They abandoned their faith.
With the exception of Noah, those of his generation abandoned the faith handed down to them through Adam and the others mentioned in Genesis chapter five. Noah became the last of the Godly line.
“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:5,6).
Everyone had turned from God but for a very few. Methuselah, Noah’s grandfather, died shortly before the flood. Lamech, Noah’s father, died the year of the flood leaving Noah the last of a Godly line. All others had apostatized. Genesis chapter five is the Godly line that kept the human race alive.
In his works “The Antiquities of the Jews,” Flavius Josephus has this to say of Noah’s time:
“Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven generations; but in process of time they were perverted, and forsook the practices of their forefathers, and did neither pay those honours to God which were appointed them, nor had they any concern to do justice towards men. But for what degree of zeal they had formerly shewn for virtue, they now shewed by their actions a double degree of wickedness, whereby they made God to be their enemy” ( The Works of Josephus; Antiquities of the Jews; Flavius Josephus; Chapter three, paragraph 1; Translated by William Whiston).
Of course, “ The Works of Josephus” are not scriptures, but this paragraph illustrates clearly what the Bible relates happened pre-flood.
Men (and women) who had once followed God apostatized until there was only one family left. Think of the patience that God has. He’s not looking to destroy and punish, but He wants all to repent: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Are Angels Sons of God?
When we get into Genesis chapter six, we see the phrase “sons of God.” Who is he referring too? Angels? Fallen Angels? The thinking of some is that these were angels that mated with women. Let’s investigate and find who God was referring too. Keep in mind that God just gave us the linage of the faithful. Everyone fell away or died except Noah.
“Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:1-3)
This scripture identifies the “sons of God” as men that are flesh, and God is giving them an allotted amount of time to repent; a warning that they have been judged and death is on it’s way. But let’s go into more detail.
We’ll break this down and discuss it.
Who does the Bible refer to as not being sons of God? Answer: the angels. “For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You?” (Hebrews 1:5).
“But when He again brings the firstborn [Jesus] into the world, He says: ‘Let all the angels of God worship Him.’ And of the angels He says: ‘Who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire’” (Hebrews 1:6).
“But to which of the angels has He ever said: “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool”? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:13-14).
Clearly God has never said to any angel “You are My Son” or “Sit at My right hand.” Angels are ministering spirits that do God’s bidding and are sent to minister for those that will inherit salvation. They’re highly skilled servants – not sons. God has never referred to angels as sons – not even in Genesis chapter six.
Who, then, are referred to as sons? The first person referred to as a son was Adam: “The son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38).
Jesus, of course, is declared the Son of God. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth…. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:14, 18).
And, lastly, after Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus is no longer referred to as the only begotten Son of God. Those that have made Jesus Lord of their lives are called sons of God. “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1).
And: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:1-2)
Another thing to consider: if angels were referenced to as being sons of God in Genesis six, then they weren’t fallen and would not have sinned by taking women as wives. The fall of Satan and his followers had taken place before this. Angels are spirit beings incapable of sexual relations with physical beings. They don’t produce human seed for reproducing. They cannot create. They cannot have children.
Others have said that it was fallen angels that mated with women. How absurd. If they were fallen angels, then they wouldn’t be called “sons of God!”
God blessed the union between man and woman and not interspecies propagation. “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:21-24).
Angels don’t have flesh to become one with.
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:27-26). Only men and women can reproduce and multiply the species. Angels and other creatures aren’t capable of propagating human beings.
In fact, mating with anything other than the opposite sex was abominable to God: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion” (Leviticus 18:22-23). Not only does God not approve of sex outside of male and female, the union doesn’t produce any children. Sex with spirit beings (even if they were capable of sex) would be the same – perversion and sterility.
In Matthew’s gospel, the Sadducees asked Jesus, (ESV) “‘Teacher, Moses said, If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother’ (Matthew 22:24). Jesus’ response that angels don’t marry indicates that they don’t reproduce, because the question was who would raise up offspring for the brother. I know of nowhere in the scriptures where it says angels reproduce.
God created each species to procreate after their own kind.
Job’s Accounts of The Sons of God
You may be wondering about Job’s account of the sons of God: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to Satan, ‘From where do you come?’ So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it’” (Job 1:6-7).
Who’s he referring to as “sons of God?” And to whom is he not referring too?
He’s not referring to the angels of God. We covered this already.
He’s not referring to fallen angels either. Fallen angels do not present themselves to God, nor would they be referred to as sons of God. God asked Satan where he came from; in other words, “What are you doing here?”. If the satanic host had presented themselves before the Lord, He wouldn’t have asked, “What are you doing here?”. He would have known they were there to present themselves.
Also, remember, God was on the outside looking into the earth. He had given dominion on the earth to Adam who in turn gave his spiritual allegiance to Satan. Satan became Adam’s new god. This is why Satan answered God the way he did. He was taunting God. He was declaring how he had bested God and could go anywhere on the earth that he wanted. The followers of God presented themselves to God, and God showed up to the presentation being held in his honor on the earth. Angels present themselves to God, but not on the earth. They present themselves in heaven. Satan is on the earth, not in heaven, and would not be able to present himself in heaven even if he wanted too. Satan crashed the party of the saints church service, so to say.
So who are the sons of God in this passage? They are the godly line that came through the Great Flood and didn’t turn from the faith. Job is thought to be the earliest written book in the Bible. It is thought to have been written during the times of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). Shem, Noah’s son, lived about fifty years after the death of Abraham. He is thought to be Melchizedek king of Salem (later Jerusalem), priest of the Most High God. He had the authority to bless Abraham: “For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him…Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils…Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better” (Hebrews 7:1, 4, 7).
Shem headed up the Godly line that came through the Great Flood. Because they were called sons of God before the flood, it fits that Job would continue the same phrase.
Again in Job we see mention to the sons of God in chapter thirty-eight when God asks Job where he was “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:4-7). This is in reference to the pre-flood earth. Prior to the Flood, the earth was encased within “the waters which were above the firmament” (Genesis 1:7). Research indicates that “the waters which were above the firmament” would become a crystalline canopy sheltering the earth and allowing only certain light spectrums through, and it would also act as a type of amplifier allowing the sound of the stars to be heard. Pre-Flood man would be able to hear the stars sing together.
The Great Cause of The Falling Away
As time passed the sons of God fell away from the faith. What was the primary cause that the scriptures give?
“Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:1-3).
How was this important? Let’s investigate another who fell into the same trap.
“But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites – From the nations of whom the LORD had said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not fully follow the LORD, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. So the LORD became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice” (1 Kings 11:1-9; Emphasis mine)
What happened to Solomon is what happened to the sons of God in Noah’s time. They married people of a different faith and little by little turned from the God of Adam. Solomon was only one instance. There are many others.
We’re warned of the same pitfall during our time: “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness” (2 Corinthians 6:14). It’s the same old Devil, the same old schemes.
God also said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh…” God never mentioned the Devil, or angels, or any spirit being. He’s talking about men being disobedient.
“There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown” (Genesis 6:4).
Of course, people have taken this word “giants” and made it into something that it isn’t. The word “giants” is nephil (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible; 5303) and means: prop., a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant: – giant. The center reference of my Bible says: “Heb. Nephilim, fallen or mighty ones.” It’s Jewish tradition that they were the offspring of fallen angels mating with women. But when we put it in Biblical perspective, they were “mighty ones” who had fallen away from the faith and became tyrants. The blessing that God had blessed them with was turned into greed and manipulations. They became the great power brokers of their generations: Manipulators of people, cities and nations. They used their wealth and influence for wickedness. We see tyrants throughout history and in the earth today. Human nature has not changed.
“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (Genesis 6:5-11).
This discourse sounds like the path the world is on today. As the great schemers and power players manipulate their wills into the fabric of everyday life, fear, corruption and violence increases. Not only the great and wealthy are corrupt. Many in the earth have turned their backs on anything to do with God. And they persecute those that want God in their lives. They devise laws that make it increasingly harder be godly while they promote everything ungodly, they use public education as a way to instill doctrines of demons in the minds of young people, and they bare false witness in the great media machine as well as tell lies and deceptions to promote their agendas. Others are using a god of violence to force their agenda in the earth. They take advantage of the moral decline of the nations and give people a false faith. With a tyrannical world view, they bring fear, persecution, slavery, and death to all who disagree with them.
But our hope, our peace, and our security is our faith in God’s word. With His word we are to build an ark to the saving of our house.
Noah walked with God.
Noah was “perfect in his generations” (Genesis 6:9). What does that mean? It means that Noah lived by the knowledge he had. The Bible is progressive revelation – meaning that God revealed His will through the generations and not all at once. God’s complete will is found in the New Testament. God’s perfect will is found in Jesus. We’re learning (or should be) to be like Jesus.
“Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” (Amos 3:3). God and Noah were in agreement. Noah accepted God as his God, and God accepted Noah because of his faith. Noah submitted to the known will of God, and God declared him righteous. It’s the same for us. Because we accept Jesus’ by faith, God not only declares us righteous, but we become righteous: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
God and Noah fellowshipped and communed with each other as Noah ran his life’s race: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [Noah being one of those witnesses], let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews12:1).
We all have a race to run. Will we walk with God? Will we lay aside “every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us” just as Noah had to do in his day? Weights aren’t sins in themselves, but they hinder our fellowship with God. For instance, entertainment. Entertainment in itself isn’t wrong. In fact, it can be healthy. But when entertainment takes us away from important time with God, or keeps us from fulfilling the known will of God for our lives, then it becomes a hindrance in our lives. It becomes a weight. Plus, we have to lay aside the sin which so easily ensnares us. A sin that can easily ensnare us is a sin that we enjoy. To us this sin may appear innocent. Sexual sins and the ease of which they are accessed are an example. For Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit seemed innocent enough. Yet, it was a snare. A snare isn’t a trap if you can see how it works. Adam and Eve didn’t see the trap for what it was. But God did. They could have avoided that trap if they would have been obedient. Every generation and every person has to choose whom they will serve, who will be their God and what they will believe. Because sin dominated in the earth, the earth became a death trap. Noah chose to walk with God and because of his obedience he escaped the trap.
Before Jesus comes there will be many snares available. When asked about His coming, the first thing Jesus said was a warning: “And Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Take heed that no one deceives you’” (Matthew 24:4). The warning is: Don’t be ensnared! Matthew chapters twenty-four and twenty-five are devoted to avoiding ensnarement and the consequences of falling into the traps. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Christian, He’s talking to us.
There are other scriptures and writings people use to “prove” spirits mated with women, but they have to bypass what we just established to conjure a doctrine.
Something else to consider: If male angels were capable of mating, it would stand to reason that there are female angels to mate with . If so, why didn’t the female angels mate with human males also? I’m sure it would have been easier to seduce the men. And wouldn’t the female angels be jealous? Talk about a war in heaven!
Who were the nephilim? Apostatized believers’ children who became power brokers, tyrants, and bullies of their generations.
Is there more to this? Probably. But we must keep to the scriptures and not make things up to suite our ideas. All things will be made known in due time. Stick to the scriptures, and let God reveal His word to us.
Stay strong and prepared!
A Journal of Edification and Exhortation 