The world to come, age to come, heaven on Earth, and the Kingdom of God are eschatological phrases reflecting the belief that the current world or current age is flawed or cursed and will be replaced in the future by a better world, age, or paradise.
The concept is related to, but differs from, the concepts of heaven or the afterlife in that heaven is another place or state of existence generally seen as above the world, and the afterlife is generally an individual's continued existence after death.
In Zoroastrian eschatology, the world to come is the frashokereti, where the saoshyant will bring about a resurrection of the dead in the bodies they had before they died. This is followed by a last judgment. The yazatas Airyaman and Atar will melt the metal in the hills and mountains, and the molten metal will then flow across the earth like a river. All humankind—both the living and the resurrected dead—will be required to wade through that river, but for the righteous (ashavan) it will seem to be a river of warm milk, while the wicked will be burned. The river will then flow down to hell, where it will annihilate Angra Mainyu and the last vestiges of wickedness in the universe. The saoshyant is first mentioned as a savior in the Yashts written around 625 and 225 BCE, according to some interpretations.[1]
HaOlam haBa (Hebrew: העולם הבא, lit. 'the world to come') is an important part of the afterlife in Jewish eschatology, which also encompasses Gan Eden (the Heavenly Garden of Eden), Gehinom and Sheol.[2]
There is much Aggadic material relating to this topic. Much of this has been collected in popular form in Legends of the Jews, by Louis Ginzberg, discussing esoteric and mystical kabbalistic concepts such as Paradise, and the "higher" Gan Eden
In Christianity, the phrase is found in the Nicene Creed (current Ecumenical version): "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."[6] It is also found in the King James Version of the New Testament at Matthew 12:32, Mark 10:30, Luke 18:30, Hebrews 2:5, Hebrews 6:5. Other related expressions are "age to come" which is typically found in more recent translations, Kingdom of God, Messianic Age, Millennial Age, Golden Age, the New Earth and New Jerusalem, and dispensation of the fulness of times and possibly also eternal life.