The Flood - Part 1 (Gen 6:1-8)

Introduction

If you haven’t already, please turn your Bible to Genesis 6.

While you turn there, let me do two things: (1) I would like to let you know where we’re headed in the next few weeks sermon-wise and (2) let me get you back into the narrative of Genesis.

So first, let me tell you where we’re headed after this week over the next few weeks. As we get closer to Christmas, our services are going to continue transitioning towards essentially a full-blown Christmas celebration—you’ve probably noticed we’ve already started adding Christmas music into our musical worship. Starting next week, our sermons are also going to join in that transition as we put aside Genesis until January and we start a series I’ve titled The Peace of Christmas. During the weeks ahead, we’re focusing on this idea of peace, what it is, where we can find it, and who is our peace. This will get us to Christmas Eve on which we’ll have our annual Carols and Lessons in the evening.

The last week of December, we have a guest speaker coming in from State College. If Josh passes his ordination council, the guest speaker will be preaching a sermon that is meant as a charge for Josh as he continues his endeavor in ministry; if Josh doesn’t pass his ordination council, that last sermon of the year will probably stay focused on the need of fulfilling the Great Commission.

Second, let me get you back into the narrative of what’s going on in Genesis. Last week, Moses took a chapter to give us a genealogy, which just about all of us readily admitted that we usually skip when reading through the Bible. I hope you were able to see last week how genealogies serve purposes and in the case of Genesis 5, it’s to show us God’s willingness to keep His Word despite our sin because He is merciful and gracious.

Prior to the genealogy, in the chronology of Scripture, we read how God created all things ex nihilo (out of nothing) by His very Word (the only exception being His creation of mankind through which He formed man out of the dust and breathed the breath of life in him). We’ve seen how sin entered into the world by the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden, we’ve learned how that sin nature (original sin) was then passed on to the next generations. Over two weeks we studied the account of Cain and Abel and now, we see as ch. 6 continues the narrative, the increasing wickedness of mankind due to sin.

As we study Genesis 6:1-8 together, we’re going to break it into two parts: (1) The Increasing Corruption of Man in Sin (1-4) and (2) The Consequences of Sin (5-8). What we’ll see as we continue our journey through Genesis is that mankind truly is depraved when left in their own sin, and sin because of it being an affront to God requires justice. What today’s sermon will do is paint a picture that shows us how devestating sin actually is before causing us to revel in the grace that God gives us through His Son.

Prayer for Illumination

The Increasing Corruption of Man in Sin (1-4)

Our text starts by showing us how corrupt mankind has become and continues to be. Let’s read vv. 1-4.

Genesis 6:1–4 ESV

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.

What we’re seeing is mankind finally being fruitful and multiplying, but what’s happening as they continue to multiply is that sin is also multiplying.

Really, what we’re seeing is what we typically refer to as the depravity of mankind.

When we speak of the total depravity of mankind, we don’t mean that an individual has committed every single sin possible (though, James does speak about the breaking of one aspect of the Law as breaking the whole Law).

What we’re saying is that apart from Jesus’ work within a person, that person remains utterly in his sin and even the supposed good that a person without Jesus does, they’re still in their sin and they still need Jesus.

And as a person remains in their sin, they progressively sink deeper and deeper into their sinful appetites and their affections continue to seek after sin and degradation.

We see in v. 2 this idea of “the sons of God” and the “daughters of man” choosing to come together and we have to pause just for a moment because there’s often confusion as to what exactly is going on. There’s typically three ways that this has been interpreted and that’s important because it helps us understand what v. 4 means when it speaks about the Nephilim.

First, the Oldest Understanding of this passage was influenced by Jewish myths (found in 1 Enoch, which is not a biblical book). In this understanding, the sons of God referred to angelic beings and the daughters of man, of course, refer to human women.

The two strengths to this idea are (1) that it has been around since about the second or third century BC and (2) it simplifies the reading of v. 4. In this view the Nephilim are demi-god-like beings that are the result of angels and women procreating.

The weaknesses to this view are two-fold: (1) contextually, there hasn’t been a single mention of an angelic host; it would be unusual for the first mention of angelic beings to be this moment. (2) is that the Bible actually tells us that angels don’t procreate, we see that in Matthew 22 when the Sadduccees are asking about marital relationships in heaven and Jesus’ response is that when we get to heaven, there is no marriage nor is there the giving in marriage or what we would call the marital act in heaven; and Jesus says that humans will be like angels in that aspect when they enter into heaven.

So, someone holding this view would need to reconcile the exegetical statement of Jesus with what’s going on in Genesis 6.

Second, there is an alternative Jewish understanding of this passage in which the sons of God are human judges or aristocrats.

The strength behind this idea is that it suits the Ancient Near East. In the Ancient Near East, those of high stature (kings, leaders, judges, etc.) were often deified (meaning they were looked at like gods). Thus, many people in the Ancient Near East would read a statement like that and they could rightly think that it was talking about human beings who happened to have a lot of power or authority. Keeping this idea in mind, the text could be contrasting the god-like, deified human leaders, who were probably descendents of Cain with the children of Seth. (I actually had a college professor who took this approach.)

The weakness to this view is that contextually there isn’t a mention of kingship or deified leadership. Dr. Kenneth Mathews argues, “Though individual kings were referred to as “son of God,” [in the ANE] no evidence can be marshaled for groups of kings in the ancient Near East bearing the name “sons of the gods.”” (K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 329.)

So, someone holding this view would need to reconcile the lack of exegetical evidence in Genesis 6 for their view.

Third, the Early Church and the Reformers understood this to mean Godly men intermarrying with the ungodly people groups surrounding them. This is actually the view that I take.

The strength behind this view actually lies in the translation of “sons of God.” In the original language, it could mean “sons of God” or it could mean “godly sons,” meaning people who were part of the covenant given by God, which is then seen through Seth. In this view, “daughters of men” would refer to those who weren’t just the offspring of Cain, but all who rejected the covenant given by God. The other strength in this view is that the intermarrying of God’s people with unbelievers is a consistent problem through the Old and New Testaments—we see this over and over throughout the entire Bible—God warns against marrying unbelievers; and yet, God’s people do it anyway.

The weakness to this view is that some have pushed back on the concept of “sons of God” before the institution of the nation of Israel—their argument is that until the nation of Israel, there wasn’t a people of God; so, how could there be “sons of God?” My pushback against their argument is that there has always been a people of God before Israel, during Israel, and now.

Someone who holds this view would have to recognize that the argument is primarily based on a translation issue; and it is dependent on who does the translating.

Regardless of how exactly you view this text, what we see in this passage is that this intermarrying and intermingling between two different groups of people in this context—whether that’s angelic beings and humans or ungodly people with God’s people--is sinful.

And in this case, there’s a special name given to the offspring of this intermarrying or intermingling of groups—in v. 4, we see the Nephilim.

Nephilim is an Hebrew word that’s been transliterated into English—meaning, it’s not translated. Unfortunately, translating it doesn’t provide any more insight into what exactly is meant in the passage, which is why it usually isn’t translated. Nephilim translated to English can mean the fallen ones or giants.

The Fallen Ones could fit all three of the interpretations that I mentioned concerning this passage—the Fallen Ones could speak about fallen angels, or it could mean people who had fallen morally, like those who had rejected the covenant of God.

Regardless of which view you take, the resulting people were “the mighty men of old, the men of renown” what we would typically think of as heroes in mythology.

And Regardless of how exactly you interpret the text, the reality is that the result was still of sin and sin itself.

There is one other concern intermixed in these verses and it’s v. 3, “the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” Historically, this is understood in two different ways (and the reality for this verse is that we’re not entirely sure which way is right). So, the two ways are this:

First, some take this to mean a shortening of lifespan—meaning, after this point, people are relegated to about 120 years of life—I say about because some most folks don’t quite make it to that point, some folks go over that 120 year lifespan.

Second (and this is my understanding), is that there will be about 120 years before the flood. I think 1 Peter 3:20 alludes to a brief respite before the flood; and I think that’s what is meant here.

But again, we aren’t entirely certain as to what is meant in this verse, so for us to be overly dogmatic about it would be foolish.

So, from the perspective that I take; and you’re welcome to disagree with me on the specifics because (as I’ve mentioned, there is plenty of disagreement about these verses), I take Genesis 6:1-4 to speak of God’s people choosing to intermingle and marry those who outside of the people of God. And it was this intermingling and marrying of those outside of the people of God that increased sin amongst the people of God to the extent that something needed to be done and we see what happens as we continue the passage. Let’s look at vv. 5-8.

The Consequences of Sin (5-8)

Genesis 6:5–8 ESV

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 regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

V. 5 starts this section with a very profound statement, that the wickedness of man was so great and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, which speaks significantly about how depraved mankind actually was and truthfully still is.

As I mentioned earlier, from Scripture, we see this idea of a total depravity of mankind that extends from Genesis 3 until Jesus makes all things new in the book of Revelation.

Apart from God’s working within a person, there is no good—thus, it makes sense that those who chose wickedness in Genesis 6 would only be evil continually.

What’s unique in this situation is found in v. 6, in which we read that God “regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

It’s unique in that it speaks of God’s response to man’s sin in almost human terms—that he had regret and that he was grieved.

I do want to point out one concern that you might have if you’re reading this passage in the King James, you might have noticed that v. 6 says in the KJV, that “it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth.”

And I do want to clarify that by “repented” it does not mean that God changed his mind, like when we mean the term repent. We use it very literally as a change of mind resulting in behavioral changes.

If you look up the word repent in a dictionary that also records archaic definitions like the American Heritage Dictionary, you’ll find way at the bottom of the entry for repented this statement, “Archaic To cause (one or oneself) to feel remorse or regret,” after which, it quotes Genesis 6:6 in the King James, “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth.”

The idea being that God’s response to man’s sin is that of regret, of grief, and of remorse for creating man—it’s not that His mind has been changed and that’s important because God doesn’t change, but that He has an emotional response to man’s sin—it fills Him with pain, and sorrow, and remorse.

Because, the reality is that all sin demands justice from the only holy and righteous God and with mankind being only evil continuously, there needs to be a punishment for their sin, which is spoken about in v. 7, “So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that i have made them.”

Now, let’s take a step back as we remember the context of all that is happening in Genesis 6.

In Genesis 1-2, we see God creating all things by the very power of His voice—with the exception that He creates mankind with His hands.

During the creation of all things in Genesis 1 into 2, we see God saying over and over how His creation is good, right?

After all His creative acts before He takes his day of rest, He calls everything that He has created very good.

And until Genesis 3, we don’t see any reason to view creation as anything less than very good, but when we get to Genesis 3, we’re introduced to a serpent who seeks to deceive Adam and Eve; and in doing so, the deception compels Adam and Eve to disobey.

And that disobedience not just plummets them into their own sinfulness, but it introduces sin to all creation.

And as we’ve continued through Genesis 3-5, we’ve seen how quickly sin has utterly devestating consequences and we’ve witnessed how sinful mankind really is.

In Genesis 6, we witness almost like a stream or string concerning righteousness.

That other than the ones who partake in the covenant given by God, all else are totally depraved and the intermingling of those who reject God and those who accept God in marriage doesn’t help the matter.

Rather, it perpetuates sin and causes mankind to delve deeper and deeper into their sinful affections and appetites.

And as mankind continues into their own sinful affections and appetites, God is grieved, He is pained, to the extent that in His righteousness, in His holiness, and in His justice, something has to be done.

There has to be payment for sin. Romans 6:23 tells us that the payment for sin is death itself, which is reflected in Genesis 2 when God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest they surely die.

As mankind continues in their sin, something has to pay for all that sin—ultimately, that something is really a someone named Jesus, but occasionally there is still temporal punishment for sins committed.

In this case, because the wickedness of God being so great, God is going to punish sin in a drastic, in a terrifying, and in a relatively quick manner.

And yet, Noah finds favor in the Lord. That’s the string concerning righteousness or even salvation that we see traced throughout the Old Testament.

Now, we can ask ourselves what exactly caused Noah and his family alone to find favor in the eyes of the Lord, but it’s clear from context what exactly it is.

It isn’t because Noah worked hard, it isn’t because Noah was such a nice man.

Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord because unlike those who chose wickedness, who rejected the covenant given by God, who were only evil continually, Noah chose to follow God—we see it in the very next verse, which we’ll start working on in January, but I want us to read today, v. 9 says, “these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.”

Noah had favor with God because he chose to repent of his sins and walk with God, unlike everyone else in his generation.

As we start wrapping things up, I want to give you some specific application. Now, I know in a passage like Genesis 6:1-8, it’s very easy to get caught up in some of the more confusing aspects of the passage—we could very easily spend all day talking about the Nephilim and the sons of God and daughters of man, we could spend hours arguing about what exactly is meant by the 120 years, and we can discuss the mighty men, men of renown at length. And what happens when we do this is that we typically completely miss the point of the passage. Instead of actually determining what the text means, we end up with a bunch of speculation that none of us can actually prove and then we have no way of actually applying anything—the passage just becomes something that’s interesting to talk about, but otherwise useless.

So, let me help with this:

Application

In this passage, we see the continued degradation of mankind as it is affected and influenced by sin. Regardless of what you think concerning the details of the passage, the overall concept is that sin has a devestating effect that requires recompense. In this case, the world had succumbed to their sinful appetites to the extent that God determined it was time for judgment; and yet, for His people, there is favor. So, let’s think of this passage in light of our present world.

It really doesn’t take much for us to see how sin has effected our world. For instance, if you pick up a copy of the Centre Daily Times and you skip over the fluff pieces about Burger King bringing back menu items, Costco selling new butcher blocks, and then you skip past all the sports-related articles and the articles of events that while disheartening, aren’t necessarily about sinful behaviors, you’ll see this:

Concerning an attempted robbery in Philadelphia, “Man pistol-whips Wendy’s manager—then traps staff inside.”

“Downtown State College Restaurant owner avoids jail for theft”

Speaking of the former city manager of Dubois, “The inside story of how one man remade a small [Pennsylvania] city while allegedly ripping off his neighbors.”

That doesn’t include the hundreds of articles about Russia invading Ukraine, Hamas attacking Israel, morally questionable politicians, religious leaders who are defrocked due to sinful behavior.

Even from a more personal assessment—we all know people personally who are living lives of sin, who when I pose the question, “who do you know personally that lives wickedly,” their face appears in your mind’s eye.

Sometimes, when we think of those who live wickedly, they’re the average person that lives down the street, but because of the advent of social media, 24/7 news, and the moral degradation of society as a whole, sometimes, when we think of those who live wickedly, we think those who are extraordinarily wealthy and willing to use their means to continue in their own sin.

It can seem as if we’re all alone in a world that is choosing to reject God; and the reality is that that is the truth. The Bible regularly calls God’s people a remnant surrounded by those who reject God and reject the covenant—we see this idea in Genesis 6 when the majority of the people on earth (with the exception of Noah and his family) are described as only evil continually; and our application is really based on the last verse concerning Noah.

Again, we live in a world where there is no shortage of evil and there is no lack of wickedness. We’re absolutely surrounded by those who have rejected God and choose their own sin—we’re surrounded by people who only want their own fleshly desire; and we could allow this truth to cause us to fear or it could cause us to act and react in uncertainty, but we can see exactly how we ought to act and react when the world around us continues in their sin—we see it in how Noah acts and reacts. When we read that Noah found favor in God’s sight, I explained that this favor wasn’t something that Noah earned or that he had achieved. Rather, it was completely based on his faith in God. V. 9 says that “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” Really, what we learn from a passage like Genesis 6:1-8 is this: (1) the world will continue to reject God and succumb to their own wickedness, (2) eventually, God will enact judgment, and (3) God’s people (those who genuinely believe) have favor with God and that’s what our application is built on.

First, world will continue to reject God and succumb to their own wickedness—as I’ve already mentioned as we’ve transitioned into our application, the world around us will continue to sin.

They will continue to reject God and they will continue to soak in the sinfulness of their own appetites.

Sometimes, I think Christians are surprised when unbelievers act like unbelievers, but the reality is that we ought not be surprised—as Solomon says, there’s nothing new under the sun; and as I’ve mentioned multiple times, Genesis 6 shows us the total depravity of man.

We shouldn’t be shocked when sinners sin because that’s precisely what they do—they will continue to sin.

Now, it’s different if the person claims to be a believer and yet, they’re still participating in gratuitous sin, but if they’ve never claimed to genuinely believe and their life doesn’t show the fruits of genuine faith, then it shouldn’t shock us if they act like an unbeliever.

Likewise, it doesn’t do any good to try to convince an unbeliever to act like a believer—outward conformity doesn’t imply heart change.

And since salvation is a change of heart, just changing their outward behavior makes no difference to their eternal state.

The evidence for this is really found in private Christian elementary schools and high schools—I know because I went to one.

In every private Christian school, there are some that genuinely believe and they love being a part of the school because they get to learn things from a biblical worldview.

There are many that are nominal in their belief—they don’t necessarily believe, but they’ll claim that they do; and as such, they’ll obey the rules just to stay out of trouble.

And then there are a few that absolutely don’t believe—occasionally they’re only there because they got in trouble and their parents thought it might be useful and in these instances, they might obey the dress code, follow the rules, and not get in trouble, but in their hearts, they absolutely still don’t believe.

Outward conformity didn’t correlate to genuine belief.

Genesis 6 teaches us that you ought to expect unbelievers to act like unbelievers.

Second, God will eventually enact judgment—how that judgment looks will depend. Sometimes it’s judgment that we can witness on this side of eternity (we see this with some of the pagan nations that are destroyed for their sin in the Old Testament). Often, we don’t see temporal judgment for sin—that’s why so many people who are involved with evil and wicked deeds face no consequences immediately.

If you remember last week, the fact that they don’t experience consequences immediately is part of God’s mercy—He doesn’t automatically punish everyone for their sin immediately.

But He does eventually punish sin—occasionally, that punishment happens on this side of eternity, but sin is always punished on on the next side of eternity.

Now, the way that I’ve said that might be surprising to you, but it really ought not be—either you will pay the consequences for your sins or Jesus has already paid the eternal consequences for you.

Or, in other words, those in sin today might not experience the consequences for their sins, but they will unless Jesus has already paid for their sins.

Genesis 6 teaches us that eventually God punishes all sin. If you’re an unbeliever, that ought to compel you to repent and follow Jesus; if you’re a believer, it ought to compel you to praise Jesus for handling the consequences of your sin.

Because God’s people have favor with God—and I don’t mean that in a temporal sense or a materialistic sense because God never promises health, wealth, or prosperity in the physical sense. Every promise of health, wealth, or prosperity in the Bible is always done in a spiritual sense—that Jesus gives us spiritual health, wealth, and prosperity.

What that means in a context like this is a simple contrast—right now, it may appear as if those who do sinful things, those who pursue wickedness, those who reject God always seem to get the upper hand—they always seem to win.

Genesis 6:4 calls them “the mighty men,” “the men of renown.” They seemed to have prosperity, health, and wealth, but the Bible says that they were morally bankrupt.

Likewise, there are plenty of people today that all seem like they have everything; and yet, the Bible says without Jesus they are morally bankrupt, totally depraved in their sin.

But God’s people have been redeemed, God’s people have been forgiven, God’s people who still struggle with sin on this side of eternity don’t have fear for the eternal consequences of their sins because their sins were nailed with Jesus on the cross.

God shows favor to His people, but it isn’t in material possession or health, it’s spiritual favor based on God’s goodness as a result of our genuine belief in Him and willingness to walk with Him.

Or, in other words, like Noah, God grants His people favor and that favor is seen in His ability to save us from the consequences of sin.

And just like Noah, who was made righteous by faith, we ought to walk with God and be blameless in our generation.

Genesis 6 shows us that there is indeed a reason to trust God and praise Him—He shows favor to His people and that includes you, if you genuinely believe.

Put simply, what we learn from Genesis 6:1-8 as we work our way towards the flood is that unbelievers will act like unbelievers, God will eventually judge all sin, but if you believe, have hope and trust God because HIs favor is already on you.

Or, in other words, we could put it like this—God has favor on all His people because of what Jesus has accomplished for us on our behalf on the cross. We should be absolutely thankful for this and it should compel us to keep walking with the Lord despite those around us who have rejected Him.

Pastoral Prayer