*** w82 8/15 pp. 25-26 pars. 6-7 Heed the ‘Warnings Placed Before Us’! ***
6 Giving a second warning example, Jude wrote:
“And the angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place he has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.” (Jude 6)
Angels were created as spirit creatures, having the prospect of eternal life in heaven. (Psalm 103:20; 104:4; Hebrews 1:7) That was their beginning, their “original position.” “Their own proper dwelling place,” or intended habitation, was in the invisible heavens. But certain angels presumptuously forsook their proper heavenly home. The apostle Peter said that they “sinned,” and immediately thereafter he cited events of Noah’s day. (2 Peter 2:4, 5) This draws attention to the preflood time when “the sons [the fifth-century Alexandrine Manuscript of the Septuagint Version says “angels”] of the true God,” apparently by materializing fleshly bodies, disobediently took good-looking women as wives. (Genesis 6:1, 2) Since cohabitation with women was unnatural for spirit creatures, these angels sinned by yielding to what for them was totally wrong desire. (James 1:13-15) Similarly, the “ungodly men” of whom Jude spoke desired to have immoral relations with persons of the opposite sex.
7 What happened to the disobedient angels served as a warning to Christians of Jude’s day, and serves as a warning to Jehovah’s Witnesses of modern times. Although those angels could escape death in the deluge by dematerializing, they were prevented from returning to their “original position” as holy spirit creatures enjoying the light of God’s counsel and approval. Rather, they have been reserved with “eternal bonds,” with God’s powers of restraint, until the divine “judgment of the great day” of their destruction. Meanwhile, there is no indication that they can materialize fleshly bodies, and they remain out of Jehovah’s service, in dense spiritual darkness, in so-called Tartarus.—2 Peter 2:4.
