I’ve been confused about this for decades. Why do we declare: as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end?
First, we believe that our world will come to an end. At the Second Coming.
Second, that phrase doesn’t exist in the Latin version. Et in saecula saeculorum means something like for a really really long time. We have a perfectly good phrase for it in English: forever and ever.
And the other languages I’ve checked seem to have a translation more like “century after century.”
Nothing about the world ending. Or not ending.
But after all these years of contemplation about this phrase, I’m coming to recognize that it’s not talking about OUR world.
It’s about the world we will inherit when we see God face to face.
And that world, whatever it will look like, has no end.
It’s eternal.