01-29 God's Purpose Cannot Be Thwarted

Genesis 6:1-7

I’ve given the title of the message “God’s Purpose Cannot Be Thwarted.” And you may be wondering what this has to do with the passage I just read in Genesis. And I’ll tell you it has everything to do with Gen 6-9. God’s purpose cannot be thwarted, overruled, interrupted, overthrown, frustrated. Listen to the word of God on this point:

Job 42:2 NASB95

2 “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

Psalm 115:3 NASB95

3 But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.

Psalm 135:6 NASB95

6 Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.

Proverbs 19:21 NASB95

21 Many plans are in a man’s heart, But the counsel of the Lord will stand.

Isaiah 14:27 NASB95

27 “For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?”

Isaiah 43:13 NASB95

13 “Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?”

Isaiah 46:10 NASB95

10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;

Revelation 19:6 NASB95

6 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

“reign” means the exercise of supreme authority—royal power. The praise of this great multitude—just stacking up praiseworthiness of God…Lord, our God, Almighty (all-Powerful Omnipotent), reigns.

If there is one, overarching truth that can bring peace in the midst of tumultuous storms, hope in the midst of trials, when human strength and wisdom fails and human frailty is underscored—your hope and peace is rooted in Job’s statement: No purpose of God’s can be thwarted. Our God is truly, absolutely and mightily sovereign and there is nothing that any creature (human or heavenly) can do to interrupt the perfect plan of YHWH God.

This is so important to flow of Genesis, as it moves from the creation account, to the fall, the generations of Adam, to the flood—God’s purpose is not thwarted.

I looked up this word in Job…It means to cut off, to make inaccessible, to be impossible. It was used of the wall which fortified a city in the OT. That wall would make it impossible to access the city except thru the gate. Job’s point is that there is not creature that can throw up a wall that would hinder God and keep Him from following thru on His plans.

Now, after the Fall (when all looked hopeless), God extended a promise to humanity while cursing the serpent (3:15). That promise, what has been understood for a very long time to be the 1st Gospel, finds direct and literal fulfillment in Gen 6-9. It is curious how God words the curse to satan—I will put enmity b/t you and the woman and b/t your seed and her seed. What is the “seed” of the serpent (other serpents?) or if it is directed at Satan—then something else is going on here.

And I think Satan recognized that God was going to do something amazing thru the seed of the woman (ultimately Messiah). Something that would guarantee his downfall and defeat. Near the very beginning, Satan goes to work to overrule and negate God’s promise. He instigates the first murder, attempting to frustrate God’s purpose.

Then, as we see in our passage today, he perverts God’s order, intending to corrupt the pure “seed” thru which the promise of God will be fulfilled. I’ll walk thru the narrative with you, having you take note of 3 divisions:

1. Demonic Marriage

First, note the rapid increase of humanity’s population in vs 1. No one really knows for sure but given the extraordinary life spans of the antediluvian people and that presumably child-bearing went well in the the 100s of years for each person…estimates of the world’s population at the time of the flood (1656 years after creation) have been in the hundreds of millions to multiple billion (today we’re nearly 8 billion—11/15). It is a reasonable estimate in my opinion. The emphasis on the genealogies up to this point have been on the male children (even though you see the formula “other sons and daughters”). Ch 6 begins to take note of the daughters that were born to men in those days. Mankind is still fulfilling God’s mandate to “be fruitful and multiply…fill the earth.”

Then vs 2—This is one of the most debated sections in Genesis and it has perplexed believers for millennia. And there are quite a few questions that have to be answered in understanding what Moses is here writing about. Not the least of those questions is “why did God send the flood to destroy all living things (but 8 people)?”

This little section is the bridge between the generations of Adam and the account of the global flood—and the key individual is Noah (5:32 & 6:8).

Historically there have been 3 major interpretations of the identity of the “sons of God” and “daughters of men.” Let summarize them for you:

Sons of God refer to the descendants of godly “Seth” and the “daughters of men” though beautiful were of the ungodly line of Cain. These end up marrying and God warns thruout Scripture the problems with the godly marrying the ungodly. This interpretation was becoming increasingly popular in the 2nd C AD and the early church father Augustine discussed this passage in his book City of God. Reformers like Luther and Calvin preferred this also.

Sons of God refer to despotic rulers (human rulers) and their offense is that they forcibly took wives (plural) in polygamous marriage. Some suggest these rulers were under the control of demons.

Now both of these interpretations have the weakness in that the term “sons of God” never refers to human rulers or a line of holy people anywhere else in the OT.

Last interpretation understands “sons of God” to refer to ungodly, fallen angels who marry human women. The offense then is a violation of the created order—a perversion of of God’s design for marriage and procreation according to “kind.”

There are several reasons why I take this to be the best interpretation.

The LXX translates the Hebrew as “the angels of God”.

The earliest/oldest understanding of Gen 6 (dating to pre-Xn era) was the identification of “sons of God” to be fallen angels—(Jewish, 1 Enoch, LXX, writings of Philo and Josephus, Dead Sea Scrolls) and including the apostles:

1 Peter 3:18–20 NASB95

18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

2 Peter 2:4–5 NASB95

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

Jude 6 NASB95

6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,

Jude is addressing 2 sins commited by these “fallen” angels: not keeping own domain (referring to the exalted status they enjoyed as angelic beings—a deliberate decision). then they abandoned their “proper abode”—the God-designed dwelling place for them.

Some believe this is the original fall along with Satan b/c of pride and self-exaltation against God. But if Jude is referring to Gen 6:1-4 their sin is the sexual perversion aimed at corrupting the human race.

Again, this is the earliest Jewish interpretation and appears to be the understanding of Peter and Jude.

The phrase “sons of God” is used elsewhere in the OT to refer to angels.

Job 1:6 NASB95

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 NASB95

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.

Job 38:6–7 NASB95

6 “On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, 7 When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

One of the arguments that drives the other interpretations is that angels do not marry (MT 22:30) and would be impossible for them to have sexual unions with human women…even though this is precisely what is going on in Gen 19 when men lustfully desired the 2 angels who took on the form of human men and resulted in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Besides this, the demons longed to occupy bodies (Mk 5:11-13; Lk 11:24-26). Apparently they took human form and began to marry human women. The result was demonic marriage. If it seems too much like a myth and unbelievable:

Gordon Wenham:

Genesis—Beginning and Blessing Human Degeneration (vv. 1–4)

If the modern reader finds this story incredible, that reflects a materialism that tends to doubt the existence of spirits, good or ill. But those who believe that the creator could unite himself to human nature in the Virgin’s womb will not find this story intrinsically beyond belief.”

2. Demonic Children

I’ll come back to God’s statement about 120 years (vs 3). The direct result of the intermarrying of ungodly angels and human women was the “Nephilim.” This was the offspring of the unholy union, “when the sons of God...” Moses says they were on the earth during those days (the days when the intermarrying took place).

This appearance of Nephilim has been problematic. The LXX translates “gigantes” gigantic (KJV NKJ “giants”). Some believe these offspring were very large—even more so than Goliath. There was even a supposed fossil evidenced unearthed in gas exploration in Saudi Arabia of giant human bones (turns out photographs were manipulated).

When the LXX translators were looking for a term that understood Nephilim, they landed on gigantes (Eng giant). Gk mythology had long referred to the children of the gods as gigantes (or lit earth born creatures). It could explain why the LXX used this term to refer to the offspring of ungodly angels who cohabitated with human women. Remember the description of these daughters (beautiful, or “good”—that is good for bearing children).

Moses wrote they were Nephilim—a Heb word that means “to fall.” I think what Moses was describing was “mighty men” (that is mighty in their rebellion against God—as Jewish interpretation would note) those who fell on others in the sense of overpowering them. They were men of violence. That would describe the Satanic influence that would seek to undo God’s purpose for humanity.

There is one other point of confusion that has to do with the phrase “and also afterward.” The confusion lies in the description by 10 of the spies who were sent in to spy out Canaan and they came back with the bad report of the citizens they were up against:

Numbers 13:33 NASB95

33 “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Were the spies telling the truth? They were giving an evil report being self-deceived into thinking they couldn’t enter the land as victors. They exaggerated the report comparing themselves to giants they viewed themselves as grasshoppers.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum writes:

“The reported existence of Nephilim after the flood was a lie of the ten spies, as they tried to discourage the people. This was one of several lies they told. When Joshua conquers the land, he never runs into any Nephilim. Therefore it seems apparent that these Nephilim were the product of the intermarriage of fallen angels and human women, and they only existed before the flood in keeping with the phrase ‘in those days’...”

Now, why would Satan instruct his demons to do this (to intermarry and produce this breed)?

Remember God’s promise to bring forth the seed of the woman that would bring the destruction of Satan and his seed (3:15)? This promise represents God’s plan to redeem humanity from the crises that was self-inflicted (the fall) while glorifying Himself as He accomplishes that plan in the course of human history.

The promise of the seed in Gen 3:15 is key to understanding why Satan would instruct his demons to intermarry and produce this corrupt breed. In his activity, his desire is to threaten the promised seed by corrupting the human race.

It is my view that this is why the “sons of God” (fallen angels) looked at the “daughters of men” and saw their beauty—but above all, they were good for breeding—the best candidates for bringing Satan’s plan to corrupt the race and ultimately defeat God’s plan to redeem fallen humanity. Corrupting the seed thru whom God would bring redemption would nullify that plan and frustrate or thwart God’s purpose.

Thruout Scripture, Satan has intended to disrupt God’s plan thru various means—all aimed at thwarting divine redemption:

Cain murdering Abel (the 1st 2 children to be born—killing the potential seed)

Pharaoh killing all Hebrew male children (Ex 1:15-22)

Haman’s plot to exterminate all Jews during the Persian empire (Esther).

Herod’s decree to kill all Jewish male children under the age of 2 (Mt 2:16-18,20) to kill Messiah

Satan is about disrupting God’s plan—which explains God’s purpose in sending the flood.

3. Divine Displeasure

vs 3—God expresses His displeasure toward Satan’s ploy. There’s a couple ways to understand vs 3. One is that God intends His Spirit (of life) would not remain in man forever and the result is that man will see dramatically shorter lifespans where people will not live beyond 120 years.

A better understanding sees God’s Spirit (HS) as the One convicting man of sin thru the preaching of Enoch and Noah. God would not allow humanity to continue forever under the demonic contamination resulting form Satan’s attack. God’s Spirit would continue for 120 years and then He would send the global flood.

The question arises then “why is humanity judged on account of the sin of the demons?” Why are people being judged in the flood when the real sin is commited by fallen angels? My answer is that the flood is not so much a judgment on account of man’s sin.

Gen 8:20-21;

The flood did not purge man’s heart of sin. Yet God smelled the soothing aroma (of Noah’s sacrifice) and was pleased with the results of the flood yet promises never to destroy the earth again with water. On the other hand, the flood would exterminate the threat to the promised seed (LJC) and that all of humanity would be destroyed except for the family that carried the pure/promised seed (Noah). In the flood, God preserves His promise and secures redemption thru that promised seed.

This effectively guarantees exactly what Job acknowledged “no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” Satan tries, time and again and always fails to interrupt God’s plan. This is the single, most fundamental truth in all theology: God rules over all.

It is an uncontested truth in all of Scripture and demonstrated thru all humanity history That God’s sovereign purpose will always be fully carried out. The enemy tries to frustrate the purpose of the Lord but it always turns on him in total failure.

Where is your trust? Do you put it in that which will fail? So many people do. Or is it in the One who never fails b/c He is the Lord?

Close with Psalm 146;