“Finally, we believe, according to the Word of God, when the time appointed by the Lord (which is unknown to all creatures) is come, and the number of the elect complete, that our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven, corporally and visibly, as he ascended, with great glory and majesty to declare himself judge of the quick and the dead; burning this old world with fire and flame, to cleanse it. And then all men will personally appear before this great judge, both men and women and children, that have been from the beginning of the world to the end thereof,…”
1. This article speaks of the following truths:
a. The second coming of the Lord.
b. The resurrection of all the dead, righteous and wicked alike.
c. The judgment.
d. Reward and punishment.
e. The end of the world.
2. The second coming:
a. The time appointed is unknown to all.
b. Nevertheless, there are signs of the coming of the Lord, and these signs increase in intensity as the end approaches: the preaching of the gospel, the ingathering of the elect, wars and rumors of wars, pestilences, earthquakes, apostasy, the development of Antichrist and the false prophet. Hence, all things must be accomplished according to God’s counsel before the coming of the Lord. Not at any time, therefore, can the Lord come, as is the view of the Chiliasts with their conception of the rapture.
c. The Lord will come from heaven:
1) Corporally and visibly.
2) With great glory and majesty.
3) To declare Himself judge of all.
3. All the dead shall be raised:
a. The wicked and the righteous.
b. Their souls shall be united with their own bodies, in which they lived in the world.
1) This, of course, does not mean that their souls and their bodies shall be unchanged.
2) On the contrary, they will be adapted either unto glory or unto everlasting desolation and perdition in hell. (In this connection we must also note that the article uses the term “immortality” in the philosophical, not in the Scriptural sense of the word. The sense is: everlasting existence.)
c. And all the living shall be changed. This also refers not only to the godly, but also to the ungodly. Those are changed unto glory; these are adapted to perdition.
4. The judgment:
a. Christ shall be the judge. All judgment is committed unto Him.
b. This judgment shall take place undoubtedly immediately after the resurrection, while the place of judgment will probably still be the earth.
c. The things judged shall be all the works of men:
1) Their deeds and their words.
2) Good and evil.
3) Even “amusements and jests”.
4) All secret things and hypocrisies.
d. And they shall be exposed to all. For the books (according to the article, the consciences of men) shall be opened. All shall see their own works in the correct light of God’s justice.
5. Reward and punishment:
a. The judgment will be terrible for the ungodly. They shall be condemned by the testimony of their own consciences, and sent into everlasting torment. There is no universal redemption, nor a conditional immortality, nor a second chance.