Angels-ESCHATOLOGY

The end of the second millennium prompted a diverse range of religious
thinkers to speculate that humanity—and, indeed, the entire earth—is
nearing the endtime, when life and the world as we know it will be
completely destroyed or transformed. Seeing the hand of God in every
event that foreshadows this terminus of history, people who live in
anticipation of the end often perceive angels at work behind the scenes,
both in the lives of individuals and on the stage of world events. The
Book of Revelation, which contains an outline of endtime events, pictures
angels as God’s agents of destruction.
Eschatology, “the study of the last things,” is the technical theological
term for the study of the end of time. Religious eschatology
always involves the idea of redemption or salvation, and is a part of
the doctrine of most world religions. Zoroastrianism, which decisively
influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, was the first historical
religion to include a battle between good and evil forces—including
good and evil angels—as an essential part of its endtime scenario.
Once the forces of light have completely overturned darkness, the resurrection
of the dead and the restoration of Paradise will occur.
Early Jewish eschatology as documented in the prophecies of the
Old Testament aimed at the restoration of the golden age. Persian and
Hellenistic ideas particularly influenced Judaism during the first diasporas,
leading to the development of a number of different messianic
and apocalyptic ideas. These ideas sometimes contradicted one another,
and only in later centuries were they harmonized into a coherent
system. The Messiah who is expected to come is a descendant of the
House of David, a divine being referred to as the Son of Man.