Demons or Men?

Genesis 6: 1-6

1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.  5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

This passage has been debated among theologians and no amicable consensus has been reached.  Since Moses did not explain it by giving details or by positively identifying those who were involved in this activity, no one today can with absolute certainty declare who its participants were, nor can anyone give its definite interpretation that would satisfy everyone.  Moses merely recorded the account as fact without giving conclusive commentary.  The result of the sexual encounters between the sons of God and the daughters of man were the Nephilim.  Those are the facts that are recorded in Genesis.  No attempt at explaining those facts is made.  I believe that Moses did not give an explanation of these events because Israel, whose history he was recording, knew who the participants were and therefore needed no further explanation.  What has caused misunderstanding among Bible students today is that through the years too many Theologians have offered their opinions on these events and have muddied the waters of interpretation.  There are two major thoughts as to who the sons of God are and who the Nephilim are. 

One of them, it seems to me, can be discarded without serious consideration, although among many Godly Christians it is the proper interpretation.  It says that the sons of God are fallen angels – those of you who believe this please hear me out before you take up stones - who took human wives unto themselves and the resulting offspring were physical giants, the word “Nephilim” interpreted by the Septuagint as meaning “giants”.  To prove their point, they quote Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.

Job 2: 1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.

Also, Job 38:7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy

Since “the sons of God” in these verses refer to angels, then, these interpreters assume that the same nomenclature in Genesis 6: 2 must also refer to angels.  I have at least two problems with that interpretation. The term "sons of God" does refer to angels in Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; but these are unfallen angels faithfully serving God, not those who followed Satan in his rebellion against God.  The words, “and Satan came among them” proves that he is not counted as included in the “sons of God” in these passages.  He is separate from them, and therefore, so are demons. 

Even if fallen angels could make themselves appear in human bodies, why would they want to marry human women and settle down on earth?  Certainly their wives and neighbors would detect something different about them and this would create innumerable problems.  Do immortal spiritual beings desire and lust after mortal flesh?  I don’t think so. 

A second problem I have with this is that nowhere does the Bible even remotely indicate that angels can have sex with humans.  Yes, angels have assumed human form, but they are not human.  They are still spiritual beings with spiritual characteristics.  Do they have a fully functioning human body, i.e. reproductive abilities when they take on human form for a time?  I rather doubt it, and I believe it takes a stretch of the imagination to see that possibility.  Angels may appear as a human i.e. look like them, but they do not have the same bodily functions.

Mark 12: 25 states that in the resurrection people will be like the angels in heaven, in that there will be no marriage, nor by implication, no sex.  Angels do not have sex.

Mark 12: 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Immediately someone is shouting out, “It says angels in heaven.  In heaven they don’t have sex, but Genesis 6 is on earth, not in heaven.  The angels can have sex on earth.”

That, however, is not a valid argument since it is an argumentum ex silentio, an argument from silence.  Just because Jesus said the angels in heaven do not have sex that does not even remotely imply that the opposite is true; it gives absolutely not one shred of evidence that on earth they can and in fact have had sexual relations with human women.  In logic, an argument from silence is never taken as a valid one.  If you use arguments from silence, then you can prove whatever you want to prove.  Just say, “Since there is no evidence to disprove that what I say true, it must be true.”  That is what an argument from silence is; if there is no empirical evidence to the contrary to disprove what I am maintaining, then what I argue must be taken as valid and correct.  But, that is not true.  It is an invalid argument because it is based on assumption, namely, if ‘A’ is proven to be true and I claim that ‘B’ is true because nothing is proven contrary to what I am claiming, I am, therefore, correct in my assertion.

Of course, the focus of what Jesus was teaching when He mentioned the angels in heaven in Mark was that there is no need for marriage in heaven because those who populate heaven will never die; so in that way they are like the angels in that they have eternal life.  There will be no births in heaven because there are no deaths in heaven.  He was teaching that there is a need for marriage on earth in order to propagate life since people on earth die.  If they did not reproduce, then the human species would die out.  His primary teaching was not whether or not angels were capable of having sexual relationships, but rather that those who populate eternity have no need to reproduce since they will never die.  Since angels do not die, there is no need for them to reproduce other angels.  In fact, they are not capable of doing so.  What would be the purpose of angels having reproductive capabilities since God has already created all the angels He intends to create? 

In addition to their claim that “in heaven” excludes angels “on earth” from the Lord’s prohibition of marriage, they point to Jude 6 as further proof that angels had sexual relations on earth with human women. 

Jude 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day

Jude is comparing the false teachers of his day who had infiltrated the church, posing as teachers and ministers of the gospel - who in essence were profane perverters of the gospel - to the disobedient Israelites in the wilderness and to the angels who rebelled against God by not being satisfied with their position as holy angels, but wanted to be more than that, and to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, who were slain with fire from heaven because of their blatant in-your-face depraved homosexual practices.  They wanted to have sex with angels (see Genesis 19:5) – the opposite of what some claim occurred in Genesis 6 - but the men of Sodom were prevented from doing so.  This is just another indication that angels do not have sex on earth.  It is because of the juxtaposition of the angel verse to the verse about Sodom and Gomorrah that some perceive the angels to have been involved in sexual misdeeds with women.  “Since they are adjacent verses, then they must have the same sexual context.”  But the context does not demand such an interpretation.  It merely states that the false teachers will be in the same condemnation as the rebellious Israelites, the rebellious angels and the perverted inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Nothing about sexual encounters between angels and humans is even implied.

Furthermore, the emphasis in Genesis 6 is on the sin of man and not the rebellion of angels. The word "man" is used nine times in verses 1-7 and God states clearly that the judgment was coming because of what humans had done. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth" (verse 5).  Another problem with this interpretation is that verse 2 states that the “sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”  This verse clearly states that the sons of God were lusting after the daughters of men. 

Do angels lust after human flesh?  Do angels think of human women as an object of desire?  Do spiritual beings wish they could be fleshly in nature so they can have sex?  They are far superior to human beings, so why would they want to do what inferior beings do?  Do you, as a human being, desire to live as an animal so you can procreate with one?  The idea is abhorrent.  It is disgusting to even imagine.  The idea that the sons of God were angels who lusted after human women just does not make sense. 

And the verse continues by saying that they “took as their wives any they chose.”  The sons of God married the daughters of man.  The word “wife” implies the intent of an enduring relationship.  Would angels make a conscience decision to relinquish a spiritual manifestation in order to remain in a corporeal manifestation just so they could remain in a relationship with a human for the purpose of having sex?  It just does not begin to make sense.  Once again I refer you to Mark 12:25.  Angels do no marry.  They do not reproduce.  They are eternal in nature so there is no need for them to have offspring.  Neither are they capable of doing so.

But, someone says, this was Satan’s way of destroying the human race that God created to worship and serve Him.  How better to defeat God’s work than to mix demon blood with human blood?  (This falsely assumes that angels have blood.)  One of Satan's most successful devices is compromise. If he can delude God's people into abandoning their privileged position of separation from sin and communion with God, then he can corrupt them and lead them into sin.

What was Satan's plan for defeating God's people in Noah's day?   It was to entice the godly line of Seth ("the sons of God") to mix with the ungodly line of Cain ("the daughters of men") and thus abandon their devotion to the Lord.   This is the identical temptation that Christians face today: to be friends with the world (James 4:4), love the world (1 John 2:15-17), and conform to the world (Rom. 12:2), rather than be separated from the world (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1.

Those who teach that the sons of God were fallen angels also teach that the offspring of those relations were physical giants who viciously, violently and tyrannically ruled others.  They cared not for any person other than themselves.  They terrorized those they ruled and trampled upon the rights of all.  Since they were bigger and stronger than everyone else, half angel and half human, who could stop them?  But, is this the proper interpretation?

To give support to that position, they point to Goliath and his brothers who were physical giants and to Numbers 13: 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, (who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."

Because of the physical stature of the inhabitants of Canaan - which may have been greatly exaggerated because of their fear of confrontation with unknown forces – the spies thought of them as having descended from the Nephilim who had inhabited the ante-diluvian world.  But, there is at least one major problem with that interpretation.  If all of the Nephilim were drowned in the flood and only Noah and his family survived to begin populating the post-diluvian world, how did these Nephilim, these physical giants, get there?  Was there a second (supposed) invasion of angels having sex with human women?  Were they physical giants?  The Bible clearly states that there were physical giants that lived in Canaan – not all the inhabitants were physical giants, but the descendants of Anak were - but they were not the Nephilim that existed prior to the flood.  The ante-diluvian Nephilim were something else because they were all destroyed in the flood.  The two groups are not at all related to each other.  But these Nephilim that the Israelites saw in Canaan were similar the first group of Nephilim in that they were godless, tyrannical men who sought only their own desires and had no thought of the true God.  Genesis 6: 4 clearly states that 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

The words “and also afterward” gives meaning to who the ante-diluvian Nephilim were.  Nephilim that were similar to the Genesis Nephilim were also in Canaan and were seen by the Israelite spies.  These Nephilim were men who had rejected truth for a lie and were the mighty ones who led the Gentile nations within Canaan.

It seems to me that the more sensible and Biblical interpretation would be that the sons of God are the descendants from the godly line of Seth.  These are the people whose ancestors had “called upon the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4: 26).  These sons of God had been taught the ways of God, but now have rejected those ways for the ways of the world, for the ways of the ungodly line of Cain - the daughters of man.

They “saw” them, that they were “attractive” or beautiful.  They “took” whoever they wanted as wives.  They failed to remain faithful to God and to their calling as His children, as His offspring, those who had been sanctified by Him as his own, and they chose to intermingle with those who were apostates and rejecters of all that God is.  Just like Eve in the Garden of Eden, they “saw” that what they desired was “attractive” so they “took.” 

They turned their backs on God and the obedient way of life because they lusted after beautiful women.  They chose only with their eyes, emotionally, not with their minds or spirits, intellectually or spiritually.  They were living by sight, not by faith.  They only saw what was outward; they did not see what was real.  They chose outwardly fading beauty over real substance, that which is inward and lasting.  They chose women over God.  They chose to have sexual encounters with as many women as they desired over God’s holy way of life.  They chose very temporary pleasure over eternal joy.  They chose death over life.   How foolish.  How utterly insane.  The devastating results of their choices would be seen in a few years; the death of the world that they knew, just like Adam and Eve witnessed the death of their garden and of the blessed life they knew in the presence, protection, and power of God when they saw, lusted, and chose.

Seeing, lusting, choosing always brings death, no matter who, when, where, how, why or time frame.  It has not changed from the beginning of time to this day.  Men have still not learned that what God says He means and He has the right and the power to enforce what He demands.  No.  Let me change that.  Men have chosen to rebel against what God says and have thought that God will not punish them for disobedience.  If, indeed, God really cares at all what men do since He does not immediately take action against them for disobedience.

Having seen and desired the beauty of the women they saw, they “took.”  There is something that bodes sinister in this.   They “took” has an implication of force.  “They took any… they chose.”  Perhaps there was consent with the one being taken, perhaps not.  Did they take more than one?  Two?  Three?  Several?  It seems from the context that if the taker wanted what he saw, then there was no question that he would take whoever he wanted whether or not the woman – or women - wanted to go with him.  There was no limit to his taking by force.  The violence that followed in their society confirms this.  Perhaps I have misread this, but I think not.

This “seeing”, “desiring” and “taking” on the part of the sons of God was the beginning of the end for the ante-diluvian world.  This lust for godlessness was the beginning of violent, worldwide evil.  There was no more Godly influence, for all sought only selfish pleasure.  What started as what some may think of as only natural desire, a man’s desire for a beautiful woman, the tiny seed of passion, grew exponentially into continual, unending wickedness and violence.  The spark of lust ignited a world of greed, violence, evil and ungodliness. 

The Nephilim who were born of these unions were the “men of renown” the “mighty men” in the earth.  There is nothing in verse 4 that indicates they were anything other than human men.  They were fully human, not an aberration of a cross species.   The Gesenius Lexicon of Hebrew renders the word “Nephilim” as meaning excellent, noble and skillful.  The lexicon insists that the word does not carry the meaning of “large in body.”  These Nephilim were giants of politics, industry, business, and social life.  They were also the warriors, the military, the enforcers; they were bullies, thugs, hoodlums, punks, gangsters, mobsters.  What they wanted, they took with impunity.  They took by might and power.  They were brutal, sadistic, fierce, and forceful in their demeanor.  No one dare oppose them on pain of death, or at minimum, a severe beating. 

Were they physical giants or not?  They may or may not have been – the context is ambiguous – other interpreters render the word Nephilim as meaning physical giants and others as “fallen ones” - but regardless, they were unstoppable in their conquering and domination of others.  They were totally without fear of other men or of God.  Their ancestors had known God and followed Him, but for the sake of temporary pleasure, they had turned their backs on Him, and now their descendants had no inkling of who He was and what He demanded of man.  They were totally on their own.  No Godly guidance.

What began as what some may view as an innocent and casual glance at a beautiful, but godless woman by one of God’s children, set in motion the rapid and irreversible decline of a Godly society into a cesspool of Satanically inspired evil, wickedness, and violence.  It is almost inconceivable to imagine a world such as what they lived in.  The thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually.  No one thought of anything worthwhile.  They were totally consumed with evil. 

So it is today.  The outward covering of skin, no matter how humanly desirable is not to be desired over inward beauty.  So many people are still choosing in the same way the sons of God chose back then; and they are making the same mistakes as they did.  Now, there is, of course, nothing wrong with having a beautiful wife (just ask me) or handsome husband (just ask my wife), but outward appearances are not to have priority over Godliness.  When God’s people choose the ways of the world over God’s ways, evil and destruction is always the result.  It will never be the other way around.   The influence of godlessness crushes the life out of Godliness when it is embraced by those who deliberately decide that the world has more to offer and is less demanding and stressful than living Godly lives.  Unlike what the old TV commercial says, they would rather switch than fight.  When God’s people marry godless people, no matter how stunning their appearance, the result is usually the same.  Perhaps not 100% of the time; many people could probably give an example of the exception to this, but a high percentage of the time being unequally yoked destroys the godly influence that the Christian may have.   It is always the Godly spouse who must compromise with the ungodly one by being less and less an influence upon the other.  God’s way is always the best way.  Marry only another Christian.

And there is a very good reason for the decline of Godliness when one decides to do things his own way.  Because of the deliberate rejection of God by the sons of God, those who at one time had been taught His ways, He rejected them.  The Holy Spirit will not always strive, or plead, or contend with them to repent and do His will.  He allows mankind to reap the fruit of what they have sown.  This is the worst of all judgments.  To be allowed to live in any way one chooses to live with no regard for God or His laws.  The sons of God, with forethought and deliberate alienation from God’s commands, chose to entangle themselves with the daughters of men.  All thought and remembrance of God were lost as they progressively grew further and further from Him.  And now He allows them to go their own way with no restraint, with no sense of wrong doing, with no pang of conscience.  It is not to be desired to be allowed to live with no Godly restraint.  It means certain death.   It means God no longer cares what you do.  It means you are past feeling the influence of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4: 19).  The world that was the result of these ungodly unions was one of total chaos and unmitigated evil. 

In support of this view, I refer you to Exodus 34, where God warns Israel not to make any covenant with the inhabitants of Canaan, especially in regard to the worship of their gods and in the taking of their daughters for their sons as wives.

Exodus 34: 11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

Also see Deuteronomy 7: 1 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, 2 and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3 You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.  6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.  The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

God clearly warns that any slackening of their resolve to honor Him completely would lead to disastrous consequences, both spiritually and socially.  If you pay attention to what the passage is saying, you cannot help but notice that it is the godless women who will lead the Godly men away from worshiping God and into idolatry.  The women would hold an inordinate control over the men.  So it was in Genesis 6. 

Ezra 9 and 10 and Nehemiah 13 spell out in clear and strong language the results of intermarrying with someone who does not hold the same spiritual values as you do.  Godless spouses always cause a spiritual downfall.  The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7: 39 instructs Christians to marry “only in the Lord.”  

Covenant making with the ungodly always leads to spiritual compromise, which leads to decreased fear of God, which leads to judgment.  When God’s people put the ungodly on spiritual par with themselves, when they take their values as their own, tragedy occurs.  It is tragic when God’s people lessen their adherence to God’s commands and interact with the ungodly as spiritual equals.

God calls this interaction “whoredom.”  God does not mince His words.  He tells it just like it is.   It is playing the whore – not a nice word at all – with those who care not for God or His ways.  It is prostituting oneself with idolatrous people.  Does anyone really want God to think of himself or herself as a “whore”?  A spiritual whore?  That is a dangerous position.  I’m sure the ancient Israelites thought the same way as is popular today, that we should not be judgmental or close-minded in regard to what some else practices or believes regardless of what God says about the situation.  Open-mindedness and tolerance may be behavior that is desirable to humans, but it is not acceptable to God.   The only question that needs to be considered is this: who do I want to please, man or God?

The most likely interpretation of Genesis 6:4 is that God saw the people of that day as "fallen ones," while men saw these people as mighty leaders.  When the descendants of Seth compromised with the descendants of Cain, they fell from God's blessing. God was grieved that they married into the godless line of Cain, choosing wives as they pleased without considering God's will (Genesis 6:2).  Did they not realize that they were jeopardizing God’s promise of a coming Redeemer?  How could God bring a Redeemer into the world through an unholy people?  They had disregarded the warning that Enoch and Noah gave about the coming judgment. Human history was now at the place where only Noah and his family—eight people—believed God and obeyed His Word. God's Spirit was striving with lost people, but they resisted the call of God; and God was grieved at what man was doing.

Whoever you believe the sons of God were, fallen angels or the descendants of Seth, there is no question that when they took the daughters of men as wives, it involved grievous sexual perversion of some kind.  It was the catalyst that precipitated the destruction of the old world, for it multiplied into absolute rejection of God.  It fulfilled James 1: 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.