Original Covenanter Eschatology: Historicist and Postmillennial

Changing Eschatology in the RPCNA (Part 1)

By Robert Kelbe - Posted at Gentle Reformation

This is the first in a two-part series on the change in eschatology within the RPCNA. The first part will explore the postmillenialism prevalent until the middle of the 20th century. The second part will explore the change to amillenialism under the influence of J. G. Vos and the Blue Banner.

Introduction: The 1807 Testimony

In 1807, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, now the RPCNA, published its first Testimony called Reformation Principles Exhibited which had been approved by the Presbytery the year before. Roughly following the chapter divisions of the Westminster Confession of Faith, this original testimony of the RPCNA adds a final chapter on “Testimony-Bearing”. The last paragraph of that last chapter states that
The church may not recede from a more clear and particular testimony to a more general and evasive one but the witnesses must proceed in finishing their testimony rendering it more pointed and complete until God shall according to his promise overthrow the empire of darkness and introduce the millennial state in which the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.[1]

The reference to “the millennial state” is a reference to the standard postmillennial Covenanter eschatology which was dominant in the RPCNA until after the Second World War. According to postmillennialism, Christ comes after the “thousand years” of Revelation 20 during which Satan would be bound. This paper will trace the change from a postmillennial to an amillennial consensus in the RPCNA under the influence of J. G. Vos as the editor of The Blue Banner from 1946 to 1979, culminating in a new 1980 Testimony which, in its statement on eschatology, receded from a more clear and particular testimony to a more general and evasive one.

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The Testimony of Thomas Stoddart Executed in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket on 12 August, 1685

Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs : Thomas Stoddart was executed in the Grassmarket on 12 August, 1685. Matthew Bryce , David Law and Gavin Russell were hanged alongside him. ‘Men, Brethren, And Fathers, Hearken,—I being to take my farewell of the world, I leave this my dying testimony, according to the form of the Christians of old; I having like the same ground for it that he had who used that word; that was Stephen; who was condemned, because he spoke blasphemous words against the law and the temple. So, because I will not adhere to, nor approve of their laws, which now have power in their hands, they condemned me to die, though they could not witness so much against me for speaking against them, and they never essayed to prove the sentence upon me, which now I shall study in a word to give you an account of. And first, I received my sentence of banishment, and then notwithstanding of that I was committed to the justices to abide the assize, and they passed upon me th

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