• Opening Up the Way Back to Paradise
    The Watchtower—1989 | August 15

    • The Ransom Opens Up the Way

      8. What was Jehovah’s original purpose regarding the earth, and what shows that he sticks to that purpose?

      8 All of these were steps in God’s purpose to have the entire earth clothed with paradisaic beauty, yes, to become a global paradise. (Genesis 1:28; Isaiah 55:10, 11) At 1 Corinthians 15:45, the apostle Paul refers to Jesus as “the last Adam.” This indicates that God has held on to his original purpose with regard to the earth and that someone will fulfill the purpose that the first Adam failed to carry out.

  • Opening Up the Way Back to Paradise
    The Watchtower—1989 | August 15

    • Paradise to Be Restored by “the Last Adam”

      16. What was the outlook for the Kingdom at Jesus’ impalement, but why had he not been a proclaimer of erroneous news?

      16 At the impalement of Jesus in 33 C.E., it hardly looked possible that he could have a kingdom at all. But in his preaching of the Kingdom of God, he had not been a proclaimer of erroneous news. On the third day after his impalement, the Founder of the Kingdom made sure that the disciples of Jesus would not be offering up prayer for a government that was not possible. Jehovah resurrected the One who was to represent Him in the prayed-for Kingdom and clothed him with immortality.

      17, 18. (a) What is the significance of Jesus’ being called “the last Adam”? (b) What do world events since 1914 indicate?

      17 Jesus knew that the Creator of the first Paradise on earth would lay upon him the obligation to renew Paradise and to see to the populating of the global garden. At 1 Corinthians 15:45, 47, we read: “It is even so written: ‘The first man Adam became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. The first man is out of the earth and made of dust; the second man is out of heaven.” The second Adam came down from heaven and is the one whom Jehovah employs to reestablish Paradise here on earth. It was on this basis that the Lord Jesus said to the sympathetic evildoer: “You will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) From this conversation it is again apparent that Paradise will be established on earth under the Kingdom of heaven in the hands of the glorified Jesus Christ, “the last Adam.”