The Belgic Confession

Article 37. About the Final Judgment, the Resurrection of the Flesh and Eternal Life

Finally, we believe, according to the word of God, that when the time predestined by God and unknown to all creatures arrives, and the number of the Elect will be completed, our Lord Jesus Christ is going to return from heaven, bodily and visibly, just as He once ascended there, decorated with consummate Majesty, and He will reveal Himself as a judge of the living and of the dead, having set this old world ablaze with fire and flame in order that He would purify it. Then truly all creatures, so as with men also with women and infants, as many as have thereupon lived, back from the beginning up unto the end of the world, will appear in the presence of this consummate Judge, certainly called forth by the sound of both the Archangel and by the trumpet of God. For all of the previously dead will then rise up from the ground and, by the Spirit, the soul of every one of them, in turn, will be united and joined together with their own body in which they had lived. Again, those who will be living up unto that ultimate day will be transformed in but a moment and a blink of the eye, clearly from corruption into an incorruptible nature. Then the books, certainly the consciences, will be opened up and the dead will be judged according to the things that they did in this world, whether good or bad. In fact, people are then even going to render an account of every idle word that they have spoken, which the world now regards as sport and joke. In short, then all the hypocrisies, and secrets of people, and the things of their hearts, will be openly uncovered in presence of all people, so that, with singular merit, the thought of this is rightly horrible and terrifying to the wicked and reprobate, and truly both most greatly hoped for and also an enormous consolation for the elect. For then their redemption will be made thoroughly obvious, and they will obtain the most pleasant fruits of their labor and pain that have endured in this life; then their innocence will be openly acknowledged by everyone, and they themselves, in turn, will see the terrifying vengeance that the Lord will take upon those whom have tyrannically afflicted them with various torments and molestations in this world. Again, evil people will be convicted by the own testimony of their consciences, and indeed rendered immortal, but in that state so that they will always be tortured eternally in the never-ending fire that has been prepared for the Devil. But on the contrary, the faithful and Elect will truly be given crowns of honor and glory, and the Son of God will confess their name in the presence of God the Father and of the Angels, and every tear will be wiped from their eyes. And so, their cause, which is damned as heresy and wickedness by Magistrates and judges, will then be acknowledged to be the cause of the Son of God. And the Lord will freely reward them with such glory as no person ever can imagine with the mind. Therefore, we wait upon that great day of the Lord with consummate eagerness so that, as happy people, we will most fully acquire and will thoroughly enjoy throughout eternity all of those things promised by God in Jesus Christ the Lord. Apoc. 22:20. Come again Lord Jesus.