EARTH Just A Testing Ground?

ETERNAL HAPPINESS IN HEAVEN OR ON EARTH?

DOES your happiness depend primarily on where you live? Most people would readily acknowledge that happiness depends more on factors like good health, a purpose in life and fine relationships with others. A Bible proverb puts it this way: "Better is a dish of vegetables where there is love than a manger-fed bull and hated along with it." -Proverbs 15:17.

Sadly, however, our earthly home has a long history of hatred, violence and other forms of wickedness. But what about heaven, or the spirit realm, where many people hope to go after they die? Has it always been a place of blissful peace and tranquility, without disturbance of any kind, as is commonly supposed?

The Bible teaches that God resides in heaven along with millions of spirit creatures called angels. (Matthew 18:10; Revelation 5:11) These are described as spirit "sons of God." (Job 38:4, 7) Like humans, the angels also have free moral agency, they are not robots. It follows, therefore, that they too can choose to do wrong. Would angels choose to do wrong? It may come as a surprise to learn that thousands of years ago, a considerable number of angels did, in fact, sin against God-they rebelled against him! - Jude 6.

Next time: Rebels in Heaven

Watchtower, 2000