The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men
1/30/04
Introduction… Tonight’s message is going to be a little different… It is probably going to be like a mix between a Wednesday night Bible study and a Sunday night message..
This evening we are going to visit a very controversial passage of scripture in the Word of God..
I had asked you some time back to give me some specific questions that you have about the Bible. And in doing so, I knew that many of the most controversial items would come up… and most of the questions asked were of the nature of those items that do cause controversy among different religions, denominations, and even among believers of a like mind and doctrine…
Questions such as “Did Jesus turn water into actual fermented wine.. an alcoholic beverage?”
“Will we know each other in heaven?”
“Will the Church be ruptured before the great tribulation….”?
And understand that there are different views on this, many believe in pre tribulation rapture, many believe in mid tribulation rapture, and many believe in post tribulation rapture..
And there were more questions… but you get the idea.
These are some of the most difficult questions to answer … they are very controversial, and because of that, many teachers and many churches will not even address these questions today.
I have well over 40 volumes of commentaries on the Bible that scholars have produced… and I have many more on my computer… but these are some of those questions about those passages of scripture that many commentators and commentaries either skip all together, or they give their opinion without giving biblical reasoning behind those opinions…
But I want you to continue to ask these questions… because that is why we are here… you should never be afraid to ask questions about the Bible if you are asking with pure motives so that you may understand what Gods word says.
I have told you before that the Church has many functions… the first of which should be to introduce Lost souls to Christ..
But another one of the main functions of the Church is for us to study and understand Gods word..
2 Tim. 2:15
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
Or, as the King James Version puts it..
2 Tim. 2:15
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now, it may take time for me to answer these questions for you…
The passage we are dealing with this evening is in Genesis chapter 6 and we will be looking at verses 1-8.
I received a question about this passage a couple of months ago, and then it came up in our Sunday school class three weeks ago, and I told someone I would address this question soon.
Why does it take so long….
Well, I learned a lesson some years ago when I was in a Sunday Evening Bible study class and someone asked me to preach a sermon about the rapture… and there in front of everyone I said… I will do that next Sunday evening….
I did preach that message that next Sunday because I said that I would, but I did not do justice to Gods word… I was not as nearly prepared as I should have been because some things take more intense study than others…
So, continue to ask… and when I feel that I can give you an adequate view of Gods word.. we will look at these questions…
Now, this evenings scripture… Genesis chapter 6 starting in verse 1.
Read Genesis 6:1-8
And the question at hand… Just who are the sons of God and the daughters of men that are mentioned here in Gods word?
Now, there are three prominent views about this question…
And of course there are many variations off of these views and then there are even some ideas that are truly out of this world…
I want us to at least look at the most prominent views tonight, and I will give you my beliefs on this subject and I will show you from Gods word why I believe what I believe…
The first view I want us to look at tonight is called the Despot interpretation.
This theory ties in with some ancient near eastern patterns of writing in which people of noble birth were called gods…
This view points out the accurate fact that in the Old Testament one of the Hebrew words for God is Elohim…
And this word Elohim is also used at times in the Old Testament to describe Men of noble birth, or men of power or authority…
Just one example of this is found in Exodus 21:6 where the Bible says…
then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.
The word we have translated here as judges is the Hebrew word Elohim… and in this context of use it is referring to rulers, nobles, men in positions of Authority….
The Hebrew language is a difficult language for us to understand... everything must be looked at in its context and tense…
Depending on the context, Kings and leaders were referred to at times with the Word Elohim… so some people take this fact and determine that the sons of God referred to here are actually sons of leaders, sons of men in position of authority, such as kings who decided to take wives of non noble birth and further to take many wives for themselves.. thus showing the immorality of mankind at this day and time..
Some standing with this theory also hold to the idea that these rulers and leaders were guided or led by fallen angels…
Sound ridiculous?
Well, we know from our study of Daniel, among other places, in passages such as Daniel 10:13 that a constant spiritual battle is going on all around us in a dimension which we can not see..
Daniel 10:13
But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.
So, this is one prominent explanation for the text at hand… one which I personally do not adhere to, but many people do.
Then there is the theory that we probably hear more about than any other theory out there… and it is this theory that arouses so much controversy and discussion among so many people.
It is the theory that the Sons of God are actually angels.
Now, even people who hold to this theory do not always realize that there are variations of this belief out there.
First, there is the idea that these angels are Good angels, angels that have not sinned, angels that have not fallen….
The Bible refers to good angels in different places as the Sons of God.
This phrase we are looking at… 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 and I could go on and on…
These are all translations of the original Hebrew Phrase
“Bene-ha elohim”
But that Hebrew Phrase or a similar phrase is used in other places where we don’t even have the translation as “Sons of God”
Psalm 29:1, Psalm 39:7, Daniel 3:25…. All of these places are using the same phrase or a very similar phrase in Hebrew yet I did not find the translations as Sons Of God for these scriptures in any of my versions of the Bible…
Then we do have the translation “Sons of God” in different versions of the bible such as the King James Version where this phrase is used in places such as 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.
Job 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
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 our Holy God…
But there in lies the dilemma doesn’t it…
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”.
Therefore, these are not good angels….
And then there is the idea that these Sons of God are the fallen angels… who decided to take human women as their wives…
Of course, why then would they be called the sons of God?
Now, to be fare to both sides of the issue, some could come back and say “well, I have done a word study about the first part of that phrase… the Hebrew word “Bane” in which we translate the word Sons… and in my study I have found that the root of this word actually means to build, or to construct.. and in its basic meaning.. it means foundation, or founded, or ESTABLISHED….
So even though the fallen angels have rebelled against God, they were still His creation.. so you could say that they were Established by Elohim so the phrase could still fit…”
Well, I personally don’t think so, but I see the theory here.
And then we could ask…
Would God truly allow such an unnatural occurrence as this?
Some people who hold to this view of fallen angels feel that a superhuman race was brought forth from this joining… that the children borne of such unions could be likened to superman today…
That’s ok, I came across a vast number of people who believe that this passage of scripture provides the truth about extra terrestrial beings… not that they are actually from another world.. but that they are super human demonic beings that look so different than us that they appear to be aliens… and that for those who have been abducted or in contact with these beings, their mind is implanted with the belief that they have been on an unidentified flying object.. or a spaceship, to cover up the truth of who they really are…
But back to our problem at hand…
The belief that fallen angels have taken human women and had children by them….
Well, I believe there are a few different passages in the Bible to refute such a thing…
One of the strongest of which would be in Luke 20:35-36 where Christ said…
But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, [36] and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.
Matthew 22:30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
Sexual union is unique to physical creation and is temporary. When we live in our glorified bodies, we will no longer need or desire sex. All pleasure on earth is only a foreshadow of what is to come in heaven. God promises that He will be more to us than anything we can experience or even imagine here on earth. What we experience here will pass away to make room for what is abundantly better.
We never see where God told angels to go forth and multiply as he did Adam and Eve…
Angels can’t procreate. They don’t marry nor are given in marriage, yet the passage in Genesis clearly says the sons of God took wives. In light of this, these could not have been angels.
Angels also do not have the power to create life. People may be involved in the physical aspect of procreation, but only God can create the life that is produced. We looked at many passages that would clarify this a few weeks ago on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday….Some of these passages clarify this:
Exodus 4:11
The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
Psalm 139:13-16
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
[14] I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. [15] My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
[16] your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me
were written in your book before one of them came to be.
And of course there are many many more… so to me, this phrase “Sons of God” clearly could not have been talking about angels..
Which leads us into the last theory…
The last prominent theory is that the Sons of God were from the Godly lineage or line of Seth… The son born to Adam and Eve after Abel was killed by Cain.
Many scholars that hold to this view say that the daughters of men were from the line of Cain, therefore they were cursed.
So the Holy line of Seth intermarried with the unholy line of Cain.
I agree with this interpretation to a point…
I feel that we can look at the Bible and see that all mankind is sinful, from the time Adam sinned until this very day…
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and all mankind has a freewill, therefore, we can not say that due to someone’s lineage or blood type… they are either holy or non holy….
But I still hold to the same basic principle that is being applied here…It is all in the decision of the individual weather to follow God or not…
It has nothing to do with the Bloodline, but everything to do with the spiritual line…
It has nothing to do with who we are physically, but everything to do with who we are spiritually…
We can back up a little bit in Genesis chapter 4 and verse 26….
Genesis 4:26
Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.
Men who began to call upon the Name of the Lord…. Believers….
Believers are referred to as Sons of God in different places throughout the Bible…
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.
Galatians 3:26
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,
And the King James Version had more…
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:
The only difference there from the NIV is that the NIV says Children of God…
Philip. 2:15
That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
1 John 3:1-2
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. [2] Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
Again, the NIV rendering is the basically the same, having translated children in the place of Sons…
1 John 3:1-2
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. [2] Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
So yes, the Bible does refer to believers as Sons of God or Children of God…
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, for beauty instead of Godliness….
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….
Believers marrying non-believers… what does the Bible say about that?
2 Cor. 6:14
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
One last question…
How did the Nephilim or giants come about simply by this union….
The answer is… they didn’t.
The text clearly says…
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… the text does not say that the Nephilim were the offspring of the Sons of God and the daughters of men.
The text says the Nephilim were the heroes of Old.. men of renown. I knew I would be out of time so I did not want to go into great detail here, but if you study this phrase you will see that when the writer calls them heroes of old and men of renown he is actually saying that they were wicked men that were proud to be thieves and robbers… their names were on the lips of the people of their time… they were well known for their exploits…
I studied this and likened it to Billy the Kid, or Jimmy Hoffa, criminals… but their names were on the lips of the people of their time and they were even considered by some to be heroes…
One meaning of the word Nephilim is giant, but another meaning is tyrant..
Violent… causing to fall…
These larger than average men were wicked wicked men, and they were on the earth at the time that the believers, those who called upon the name of the Lord, began to lust after the word, and turn away from God..
Genesis 6:5-6
The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. [6] The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
Now, I want you to understand… I have prayed about this message, I have studied for I don’t know how many hours…
I feel that God has guided me in this study and you now know where I stand…
But with a passage as difficult to interpret as this… you need to pray and study it yourself… ask God to guide you as you open your heart to his guidance…
Even different versions of the Bible interpret this verse differently…
The Contemporary English Version uses the phrase Supernatural beings in Genesis 6:4…
The Living Bible says Evil beings from the spirit world…
If you believe in the Despot interpretation… than you are in fine company… many great scholars hold to this theory including some professors at the Dallas Theological Seminary.
If you believe that the Sons of God are Angels, then you have many great scholars backing you, including some great men of old such as Philo, Josephus, Justin Martyr, Clement, Tertullian, Luther, and a whole host of others….
And if you believe as I do, that this is a case of Human men turning their backs on God, and looking for physical beauty in a wife, instead of Godliness, much as our world today… than there are countless authorities that have your view in common…
We need to understand that these are all differences in interpretation… they are not dealing with salvation… they are not dealing with the inherency of the Bible.
The main this is to study it for yourself.
I think I have shown you recently 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…
I hope I have given you some information and tools to start with this evening…
I close with a scripture that I started with…
2 Tim. 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
I pray that you will, I pray that we all will….
