But its [the Magdeburg Confession] importance has stood the test of time. It especially came to the fore just a few years ago when the Covid reign of terror descended upon much of the world…As this globalist statism is likely to only get worse in the days ahead, returning to these older documents become more needful than ever.

One of the earliest Protestant statements on the place of resistance to wicked rulers is the Magdeburg Confession. The confession was written by a group of German pastors at Magdeburg laying out why they had to resist the 1548 Interim of Charles V. Among other things, it set out the doctrine of the lesser magistrates, but more on that in a moment.
Given that religion and politics were so closely intertwined at the time, it is not surprising that the Confession dealt with both matters. But before proceeding, a bit of an historical overview–via a timeline–should be offered here.
Timeline
1483–Luther is born.1497-1498–Luther a student at Magdeburg.1505–Luther’s conversion.1517–Luther posts his 95 Theses.1521–The Edict of Worms condemns Luther and the Reformation.1530–The Diet of Augsburg convened by Charles V to deal with religious differences. Philip Melanchthon represents Luther, with the “Augsburg Confession” being presented there.1531–The Schmalkaldic League is formed. It was a military alliance of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman Empire. The Lutheran city Magdeburg is one of the first to join.1546–Luther dies.May 15, 1548–Emperor Charles V imposes his Interim, seeking to force Protestants back into Catholicism.April 13, 1550–The Magdeburg Confession is written.October, 1550–The siege of Magdeburg begins.November 4, 1551–The siege is lifted after the defenders of the city withstand the forces of Charles V.
The Confession is short (around 90 pages in English text) and has three main parts. It restates various principles and beliefs enunciated by Luther, and in the ‘Second Part’ it famously discusses the role of the lesser magistrate to stand up against ungodly tyrants. In the Colvin translation (see reading list below) it goes from pages 47-72.
It should be pointed out that the word “magistrate” here means any form of civil government or civil ruler, be it a king or prince or governor or president. This section is comprised of three arguments. The first argument opens with these words:
The Magistrate is an ordinance of God for honor to good works, and a terror to evil works (Rom. 13). Therefore when he begins to be a terror to good works and honor to evil, there is no longer in him, because he does thus, the ordinance of God, but the ordinance of the devil. And he who resists such works, does not resist the ordinance of God, but the ordinance of the devil. But he who resists, it is necessary that he resist in his own station, as a matter of his calling….
When, moreover, he deposes an inferior [lesser] magistrate who is unwilling to obey him in such a crime, and replaces him with someone who is willing, by the very fact that he now honors and promotes evil works, and dishonors and destroys the good, he is no longer the ordinance of God, but the ordinance of the devil…
The writers go on to distinguish between various levels of wrongdoing or evil: “Here we must also distinguish different degrees of offense or injury. Since there is a great difference between them, we must consider whom a magistrate is able and ought to resist, and in what way, lest we suppose that we are permitted to make any injury we choose into an opportunity to disturb our superiors.”
They examine four such levels or degrees, and say of course that only the most severe of them warrant such resistance. Thus they say of the final level:
The fourth and highest level of injury by superiors is more than tyrannical. It is when tyrants begin to be so mad that they persecute with guile and arms, not so much the just persons of inferior magistrates and their subjects, as their right itself, especially the right of anyone of the highest and most necessary rank; and that they persecute God, the author of right in persons, not by any sudden and momentary fury, but with a deliberate and persistent attempt to destroy good works for all posterity.
The second argument begins as follows:
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Jesus promised a sign would occur in the heavens, when He ascended there, sat on the throne to reign, and began the work of putting all His enemies under His feet. His Kingship is the sign!

Nickel Therapy Sessions and Judgment Comings
The melancholy boy walked timidly away from the five-cent therapy booth, questioning the psychological advice Lucy had given him again. “There is no better emotional outlet than kicking a football”, she mused with an air of clinical sensitivity. “If you cannot trust your therapist”, Charlie Brown muttered to himself as he was walking away, “then who can you trust?” That thought seemed to push him over the edge, propelling his lumpy little body awkwardly toward the prize, activating his casserole abs and cupcake quads into the locked and loaded position and ready to fire. With the safety off and the trigger pulled, his foot swept briskly through the air, missing the ball entirely that had now been pulled out from under him, yanking his husky little body up toward the sky like Darius on a warm summer day, only to crash under the weight of his unmet expectations.
When scenes like this play out over comic books or airwaves, we chuckle at the silly dolt who fell for it once again. We laugh, even while detesting all of the modern-day Lucy’s over at Buzzfeed and the ad approval division at Twitter who treat us in much the same way. Yet, as much as I personally detest clickbait and rug pulls, I found myself almost giving in to my inner Lucy on the blog last week. Almost.
For a split second, I almost went with the title, “Ten Reasons Why The Second Coming Has Already Happened”. And of course, if you read the article, that is perfectly true so long as you let me define the word “coming”. But after some prayer and counsel from an older brother in the faith, I added the clarity that was needed to the title, and all was well. But, I am sure you are wondering, why is all of this important?
Because I do not want to be a Lucy in your life when it comes to this topic. I want you to kick the eschatological ball down the field and through the uprights. I want you to understand what the Bible is saying about these things and not be left lying on your back in eschatological grief and confusion.
Spiritual v. Physical “Comings”
To do that, we have been introducing the concept that there are two kinds of divine “comings” in the Bible. There are times when God “comes” against a people for their sins. When this occurs, the coming is always spiritual, covenantal, always in the apocalyptic genre, and always in the context of divine judgment. There is also another kind of “coming” where God pursues a people in order to rescue them. When this happens, the coming is always physical, incarnational, and personal.
For instance, when God comes bodily in the garden, it is to rescue Adam and Eve from their sins. When God comes bodily to Abraham it reveals God’s promises to Abraham and to cut him into the covenant. When God comes physically to the people of Israel, it is to rescue them from Egyptian slavery. When God comes physically and incarnationally in the first century, it is to rescue all of God’s elect who were in slavery to Satan, sin, and death. And, when Christ comes physically at the end of human history, it is to rescue God’s people, finally and forever from the curse and death, and to deliver them imperishable and incorruptible into eternity with Him (See 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4).
And yet, this bodily, salvific, and incarnational coming does not account for all of the kinds of “comings” that we see God engaging in within the Bible. For instance, look at Isaiah 19:1

Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence,And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.—Isaiah 19:1

In a passage where lifeless idols, made of wood and stone, take on personified attributes of trembling, and where human hearts are melting faster than a Yankee candle under a flamethrower, then is it any wonder that the language of “coming” is not describing a physical and bodily event but a spiritual judgment coming of God against a wicked nation. When you also understand that “clouds”, “suns”, “moons”, “stars”, and “heavenly shakings” show up in every single passage where a major nation or city comes under the judgment of God (such as Babylon In Isaiah 13, Egypt in Isaiah 19 and Ezekiel 32, Tyre in Isaiah 23 & 24, Edom in Isaiah 34, Judah in Jeremiah 4, and against Jerusalem in Joel 2 and 3, Amos 5 and 8, as well as various other passages) then you realize that there is a tremendous amount of passages where God truly and actually “comes” against a nation in judgment, without it being bodily and incarnational.
As we have been proving over the last several episodes, the “coming” passages described in Matthew 24, especially in verses 29-31, do not represent the end of human history and the bodily final coming of Jesus but are the fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament, where God promises His day of wrath will eventually fall on Judah. When Jesus answered His disciples’ questions in Matthew 24, a forty-year countdown clock began, that would end in God “coming” against the Jews and their city being leveled to dust.
In that spiritual, covenantal, and apocalyptic sense, I can say that the second coming has already come. And I intend to share more evidence with you this week that this reading of Matthew 24 is the Biblical reading. But, for the sake of clarity please let me repeat my aforementioned qualification. I am not a full preterist. I believe in a bodily end of world history coming. And I believe that this coming is still in our future. I contend that this is not what Matthew 24 is speaking about, and to that end, let us continue where we left off last week.
Evidence 4: The Sign in the Sky?
When Jesus says:

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky…—Matthew 24:30a

We have several issues that need to be understood. First, the time frame has not changed. “And then” signals a logical and chronological sequence of events that ties this entire prophecy together. After forty years of signs and evidence that will increase in magnitude and intensity over a single first-century generation (Mt. 24:3-28, 34), one of the final signs will be shown in the heavens that will signal Christ’s Kingdom has come and that the old Kingdom is passing away.
Second, there are a few linguistic challenges in this passage that need to be worked out if we are going to understand what it means. For now, we will only deal with the first one, which is the translation of the word “sky”.
In our modern English translations, it appears as if the Son of Man will make an appearance in the sky. If you read further down, it seems like all the world will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds and the people of the earth will mourn over what they have done. This is what the dispensational types would have you to believe, but it is not a faithful translation of the text.
More will be said below, but the word that is being translated as “sky” here, which exists in the material realm, is actually the common word for heaven, which is in the spiritual dimension. To illustrate my point, you and I cannot build a rocket that will fly to the heavenly throne room where God dwells, because heaven does not have a physical address at some interstellar crossroads in the cosmos. Heaven exists in an entirely different plane of existence that we cannot travel to with material ends. One might say that heaven is skyward, but that is only until you start accounting for the rotation of the earth, our location in orbit with the sun, and various other issues like this.
Whenever God appears in bodily form, or divine form, or also when He disappears in bodily form, He does not go up or down or take a specific direction of flight. He simply shows up at a location, or leaves a location, almost out of thin air. For instance, when the crowds are looking to kill Him, He vanishes. When He transfigured before His disciples, He does not go anywhere but merely pulls back the material curtain so that they can see the spiritual realm. In this sense, heaven is not a location that one needs to travel to but an overlapping sphere of reality that God may step in and out of effortlessly without even moving.
The only exception to that rule is Christ’s ascension UPWARD into heaven, which has massive theological implications that we will look at in a moment. For now, suffice it to say that heaven is not a physical or material space where God travels to and from. It is an immaterial and real plane of existence that God may step in and out of at His pleasure.
This is incredibly important because we need to know where the sign occurs. If it occurs in a material sky, and if Jesus will be riding a material cloud, and if all the material world will see it happen, then we have a problem. Because there is no record that an event like this ever occurred. In that case, this would be good evidence to support a futurist conclusion.
But, this interpretation ignores the fact that a switch in genres has occurred and that we can no longer interpret these verses with the same rigid wooden literalism we employed before. Usually, most people (not including dispensational futurists) understand this kind of linguistic switch intuitively when it happens.
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The overture enables the PCA to speak into an urgent issue, while mitigating the perception that Christians condone or support political violence. And if such acts happen in the future, the Statement will distance the denomination from any violence done in the name of Christ.

Four days before Christmas of 2021, the adult child of a Loudoun County, Virginia, school board member received an anonymous note saying, “It is too bad that your mama is an ugly communist wh*re. If she doesn’t quit or resign before the end of the year, we will kill her, but first, we will kill you!”
Loudoun County is within the boundaries of the PCA’s Potomac Presbytery, which also includes our nation’s capital. In recent years, Washington D.C. has witnessed various displays of violence, from across the political spectrum. On one end of the divide, rioters vandalized buildings, set cars on fire, and assaulted police. On the other end, rioters also assaulted police to storm the U.S. Capitol and disrupt certification of election results.
But Washington D.C. is hardly alone. Election officials in several states have been threatened. A police precinct building in Portland, Oregon, was set on fire. An actionable plot to kidnap to the governor of Michigan was thwarted by the F.B.I.
And some of these acts of violence and intimidation have been done in the name of Jesus.
Concerned by this downward slide in American political discourse, Chris Hutchinson (pastoring in Blacksburg, VA) and I (pastoring in Arlington, VA) felt it was time for the Church to speak, through a “Statement on Political Violence” calling members of the PCA, the broader Church, and a watching world to peaceful expressions of political objectives. Our initial draft soon became a group effort, representing a broad spectrum of teaching and ruling elders. As a combat veteran, Chris particularly encouraged soliciting input from military veterans, who have thought long and hard about the proper and improper use of force. Once the overture was submitted to Potomac Presbytery in January, the MNA Committee sponsored two forums for members of the presbytery to carefully consider every word and refine the document. The MNA Committee unanimously recommended the overture to Potomac, which approved the Statement by a very large majority.
The Statement asks the General Assembly to approve four resolutions:

To remind the PCA that our highest allegiance is to Jesus Christ
To condemn political violence, especially that which is done in the name of Jesus
To pray for peace in our country during the General Assembly
To encourage the PCA to pursue peace in the public square

Throughout the process of drafting the overture, important questions were raised:

What is the biblical and confessional support for these resolutions?

The overture cites several passages from Scripture and the Westminster Standards, such as Jesus’ command to his followers to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” (Luke 6:27). How the Apostle Paul exhorted Christians facing opposition in the capital of the Roman empire, “if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (Romans 12:18). How the Westminster Larger Catechism states the duties required in the sixth commandment include “peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behavior, forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil.” (WLC 135).

Why is this overture necessary?

The United States has witnessed a striking increase in political violence and intimidation in recent years, from across the political spectrum, including arson, assaults on government buildings, and a growing number of personal threats to public officials. Why the increase?
Experts who have studied the causes of political violence cite several factors, including polarization, marginalization, and despair. Polarization not only pushes people towards political extremes but also portrays opponents as existential threats. Marginalization occurs when various groups perceive they have lost status or influence. And ultimately, despair sets in when hope in the peaceful political process is lost.
Unfortunately, all such factors are present today, and increasing. The Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other national and state agencies report they are anticipating more acts of political violence.
Recent polls underscore this concern. A January 2022 poll by Quinnipiac University showed that 58% of Americans believe “the nation’s democracy is in danger of collapse.” A November 2021 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute indicated that 18% of all Americans, i.e. members of both major parties and independents, agreed that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country.” Pause for a moment to think what that means. Nearly one in five Americans—roughly 52 million adults—think political violence may be necessary. One might be tempted to dismiss such an extraordinarily large number as an exaggeration. But what if merely 1% of those who condone political violence were willing to act on their beliefs? That would mean 500,000 adults would be willing to assault a police officer. 500,000 adults would be willing to vandalize a government building. 500,000 adults might even be willing to assassinate an election official or member of Congress. And even more terrifying, what if the actual percentage were higher than 1%? Clearly, there is reason for concern.

Does this overture call for pacifism?

The Statement rejects acts of violence by private individuals, but it does not advocate pacifism. The overture expressly affirms the Lord has granted the power of the sword to civil governments and honors the service of members of law enforcement and the military. It also cites the Westminster Larger Catechism, which states the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment include “all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others, except in case of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defense; the neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life; sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge; all excessive passions.” (WLC 136).

Does the Statement delegitimize the American Revolution?

Before we put pen to paper, we considered whether a statement rejecting political violence might appear to question the legitimacy of the American Revolution. Ultimately, we chose not to refer to the War of Independence as we weren’t asking the courts of the PCA to render a political judgment on matters that properly belong to individuals and civil magistrates. Instead, we wanted to speak into the situation before us—one in which Americans are condoning or supporting political violence and intimidation.
At the same time, we wanted to avoid language where someone might infer the overture questioned the American Revolution. Thus, the Statement explicitly condemns “unlawful expressions” of political violence. In contrast, the Declaration of Independence was unanimously approved by the Second Continental Congress, which consisted of elected representatives of the 13 states. That same Congress established a Continental army, elected a commander-in-chief of the army, and oversaw the war effort. Such actions are a far cry from the “unlawful expressions” of political violence by unelected, private citizens we see today.

What does the overture actually hope to achieve?

First, the overture enables the PCA to speak into an urgent issue, while mitigating the perception that Christians condone or support political violence. And if such acts happen in the future, the Statement will distance the denomination from any violence done in the name of Christ.
Second, the overture provides guidance to our members how to engage in debates in the public square, namely by rejecting violence and intimidation, and instead, by speaking with wisdom, love and grace. By modeling civility, the Church has an opportunity to be salt and light in our divisive culture.
Third, if the overture prevents even one act of violence, it will be well worth our discussion. We aren’t so naïve as to think an overture from the PCA is going to heal our country. But if the Statement results in one less threatening note, one less assault, one less building vandalized, one less life needlessly ended, the effort would be more than worth it.
And most importantly, we hope to honor Christ by affirming to one another and a watching world that Jesus is worthy of our highest allegiance, and that we trust him as our sovereign and gracious King.
Read Overture 26
Scott Seaton is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Emmanuel PCA in Alexandria, VA
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