What was God’s original purpose for mankind? When he created Adam and Eve, did he intend that they should enjoy life for a while in the garden of Eden and then die and go to heaven? No. God gave them a special assignment as regards the earth, saying: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:28) And Jehovah does not change his set purpose. He declares, at Psalm 89:34: “The expression out of my lips I shall not change.” So the Edenic Paradise must be restored and be enjoyed by faithful servants of Jehovah​—the majority group mentioned above.

Revelation 7:9 next describes the earthly group, saying: “Look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues.”

Good People Will Live on Earth

Billions of good people will live on a paradise earth. (Luke 23:43) Would you like to be among them? Of course you would. What a privilege it will be to live on a cleansed earth that is free of pollution, famine, crime, sickness, suffering, and the ghastly prospect of nuclear conflict! Does the Bible really foretell such a thing? Yes, indeed. It says: “Evildoers themselves will be cut off, but those hoping in Jehovah are the ones that will possess the earth. . . . The meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.”​—Psalm 37:9, 11, 29; compare Matthew 5:5.

What, then, about babies who have died? Will they too be present on the Paradise earth? They do not go to Limbo, which does not exist. But young ones in God’s memory will come back in the resurrection of the dead​—one of the marvelous promises in God’s Word, as we have already noted. (John 5:28, 29; Acts 24:15) Perhaps you have lost loved ones in death and often wonder where they are now. From the Scriptures it is clear that they are asleep, awaiting the resurrection.