“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Matthew 25:46
What happens after life on earth is over? This is one of the most important questions we will ever ponder. If there is nothing after life on earth is over, then there would be only narcissistic aims in life—get as much as you can while you can, and prolong life for as long as you can, because at the end, there is nothing else. Every trip around the sun (every birthday) would be a cause of sadness, rather than celebration, as the sand in the hourglass of life slowly would empty until it’s all gone and then nothing. There are plenty of people who believe this.
The other answer to this question is that there is something after life on this earth is over, and from the Orthodox Christian perspective, that something is “the life of the age to come” in other words, everlasting life in the Kingdom of God.
The verb for the last sentence of the Creed is “prosdoko”, which means “I look to” or “I look forward to” and it pertains to the “life of the age to come.” Again, our belief, the “pistevo” (I believe) is in God. But part of why we believe in God is a belief that there is something coming after this life, eternal life. And all the things we believe about God are the path to this eventuality. In order to be accepted into the kingdom of God, there needed to be a creation of the world. There needed to be people in order to share the kingdom of God. That’s why God made us, to share in a communion with Him.
The Fall of humanity was mankind’s rejection of God and subsequent expulsion from Paradise. God, in His love, the same love with which He created us, did not change. Through the salvific work of Jesus Christ, the path to Paradise opened, there was now a way back to Paradise. We have the Church, led by the Holy Spirit, to teach us about Christ and to give us a base from which to serve Him. We do not take the journey alone, nor are we expected to. We take the journey as part of a community. Baptism is our entrance into the life of the Church, an initiation into the community that points us to God. The ultimate aim of all of this is eternal life, the life of the age to come.
There are plenty of people who believe in the age to come, but who leave out the judgement of the living and the dead, which we previously reflected on. There will be a reckoning at the throne of Christ for every person who has ever lived. And that judgment will result in our final and permanent placement for the age to come—either a place in heaven, in order to have eternal union with God; or a place in hell, where there will be permanent estrangement from God.
What we believe about the age to come will have an effect on what we are doing today. When a student is in college, he or she goes to class each day and does the appropriate amount of studying. They may not consciously think about graduation DAY, or the event of graduating from college, but at least subconsciously, they are working their way towards this moment with every page they read. Similarly, the Christian may not think about heaven every day, but with every prayer, every sacrament, and every obedience to the commandments of God, we are making our way there. No college student who hopes for success never studies, who never think about what he or she is doing with some degree of regularity. Sure there might be an occasional day off from all things school related but generally the school related things are constantly on people’s minds, not in a stressful way necessarily. No student would show up to class once a semester and think he or she will pass.
No Christian who looks to the age to come never prays, or worships, or partakes of the sacraments, or obeys the commandments. While there may be a day we don’t pray, a Sunday we take off from worshipping, and of course we all short of obeying the commandments each time we sin, the person who is looking to the age to come, heaven, is generally focused, at least subconsciously, on their Christian life and walk. It’s hard to understand how some Orthodox Christians show up to worship once a year, or never pray, or wantonly disobey the commandments, and think they will pass the judgment in a favorable way.
This final phrase of the Creed is saying, in essence, not only that one looks for the life of the age to come, but is planning appropriately in this life.
One thing in all of this that is uncertain is what does the age to come look like? What do people do in heaven? What do they look like? Will we have a resurrected body in the way we know bodies now? Will we be resurrected as a young person or an old person? Will we recognize others in heaven? What will we do all day? The truth is, we don’t know. If we had all knowledge about everything, there would be no need for faith. Christ has promised us eternal life, we have confessed this prospect for 1,700 year in the Creed. The life of the age to come is something we have faith in, even though we don’t have knowledge specifically what this will look like.
The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are round about him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him, and burns up His adversaries round about. His lightnings lighten the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim His righteousness; and all the peoples behold His glory. Psalm 97:1-6
It is not enough to just believe in the age to come. We need to be preparing for eternal life and for the judgment that will precede our entrance into it.
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