Bible Studies
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BY COMMENTING
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE As A Member OR Visitor
Message Writer
Hire Writer
Report Article
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE As A Member OR Visitor
Message Writer
Hire Writer
Report Article
Based on Gen. 6:1-8
A modern book titled Sex After Sixty Five was written to encourage older people to realize their is still sexual life after retirement. This would have sounded like a joke to the people before the flood. In Gen. 5:21 we are told that Enoch was 65 when he had his first son Methusalah. Then in chapter 5 we see it ending by telling us that Noah after he was 500 had his three sons. Men had an enormously long span of life in which they could father children, and so we can understand why their was a rapid growth in the population, as it states in verse one.
After stating that there was a population explosion, this chapter tells of a problem that resulted from it. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, and they desired to have them as their wives. This does not sound too unlike the world of today where women watchers finally see one they feel they can't live without, and so they ask her to marry them. The problem here is in trying to determine just who these sons of God are. It is not any easy task, for Bible scholars of equal love for the Word of God, and equally skilled in interpreting it have come to 3 different conclusions. Either they are angels, the line of Seth, or the upper class of nobles.
When scholars disagree the best thing we can do is examine the evidence for each view and see which case is the strongest. So lets look first at the view that they are angels.
I ANGELS.
This view goes way back into the centuries before Christ. The book of Enoch, which was written in the second century B. C. Says these sons of God were wicked angels who lusted after the daughters of men. Josephus and Philo, and most of the Jewish writers held this view. The oldest church fathers like Justin, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Ambrose also held this view. The arguments for it are very strong.
A. The expression sons of God is used in the Old Testament of angels. I Job 1:6 we read, "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord."
B. This takes place just before the flood, and Peter in II Pet. 2:4-5 pictures the angels being judged just before the flood. This seems to indicate they had something to do with the flood. In Jude 6-7 we read of the angels again being judged just before Sodom and Gomorah for their immorality, suggesting the angels may also have been judged for sexual sins. What appears to have happened according to this view is that the angels took upon themselves the bodies of men in order to cohabit with human women.
C. This view explains the many legends and myths about divine beings producing children on earth who were giants and great men. Greek mythology is full of this type of thing.
II. Sethites.
Those who hold this view see this account as a strictly human affair of the pure line of Seth (called sons of God), and the corrupt line of Cain (called the daughters of men). They point out that there is no other reference to angels, either before or after, and their is no reason to drag them in here. Leupold points out that there is no reference to angels in the first 5 chapter of Genesis and there is no basis for to suddenly introduce them here, when the whole history is dealing with men only.
A. The view that they could be angels has to be rejected on the basis of words of Jesus in Matt. 22:30 where he says, "At the resurrection people will neither marry or be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." We have no reason to believe that angels would ever have any desire to marry human women. The text in Gen. 6 makes it clear that these were not just one night stands and affairs. These were marriages that led to settling down and raising families. If these were angels who had defied the laws of God, there would have been judgment on them long before they raised families from these marriages.
B. The flood was the result of the wickedness of men, and there is no hint that it was a punishment for fallen angels. Angels were judged by being sent to hell, and not by being drowned in a flood. These sons of God were the pure line of Seth who departed from the will of God and married the ungodly women from the line of Cain. These intermarriages led to the complete breakdown of the godly chain. Noah only was left.
C. The people of God are often called the sons of God. God said to Pharaoh in Ex. 4:22-23, "Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, 'let my son go, so he may worship me.'" In Deut. 32:19 we read, "The Lord saw this and rejected them because He was angered by His sons and daughters." There is no need to introduce angels here, for God's people were called sons of God. Warnings about the marriage of believers and unbelievers are a common theme in the Old Testament. There are no warnings about intermarriage with angels.
D. The idea of daughters being born was nothing new. There had been daughters all along born to men, and the angels could have come down anytime if that were the case. But the point here is that the population was getting so great that the two lines of descent could no longer be kept isolated. The population explosion forced the sons of God to be exposed to these daughters of godless Cainites. If you mix any two classes of people together, you will have marriages of these two classes. We see it all through history, and it happens everywhere yet today. This is a typical human issue, and there is no need to introduce angels. The preceding chapter deals with the Sethite line of godly men like Enoch, Methuselah, and Noah, and there is no reason why chapter 6 would drop that line and pick up on a line of angels that has never been mentioned.
E. It is true that the angels were judged, but no where is there any reference to it being due to marriage with women, or to any sexual activity. The New Testament passages that the angel theory refers to do not say anything about angels and immorality as they do humans. The fact that they are in the same context cannot be used to imply they were guilty of the same sins. Angels fell long before men even existed, and so if you bring angels into this text, you have a second fall of the angels, which the Bible does not support.
F. If this text deals with angels, it has no lesson for the rest of history, but if it deals with the godly marrying the ungodly, it has a lesson for all of the history of God's people. This has always been a major problem. In Ex. 34:15-16 we read God's warning to His people, "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead our sons to do the same." In Deut. 7:3-4 we read, "Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you." These and others like them are parallel with the text in Gen. 6. And the N.T. says also, "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." This is the age old and universal problem, and not the danger of intermarriage with angels.
G. Take note of the judgement in this passage. In verse 3 God says, "My spirit will not contend with man forever,..." In verse 5 it says, "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become,..." In verse 6 we read, "The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth..." Verse 7 says, "So the Lord said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created from the face of the earth-men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them.'" You will note that there is no judgment on angels, and no reference to God's regret that He had made angels. They do not appear at all in God's expression of anger and judgment. All of this evidence lead the great Christian scholars of the early church like Chrysostom, Augustine, and Jerome, and the reformers like Luther and Calvin, and the majority of modern commentators to reject the angel theory in favor of this Sethite view.
There are some miner views that are held by very few, but most will choose one or the other of these major views. No one could know for sure which is correct, and so one must keep an open mind. Whatever the case, the children born to these marriages were men of great stature. Verse 4 calls them Nephilim. This might seem to support the angel theory because these giant men seem to be supernatural products, but this is not the case. This same word is used in Num. 13:33 to describe the big men that the spies saw in the Promise Land which made them fear to invade it. It says, "We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them." This was long after the flood, and unless we are to assume that different groups of angels kept coming down and taking wives, these giants were clearly products of human marriage. There is no need for angels to be involved in producing these giant men.
This is not a vital issue at all, and godly Bible scholars disagree, but if I had to choose,this is why I would choose the Sethite theory. I would do so for two main reasons.
1. The angel theory gets us involved in a strange mixture of the heavenly and earthly, and it sounds too much like mythology. If we are not compelled to get into such a strange and awkward realm of angels marrying earthly wives, and settling down to raise families, why do it? If the entire account fits humans only, then we should leave it at that and not turn it into a mystery that reveals no special meaning with value.
2. The whole context stresses the fact of the wickedness of men. The flood was a judgment upon man and not angels. God was angry because the godly line of Seth intermarried with the ungodly line of Cain, and except for Noah, there was no one left to produce a godly line heading for the Messiah. It all makes perfect sense without angels. On the basis of God's attitude an anger toward men I choose to believe that the sons of God were the descendants of Seth, and not angelic beings.
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE AS A MEMBER OR VISITOR
Reader Count & Comments
Date
The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com. This is especially true with articles that
deal with personal healthcare and prophecy. We encourage the reader to make their own decision in consultation with God, His Word, and others as needed.
This article has been read 476 times < Previous | Next >
Read more articles by GLENN PEASE or search for other articles by topic below.
This article has been read 476 times < Previous | Next >
Search for articles on: (e.g. creation; holiness etc.)
Read more by clicking on a link:Free Reprints
Main Site Articles
Most Read Articles
Highly Acclaimed Challenge Articles.
New Release Christian Books for Free for a Simple Review.
NEW - Surprise Me With an Article - Click here for a random URL
God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38
LEARN & TRUST JESUS HERE
FaithWriters offers Christian reading material for Christian readers. We offer Christian articles, Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, Christian Bible studies, Christian poems, Christian articles for sale, free use Christian articles, Christian living articles, New Covenant Christian Bible Studies, Christian magazine articles and new Christian articles. We write for Jesus about God, the Bible, salvation, prayer and the word of God.