God’s Word Is Alive
Why Did God Create Our Earth?
GOD once asked the man Job: “Where did you happen to be when I founded the earth?” Since humans had not yet been created, Job, of course, was not around. But the “sons of God” in heaven were watching, and the Bible says that they “joyfully cried out together.” Yes, they “began shouting in applause” on this important occasion.—Job 38:4, 7.
What made these angels so happy? They must have known something about God’s purpose for the earth. God may have told them that he was going to create new kinds of creatures to live here. So the angels were happy to see such a beautiful place being prepared as the everlasting home for the human family.
Finally, after producing other creatures, God created the first human couple, Adam and Eve. Then he put them in a special beauty spot on earth called the Garden of Eden, and told them: ‘Have many children so that they fill the earth. Cultivate the earth, and take care of the fish, the birds and all the animals.’ (Gen. 1:28) God wanted humans to live forever in happiness on earth.—Ps. 37:29.
However, Adam and Eve rebelled against God. As a result, sickness, trouble and death came upon the whole human family. (Rom. 5:12) Was the joyfulness of those “sons of God” who watched the preparation of the earth to end in disappointment? Was God’s purpose for the earth to fail?
No, for God would be admitting defeat if he did not accomplish what he purposed. That he could never do! “Everything that is my delight I shall do,” he declares. (Isa. 46:10, 11) And the Bible says that God did not create the earth “simply for nothing,” but “formed it even to be inhabited.”—Isa. 45:18.
True, the earth is now being inhabited, but not in the way God meant it to be. There is hatred. There is crime. There is war. Millions of people are hungry and sick. But God created our earth to be the happy home of humankind forever. And it will be! The Bible foretells: “God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”—Rev. 21:3, 4.