The Creed, Article 12: The Life of the Age to Come
In brief
The Creed's last word looks past the resurrection to what lies beyond it: "and the life of the world to come. Amen." (The phrase is often rendered "the life of the age to come," translating the same Greek.) The Symbol of Faith ends not with judgment or fear but with life — unending life in the renewed creation — and seals the whole confession with "Amen," the believer's "so be it."
"and the life of the world to come"
This clause completes the sentence begun in Article 11: "I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." The two belong together — first the raising of the body, then the endless life that follows. The Greek phrase, zoen tou mellontos aionos, literally means "the life of the coming age," which is why some translations read "the age to come" where the OCA text reads "the world to come." Both render the same words: the new order of existence God will bring.
The word for "life" here is zoe — not mere biological survival but the fullness of life, the very life of God. What the Creed anticipates is not endless time as we now know it but a transfigured mode of being, the Kingdom whose King, Article 7 has already told us, "shall have no end."
Not another world, but this one renewed
"The world to come" does not mean the destruction of this creation and escape to somewhere else. Orthodox hope is for the renewal of all things — "a new heaven and a new earth" — in which God dwells with His people and "shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying" (Revelation 21:4). The creation that God called good is not abolished but healed and glorified.
This is the destiny for which the whole Creed has been preparing: the God who "so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16) intends that love to end in life without end. What heaven and hell finally are — the same divine love experienced as joy or as fire — is taken up in the Orthodox understanding of heaven and hell.
"Amen"
The Creed ends with a single Hebrew word the Church has never translated: "Amen." It means "truly," "so be it," "it is firm." With it the confessor sets his own seal on everything he has just said, from "I believe in one God" to "the life of the world to come." The Creed is not a lecture overheard but a vow spoken.
So the Symbol of Faith closes where it must: not with an argument won but with a life awaited and a word of assent. The last thing the Church says in her confession of faith is yes — yes to the God who is bringing all things to life in the age that has no evening.