Genesis 6:1-8
Usually, the best way to understand
something in the Bible is to use scripture to interpret scripture. We will
often do injustice to a passage if we try to make it a self-contained truth and
remove it from the context of the rest of God’s Word.
It’s amazing how we will believe certain
things just because someone told us their opinion or we saw it on T.V. or in a
movie…think about that. The interpretation of verses 1-8 hinges on the definition of three key terms, ‘the sons of God’ (verses 2,4), ‘the daughters of men’ (verses 2,4), and the ‘Nephilim’ (verse 4). There are three major interpretations of these terms which I will attempt to describe, beginning with the one - which, in my mind - is the least likely, and ending with the one that is most satisfactory. By the way, the definition of “Nephilim” is “giant” or “tyrant.”
The sons of God… is translated differently in different versions of the Bible…The phrase appears 11 times in the KJV, 7 times in the NIV, 10 times in the ASB, 9 times in the 1890 Darby Bible, 5 times in the living Bible, 3 times in the New Century Version, 10 times in the New King James , 2 times in the New Living Translation, 2 times in the New Revised Standard version, 11 times in Young’s literal translation.
Let’s first turn to the Book of Job….
Job 1:6 “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.”
Job 2:1 “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord” ...Obviously in these passages and in other passages the “sons of God” are angels; and they are good angels; angels that have not fallen and have not sinned in rebellion against God …but there in lies the dilemma…One interp-retation is that The “sons of God” are angels that married the daughters of men…and the Nephilim or “giants” are the offspring. But, there are few problems with this interpretation. If these are good angels that have gone and taken daughters of men unto themselves… something that in our context of this scripture is obviously against the wishes of God, then they would have then been rebellious toward God and by this very act, would no longer be considered worthy of the title “sons of God.” Then there is the idea that these sons of God are the fallen angels… who decided to take human women as their wives…and, if they are fallen angels, why then would they be called the sons of God? Matthew 22:30 tells us - “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” I interpret this to mean that angels cannot procreate.
The second interpretation is that this is a “gene pool” problem. In other words it was the “sons of God” -represented by the offspring of Seth…(who was blessed and through whom came Noah)…who intermarried with the offspring of Cain…(who was cursed by God and banished from the garden to be a “restless wanderer”)
Because the line of Seth was considered to be “holy” and the line of Cain to be evil and cursed, although similar to the angel interpretation…this is probably a little more believable…yet, I still think scripture tells us more. For in, Romans it says that “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” There was, nor is there a “holy” race of people. We need to “shake the branches” a little!
I did a word search on the term “sons of God” and here’s what I found;
Matthew 5:9 - “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”
Romans 8:14 - “because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
Romans 8:19 - “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” (In other words the full manifestation of what this truly means in the end.)
Galatians 3:26 -“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,
John 1:12 - “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
So, yes, the Bible does refer to believers as Sons of God or Children of God. It should not be to difficult for us to determine that the Sons of God referred to in the sixth chapter of Genesis are believers… and the daughters of men are non believers….regardless of their geneology…Theory number three.
Those believers who had called upon the name of the Lord at the end of Genesis chapter 4, had within a few generations, abandoned their Godly heritage for the lust of the world…for physical appeal, and beauty instead of Godliness….Believers marrying non-believers?…What does the Bible say about that?
Well, believers or godly people, willing to give up their position and abandon their godly heritage, and comp-romise their values and principles for the lusts of the world was the case leading up to the flood. It was the reason God said in Deuteronomy 7 - “”and when the Lord God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons”…Why? Because it will produce giants? No - “For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods!”
When God destroyed the world in the flood it was not because they were giants, it was because of their wickedness. When God told the Israelites to destroy the nations of the Promised Land, it was for the same reason. 2 Corinthians 6:14 - “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do right-eousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”
Think about what is going on in our world today. Why is it happening? When God’s people become like the world, there is nothing to restrain the world. If we adopt the world’s values and no longer stand on the unchang-eable Word of God, we compromise the truth for peace with the world; at the expense of peace with God. We need to ask ourselves, “Why are our Sunday schools falling apart? Why is there a battle over prayer in schools? Why is there a division over abortion…even in our churches? Why are we even debating same sex marriages? And the list goes on and on. Could it be because the “sons of God” have lusted after the “daughters of men”?
One last question…How did the Nephilim or giants come about simply by this union of the “sons of God and the daughters of men” whatever the interpretation of that is? The answer is they didn’t. The text clearly says in Genesis 6:4 - “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
It says “the Nephilim were on the earth in those days.” It does not say that the Nephilim were the “offspring” of the Sons of God and the daughters of men.
So, what are the Nephilim? They were - and are “giants”…“tyrants”…”bullies” the strong, evil, immoral, who seem to be dominating our world! I’ll close with this thought; Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah….so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man” Hmmm.
Let me go back to what I said in the beginning about how we believe certain things just because someone told us something or because we saw it on TV or in a movie…We need to believe because we have studied Gods word…and allowed scripture to interpret scripture.
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