The hymnody on this clause is the great Advent and Christ-the-King repertoire, with substantial overlap with the eschatological-hope hymnody.

“Lo! he comes with clouds descending” (Charles Wesley, 1758) is the great Wesleyan Advent hymn of the parousia: Lo! he comes with clouds descending, / once for favored sinners slain; / thousand thousand saints attending / swell the triumph of his train: / Alleluia! Alleluia! / God appears, on earth to reign.

“The King shall come when morning dawns” (Greek, trans. John Brownlie, 1907) is the major Anglican Advent parousia hymn: The King shall come when morning dawns / and light triumphant breaks; / when beauty gilds the eastern hills / and life to joy awakes.

“Rejoice! the Lord is King” (Charles Wesley, 1744) confesses the parousia in joyful register: Rejoice in glorious hope: / our Lord, the Judge, shall come.

“Soon and very soon” (Andraé Crouch, 1976) is the great African-American parousia hymn: Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.

“Wake, awake, for night is flying” (Philipp Nicolai, 1599; trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1858) is the great Lutheran Advent hymn of the parousia: Wake, awake, for night is flying! / The watchmen on the heights are crying, / “Awake, Jerusalem, at last!”

“Come, thou long-expected Jesus” (Charles Wesley, 1744) integrates the first and second comings: Come, thou long-expected Jesus, / born to set thy people free.

“On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry” (Charles Coffin, 1736; trans. John Chandler, 1837) is the Advent hymn of preparation for the parousia: On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry / announces that the Lord is nigh.

“Let all mortal flesh keep silence” (Liturgy of St James, 4th c.; trans. Gerard Moultrie, 1864) integrates the first coming and the parousia: King of kings, yet born of Mary.

“At the name of Jesus” (Caroline Maria Noel, 1870) confesses the universal subjection at the parousia: At the name of Jesus / every knee shall bow.

“O day of God, draw nigh” (Robert B. Y. Scott, 1937) is the major 20th-century parousia hymn: O day of God, draw nigh / in beauty and in power.

“Day of judgment, day of wonders” (John Newton, 1779) is the Calvinist parousia hymn: Day of judgment, day of wonders, / hark! the trumpet’s awful sound, / louder than a thousand thunders, / shakes the vast creation round.

“Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth” (Walter Russell Bowie, 1928) is the major 20th-century American Protestant hymn of the parousia.

“Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim” (Charles Wesley, 1744) confesses the kingdom that has no end: the great congregation his triumph shall sing, / ascribing salvation to Jesus, our King.

For the liturgical year: this clause is the dogmatic substance of Advent (the season of expectation of the parousia, in the first two weeks of Advent, before the focus shifts to expectation of the Nativity), of Christ the King Sunday (the last Sunday of the liturgical year, before Advent begins), and of various other observances throughout the year (the Sunday of the Last Judgment in the Eastern Orthodox calendar; All Saints’ Day in the Western calendar).

Pastoral and Liturgical Use

Three pastoral tasks attach to this clause.

The first is restoring eschatology to its proper place at the center of the Christian life. Much of contemporary American mainline Protestantism has effectively domesticated the parousia, treating it as either (a) a piece of remote-future scenery that has no present-tense weight on the Christian life, or (b) an embarrassment to be either dismissed or quietly reinterpreted into a piece of inner-spiritual experience. The catholic tradition has held the parousia as the horizon against which the entire Christian life is lived. The pastor’s task is to recover the proper weight: the Christian lives in expectation, and the expectation shapes the present in concrete ways (the believer’s prayer life, the church’s witness, the disciplines of holiness, the orientation toward the new creation).

The second is teaching the parish to take the judgment seriously without making it primary. The catholic faith confesses that the eternal Son will come to judge the living and the dead. The judgment is real, universal, and consequential. The pastor’s task is to refuse two opposite errors: (a) the evangelical-fundamentalist error of making the judgment the primary element of the gospel (which can produce a Christianity of fear rather than of love and gratitude), and (b) the liberal error of dismissing the judgment as embarrassing or irrelevant (which leaves the gospel without its proper eschatological seriousness). The catholic posture: the judgment is a consequence of the gospel of grace and the horizon of the Christian life, not the foundation of the gospel. The foundation is the love of God in Christ; the judgment is the moment at which the love confronts what stands against it.

The third is teaching the parish to live by the “kingdom without end.” The catholic creed confesses that the Son’s reign has no end. The pastoral consequence is enormous. Every earthly kingdom is temporary; only the kingdom of the Son is eternal. The political-temporal arrangements of the present age are passing; the politeia (Phil. 3:20) of the church is eternal. The pastor’s task is to teach the parish to live with proper eschatological reserve toward the political-cultural arrangements of the present age, while engaging them in faithful witness, without ever forgetting that the kingdom without end is what is ultimately at stake. The Christian’s ultimate citizenship is not in any nation, party, or political order; it is in the kingdom of the eternal Son.

For the preacher: the parousia is the proper subject of the Advent season. The contemporary collapse of Advent into a four-week extended Christmas has lost the catholic discipline of the expectation of the parousia in the first two weeks of Advent before the focus shifts to the Nativity. The pastor who wants to teach the doctrine of the present clause has, in Advent, a substantial annual opportunity.

For the liturgist: the Maranatha prayer of the apostolic church (1 Cor. 16:22; Rev. 22:20: Come, Lord Jesus) has been retained in the eucharistic liturgies of many catholic traditions and is a major pastoral resource. The liturgical practice of acclaiming Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again at the institution narrative of the eucharist makes the parousia present in the church’s central act of worship.

End-of-Article Pause

The catholic confession of the Son is here complete: the eternal Son, only-begotten of the Father, of one Being with the Father, through whom all things were made, came down for us and for our salvation, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, was buried, rose on the third day, ascended, is seated at the Father’s right hand, and will come again in glory. The second article — the dogmatic heart of the catholic faith — closes here. The third article (the Holy Spirit) opens next.

Further Reading

• Daniel 7:13–14 — one like a son of man… coming with the clouds of heaven
• Isaiah 2:1–5; 11:1–10; 25:6–9; 65:17–25 — eschatological visions
• Joel 2:28–32; 3:1–17 — the day of the Lord
• Zechariah 14 — the day of the Lord
• Malachi 4 — the day of the Lord
• Matthew 24–25 — the Olivet Discourse and the great judgment scene
• Matthew 24:36 — of that day and hour no one knows
• Mark 13 — the Markan apocalypse
• Luke 1:33 — of his kingdom there will be no end
• Luke 17:20–37; 21 — Lukan apocalyptic
• John 5:22–29 — the Son’s authority to judge
• John 14:1–3 — I will come again
• Acts 1:11 — this Jesus… will come in the same way
• Acts 10:42; 17:31 — the apostolic preaching of the judgment
• Romans 2:1–16; 14:10–12 — the judgment of all
• 1 Corinthians 15 — the resurrection and the consummation
• 2 Corinthians 5:10 — we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ
• Philippians 2:9–11 — the universal subjection
• Philippians 3:20–21 — our citizenship is in heaven
• 1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11 — the parousia
• 2 Thessalonians 1–2 — the parousia and the man of lawlessness
• 1 Timothy 6:14–16 — the eschatological appearing
• 2 Timothy 4:1, 8 — who will judge the living and the dead
• Titus 2:11–14 — the blessed hope
• Hebrews 9:27–28 — just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment
• James 5:7–11 — the patience of the parousia
• 1 Peter 4:5, 7, 13 — the judgment of the living and the dead
• 2 Peter 3 — the day of the Lord will come like a thief
• 1 John 2:28; 3:2–3; 4:17 — the parousia and confidence in the judgment
• Jude 14–15 — the Lord is coming with his holy ones
• Revelation 1:7; 19:11–21; 20:11–15; 21–22 — the parousia, the judgment, and the new creation
• Didache §16 — the early apocalyptic
• Irenaeus, Against Heresies V
• Tertullian, Against Marcion, Against Praxeas
• Cyprian, On the Lord’s Prayer
• Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XV
• Augustine, City of God XX–XXII
• Gregory the Great, Moralia; Dialogues IV
• John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith IV
• Anselm, Cur Deus Homo
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.59; Supplementum
• Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy
• Luther, On the Last Days
• Augsburg Confession XVII; Formula of Concord XII
• Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.16; III.25
• Heidelberg Catechism QQ. 52, 56–58
• Belgic Confession Article 37
• Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 33
• Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church (1784) — implied throughout
• John Wesley, Standard Sermons, Sermon 15 (“The Great Assize”)
• John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament on Matthew 24–25, 1 Thessalonians 4, 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation
• Charles Wesley, “Lo! he comes with clouds descending”
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3 §73
• Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Harper & Row, 1967); The Coming of God (Fortress, 1996)
• Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology III (Eerdmans, 1998)
• N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne, 2008)
• Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? (Ignatius, 1988)
• Anthony Thiselton, Life After Death (Eerdmans, 2012)
• Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (Eerdmans, 2018)