1.
In relation to the approved courses of study for candidates for the ministry, at
least 50% of the total course of study must be delivered in weekly classroom
mode.
2. In relation to the approved courses of study for candidates for the ministry, at
least 85% of the total course of study must be taken in face-to-face mode.
3. Where a student enters the candidates’ course having already completed a
qualification for which they are eligible to be granted credit into the candidates’
course, credit equivalent to no more than 50% of the candidates’ course in total
shall be granted for any studies completed online and/or in intensive mode.
Whatever the amount of credit that is granted, at least 50% of the student’s total
four-year course (credit granted + further studies at a PCA College), is to be
completed in weekly-attendance (classroom) mode (i.e. at least two years full-
time, or part-time equivalent).
4. In relation to the situation above, the grading subcommittee be empowered to
make exceptions on application by the candidate.
5. Christ College, PTCV, and QTC include the substance of the above four motions
in their Candidates Course & Cross Credit Checklist Documents and take other
reasonable steps to ensure that prospective candidates are aware of these
requirements.
College Visitation
Each triennium, the College Committee undertakes a visitation of one of the three
theological colleges of the PCA. During the present triennium, the College Committee
conducted a (delayed) visitation to Christ College, Sydney in 2016. The visitation committee
was comprised of the Rev. Dr Gary Millar (Principal, QTC), the Rev. Peter Hastie (Principal,
PTC), and the Rev. Alistair Bain (Convener, TEC, Tasmania).
Theology Conferences
Following the successful theology conferences involving staff and students from our
theological colleges in 2009 and 2013, another theology conference took place at QTC
Brisbane on 12-14 September 2017 on the theme: “Beyond 500 - the future of Reformed
Christianity in Australia”. The next conference is scheduled for 2020 in Sydney.
The Whyte Trust
The Trustees in 2016 approved the distribution of the annual income of The Whyte
Trust along with the corpus of the Capital over a period of ten years (Initial Capital amount
being $959,511.05). The distribution to each of the State Colleges is based on the number
of candidates (including deaconesses) studying at each college as reported to the College
Committee at its annual meeting.
Appendix: eschatology and the millennium in the WCF
The College Committee was directed by the GAA to report on the reference from the
Presbytery of Western Australia asking the Assembly to express an opinion on whether the
Westminster Confession of Faith teaches or excludes particular views on eschatology and
the millennium.
The reference does not specify which views are of concern to the Presbytery, and there
was no explanation given to the Assembly. So, the Committee has considered a range of
possible views, relating mainly to the millennium.
The Committee has been asked to comment on the position of the Confession (and
presumably the doctrinal position of the PCA). Hence, this report does not deal with the
biblical basis for the Confessional position. We direct interested readers to the following for
expositions of the biblical material which shows the basis for the confessional position.
• C. P. Venema, The Promise of the Future (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2000),
79 folio Bomberg edition of 1518 folio Bomberg edition of 1518 –109.
• K. Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003).
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Definition
The Millennium is the 1000-year era in which Christ and the martyrs will reign on earth
(Rev. 20:4). This may be interpreted quite literally as involving the physical presence of Christ
and resurrected believers ruling for 1000 years, or as a period of triumph for the gospel and
restoration of the church, or it may be understood as a description of the current age when
Christ rules in heavenly session and believers share with him in that (Eph. 2:6).
The background to the WCF
Although some in the early church (Papias, Justin, the Montanists, Tertullian) held a
millennial view, the majority view came to be that of Origen, Tyconius, and Augustine that
the millennium is the reign of Christ through the Church between his first and second comings
(Civ. Dei 20.6–7). 19 In the medieval church, the millennial period was often taken to equate
to the rise of Christianity, or of Christendom. This was the position inherited and affirmed by
the magisterial Reformation. 20
However, Puritanism and Reformed thought on the Continent saw a rise of
millenarianism. Jue suggests that this was due to an exegetical tension: the Reformers
inherited the traditional historicist view that the millennium was the Christian era which had
now passed (in AD 1000 or 1300), but also held that the papacy was the anti-Christ which
had arisen during the millennial period. The religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries only
increased this conviction. In 1627, the German Johann Heinrich Alsted, and Joseph Mede,
a fellow at Christ’s College Cambridge, both published works with a millenarian view, and
these had a major influence on the eschatology of the Puritans. 21
Hence the Westminster Assembly was written during a period of considerable
eschatological speculation. The Scottish commissioner Robert Ballie (1599–1662)
complained that many of the English members of Assembly were millenarians, especially
Thomas Goodwin and Jeremiah Burroughes. The momentous events of British History in the
1640s encouraged this speculation. Goodwin wrote in his Exposition of Revelation that he
expected the conversion of the Jews in 1650 or 1665, the fall of the Antichrist in 1666, and
the physical resurrection of the saints before the millennium. Ballie himself looked forward to
the ‘repair of Zion’ and thought that the ‘day of vengeance upon the Antichrist’ was not far
off. George Gillespie preached to parliament in 1644 that the prophecy of the rebuilt temple
in Ezekiel looked to an age of righteousness and ‘later day glory’—and suggested that the
fulfilment may be dated in 1643 (i.e. the calling of the Assembly!). Others in the Assembly,
such as Alexander Henderson, opposed millennialism. There were also more radical
eschatologies being espoused outside the bounds of the Assembly.
The Confession
It is notable that in this context the WCF is very restrained in its affirmations about
eschatology. Gribben observes, ‘Puritan confessions repeatedly refuse to endorse the
radical eschatologies defended in the individual writings of some of the very theologians who
composed them… puritan expositors showed themselves more open to rehabilitating the
patristic millenarian tradition — but, remarkably, never in their confessions.’ 22
The Confession presents a profoundly Christological exposition of salvation and hence
of eschatology. Christ is the one in whom all God’s purposes are worked out, especially those
of redemption (8:1), so he is ‘the Mediator’ and ‘the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and
Saviour of His Church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world’. The exposition of the
historical work of Christ ends with the fact that he ‘shall return, to judge men and angels, at
the end of the world’ (8:4). All the eschatology of the WCF is based on the person and work
of Christ.
The Confession itself does not have any references to a millennial hope. Other
Westminster documents — The Directory of Public Worship and the Larger Catechism —
19
The commonly repeated claim that the 431 Council of Ephesus condemned belief in an earthly millennium does
not seem to be true. See M. J. Svigel, ‘The phantom heresy: Did the council of Ephesus (431) condemn chiliasm?’
Trinity Journal 24.1 (2003): 105–112.
20 E.g. Calvin, Inst 3.25.5.
21 J. K. Jue, ‘Puritan Millenarianism in Old and New England’, The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, J.
Coffey and P.C. H. Lim, eds (Cambridge: CUP, 2008), 262.
22 C. Gribben, ‘The Eschatology of the Puritan Confessions’ SBET 20/1 (Spring, 2002): 78.
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echo something of the content of the millennial hope in the context of prayer. The Directory
advises that the prayer before the sermon should include petitions for ‘the propagation of the
gospel and kingdom of Christ to all nations… the conversion of the Jews, the fullness of the
Gentiles, the fall of Antichrist… the deliverance of the distressed churches abroad from the
tyranny of the antichristian faction, and from the cruel oppressions and blasphemies of the
Turk’ as well as ‘the blessing of God upon the reformed churches, especially upon the
churches and kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland’. Similarly, Q. 191 of the Larger
Catechism considers that petition ‘Thy kingdom come’ as a plea that ‘the kingdom of sin and
Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the
fullness of the Gentiles brought in; the church furnished with all gospel-officers and
ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate:
that the ordinances of Christ may be purely dispensed, and made effectual to the converting
of those that are yet in their sins, and the confirming, comforting, and building up of those
that are already converted: that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of
his second coming, and our reigning with him forever’. These are prayers for the changes
that many in the Assembly expected with the millennial reign of Christ and that they hoped
were not far off. They do not, however, assert if or when these prayers would be answered;
and the Confession itself has no parallel material.
It is worth noting the contrast with the 1658 Savoy Declaration, which is based on the
Confession. It adds a section to Ch 26 on the church, which affirms an expectation that
… in the latter days, antichrist being destroyed, the Jews called, and the
adversaries of the kingdom of his dear Son broken, the churches of Christ being
enlarged, and edified through a free and plentiful communication of light and
grace, shall enjoy in this world a more quiet, peaceable and glorious condition
than they have enjoyed.
The Confession takes up the return of Christ at the end and states that this will be the
time of the general resurrection (32:2–3) and the day of judgement (33:1). Thus, the
Confession does not posit any time gap between the return of Christ, the general resurrection
and the final judgement. Indeed, it assumes that each of these events will take place on ‘a
day’. This contrasts with premillennial schema, which hold that the millennium (understood
literally or metaphorically) intervenes between the return of Christ and the final judgement.
The Confession more clearly disagrees with a dispensational millennial view which
holds to a rapture of believers before, during or after the tribulation, which is followed by
period during which Israel is resorted. The Confession has no reference to a rapture and
uses 1 Thessalonians 4:17 in reference to the resurrection at the return of Christ. More
significantly, its covenant theology teaches there is one covenant of grace in varying
administration and that Christ is held out ‘with more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy,
to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles’ (WCF 7.6). This precludes the idea of a return to an
Israel period which is more like the Old Testament.
In summary:
• Assembly members held to a range of eschatological positions including those
who entertained considerable millennial speculation, but the Confession neither
gives any of this doctrinal status nor can it be presumed to rules them illegitimate;
• other Assembly documents express millennial hopes in prayer for a triumphant
Gospel age, but no document makes this hope a matter of doctrine;
• the Confession does not give any indication of a period between the return of
Christ and the final judgement, and does not seem to allow for any such time
period, holding that all takes place on the ‘Day’;
• the Confession does not allow for a rapture separated from the return of Christ
on the final day;
• the Confession rules out the dispensationalist notion of a period of the re-
establishment of the state and worship of Israel.
The reference requests the Committee to report on the eschatological teaching of the
Confession. It is important, however, to place this in the context of the Confession read in
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the light of the Declaratory Statement.
The Declaratory Statement allows liberty of opinion on matters not essential to the
doctrine of the confession. This must, at least, mean that officers of the PCA are able to hold
views that are usually called ‘post-millennial’. Many members of the Assembly held similar
views and while they go beyond the Confession they do not contradict it. The Confession’s
view of the coincidence of the return of Christ and judgement disagrees with a ‘historical
premillennial’ position, but this is a relatively minor point and does not conflict with the
essentials of the Confession’s doctrine.
The position of dispensational millennialism, however, differs from the Confession far
more substantially. The problem lies not in the details of eschatological timing, but in its view
of the relation of Israel to the covenant of grace and the church. The covenant theology of
Chapter 7 of the WCF is essential to the whole Confession and if it is denied this leaves much
of the Confession incoherent. The opinion of the Committee is that courts of the church
should not grant liberty of opinion for officers to hold such a position.
The opening section of the Declaratory Statement also provides important direction in
this matter. It highlights the ‘objective supernatural historic facts’ about Christ— ‘especially
the incarnation, the atoning life and death, and the resurrection and ascension of our Lord,
and His bestowment of His Holy Spirit’ as those which should have ‘a chief place’ in the
message of the church. It is Christ and his work, not any particular eschatological schema,
which should be the burden of the preaching of the church.
Gribben, C. ‘The Eschatology of the Puritan Confessions’ SBET 20/1 (Spring, 2002):
51–78.
Jue, J. K. ‘Puritan Millenarianism in Old and New England’, 259–76, in The
Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim,
eds. (Cambridge: CUP, 2008).
Thomas, D. ‘The Eschatology of the Westminster Confession and Assembly’, 307–
79, in Ligon Duncan III (ed.) The Westminster Confession into the 21st
century, Volume 2 (Fearn, Ross-shire: Mentor, 2004).
Toon, P. ed. Puritans, the Millennium and the Future of Israel: Puritan Eschatology
1600 to 1660 (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1970).
van Dixhoorn, C. Confessing the Faith: A Reader’s Guide to the Westminster Confession
of Faith (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2014), 425–445.
Venema, C. P. The Promise of the Future (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2000).
Young, A. ‘Counter Currents to Chiliasm at the Westminster Assembly: Cornelius
Burges and the Second Coming of Christ’, WTJ 73 (2011): 113–32.
Appendix: concerning paedocommunion
Background
At its 2016 meeting the GAA referred to the College Committee a matter from the
Presbytery of Darling Downs regarding the practice and theology of paedocommunion, which
had been raised by some practical questions emerging from a charge within that presbytery.
The committee was requested to address three separate substantive questions:
1. Speak to whether the practice and theology of paedocommunion is consistent with the
doctrine and worship of the Presbyterian church of Australia.
2. Undertake a survey of Presbyteries of the practice of paedocommunion in their
location.
3. Enquire into the status of paedocommunion in sister reformed denominations
overseas.
This report seeks to address these questions in turn, devoting primary attention to the
first of these matters, while also responding to the Assembly’s other requests.
The relevant minute from the 2016 General Assembly is as follows:
Minute 217:8 re. Reference from the Presbytery of Darling Downs concerning
paedocommunion was laid on the table and received. The Rev. M. Powell moved: That the
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