THE CORRUPTION OF MANKIND

The Sons of God

Three Possibilities

1. Rulers of Mankind

Psalm 82:6–7 “I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.””

2. Godly Line of Seth

Genesis 4:26 “To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.”

2 Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”

3. Fallen Angels

The Usage of the Phrase

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 38:6–7 “On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

Angels Taking Other Forms

Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?””

Genesis 18:1–2 “And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth”

Genesis 19:1 “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth”

Hebrews 13:2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Problem Verse

Matthew 22:30 “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

Supporting Verses

See 1 Peter 3:18–20...

Colossians 2:13–15 “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

See Jude 6–7...

See 2 Peter 2:4–5...

Luke 8:30–31 “Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.”

Sin Can Look Beautiful

Genesis 3:6 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

Proverbs 5:3–5 “For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;”

The Nephilim

The term Nephilim actually means feller or falling ones, the kind of people that fall on you and crush you, powerful, fierce warrior-type people: a bully or tyrant. The term in Hebrew implies not so much the idea of great stature as of reckless ferocity, impious and daring characters, who spread devastation and carnage far and wide.

Numbers 13:32–33 “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. 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.””

The Wickedness of Man and the Grief of the Lord

See Romans 3:9-18...

1 Samuel 15:29 “And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.””

Numbers 23:19 “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

Malachi 3:6 ““For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Psalm 78:40 “How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert!”

Ephesians 4:30 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

God’s Patience Runs Out

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Romans 2:4–5 “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

2 Peter 2:5 “if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;”

2 Peter 2:9 “then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,”