Putting aside all religious dogma and looking at the Bible record we are told that right from the beginning of man’s life on earth God made the first human pair in His image and likeness. (Genesis 1:26-28) There is not even a hint that God’s purpose for them was that they and their children would eventually die and go to heaven or some other place. As they carried out their God-given commission to “be fruitful and become many and fill the earth,” the globe gradually would be filled with their descendants.

A special location, the garden of Eden, was arranged by God so that the first humans had a perfect home. The record states: “Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it.” (Genesis 2:8, 15) This would be expanded as needed, until the whole earth eventually would become a Paradise with an unlimited supply of delicious and wholesome food and other resources.

That the earth was to be more than a temporary home or a stepping-stone to some other destiny is clear from God’s next words to Adam: “Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’”​—Genesis 2:16, 17.

When tempted by the Devil, Eve and then Adam disobeyed this command and received God’s just penalty, death. But ask yourself, ‘What if they had not disobeyed?’ The clear implication is that they would have kept on living​—never dying. Yes, Adam and Eve would still be living today, in perfect health and happiness.

However, at this point you would do well to consider, Did God’s purpose for the earth and man change when Adam and Eve sinned? You will find that no one can point to a single Bible passage that says so. To the contrary, many years after the first human pair sinned, Isaiah the prophet was inspired to write:

“This is what Jehovah has said, the Creator of the heavens, He the true God, the Former of the earth and the Maker of it, He the One who firmly established it, who did not create it simply for nothing, who formed it even to be inhabited.” Isaiah quoted Jehovah as saying: “My own counsel will stand, and everything that is my delight I shall do.” (Isaiah 45:18; 46:10) The psalmist also wrote about Him: “Your faithfulness is for generation after generation. You have solidly fixed the earth, that it may keep standing.”​—Psalm 119:90.

You can see that the Bible thus clearly states that God, in creating the earth, made it a permanent fixture in the universe and that his definite purpose in creating it was that it be inhabited by humans. That purpose has not changed. God will see to it that his purpose will be completely fulfilled.