Genesis 6:1-8 - The Nephilim

INTRODUCTION

Let’s open our Bibles together this morning to the book of Genesis, chapter 6.

We will be looking at the first 8 verses of that chapter this morning.

[READ GENESIS 6:1-8]

In looking at this passage in the context of our “Difficult Passages” series,

I think there are two main difficulties we need to tackle today:

1. Who are the Nephilim, and what are we being told in this passage?

2. Does this brief story have any meaning for us today, or is it just interesting detail or merely ancient history?

WHO ARE THE NEPHILIM?

We find that term in verse 4, so let’s begin by asking what that strange Hebrew word means.

The word itself means “fallen ones”, or “falling ones”, or “ones that cause to fall”.

This is the only place in Scripture where they are called by name, so to get any more information, we will have to look at the context.

1. They were the descendants of not one, but many, forbidden unions.

2. They were violent and aggressive.

3. They are NOT in the line that will lead to the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Many think they are giants because the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament (and the oldest version of the Old Testament we have) uses the Greek words gigantes.

But that word is borrowed from Greek mythology, and describes there a creature that is aggressive and cruelly violent, but not necessarily large-sized.

There are some Christian teachers, who may be theologically correct in other areas, who consider this passage to be talking about angels, particularly fallen angels, marrying human women.

This fringe teaching sells books to people who like to speculate into the unseen realms,

There is a fascination with these things today.

They base their entire system, ultimately, on the fact that the phrase “sons of God” appears in verse 2 and in the first chapter of Job.

“Ah-hah!” they say. These must be angels in Genesis.

I’ll not delve into the fringier parts of their theories, like the belief that there ARE other gods besides the True God - a view I fear approaches dangerously close to heresy.

The “angels theory” of this passage isn’t new, but it has been dusted off of late to trouble a whole new generation of believers.

The non-biblical (and fictional) book of 1 Enoch, written a couple of hundred years before Jesus was born, writes a version of this as a story.

All this proves is that the passage is difficult, and has been for a long time.

We should never allow ourselves to form a doctrine or a belief on the basis of a difficult passage that has no other Scripture to support the doctrine.

The understanding of this passage that is most consistent with Scripture, both the immediate context and the rest of Scripture,

Is that the “sons of God” are the sons of Seth (or Enosh)

And the daughters referenced are the daughters of Cain.

I get it - it’s not as flashy as fallen angels seducing unsuspecting humans.

It doesn’t stimulate our imaginations that we are about to discover some hidden meaning in the Bible no one has seen before.

It’s ordinary, and not really satisfying to the part of us that likes the mystery of these people.

Let me explain.

If you have your Bible open, you can turn over a page or two to

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.”

If you look at Genesis 5, you will find it is the genealogy from Adam to Noah.

So 4:26 is the immediately preceding verse in the STORY being told here in Genesis.

The story moves from 4:26 to 6:1, with only a rich genealogical listing between them.

Look at the end of 4:26: “At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.”

The word “upon” is a single Hebrew letter (“b”), and can have many meanings depending on the context.

Other meanings, which I think are more correct in English, are “in” or “with”.

So with my admittedly rudimentary Hebrew (and commentators like Calvin, Poole, Henry to lean on), we could translate this “people began to be called WITH the name of the Lord”

That is, they ARE the sons of God - the sons of Seth through Enosh.

So that in the very next paragraph in the narrative story, we find these same “sons of God” looking outside of those who had been set apart to God for wives.

If that sounds familiar, it should.

Far from preserving the people who worship God as a holy people, the sons of Seth descended to the depths of marrying the daughters of Cain and his descendants.

It was the same sin Ezra and Nehemiah had to deal with after the captivity in Babylon.

The holy people was being eroded, and the faithful were dwindling.

And that is the point of our entire text today.

From Seth to Enosh and to all their descendants, by the time of Noah, the people of God had dwindled to a single man - Noah.

God didn’t judge the entire earth because of the sin of some angels who thought our women were cute;

He judged the entirety of the earth because it had, to a man, fallen away into violence and perversion.

And so, from there, I would like to start on the second question of this passage:

Does this brief story have any meaning for us today, or is it just interesting detail or merely ancient history?

WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN?

The first thing we see is in verses 1-2:

Genesis 6:1–2 “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”

Why did the sons of God covet the daughters of men?

They were attractive.

We don’t know whether they were actually more beautiful or if they were simply more immodest;

Either would be a temptation.

All beauty is fashion.

And what one culture in one time considers beautiful is often quite different to another.

So if it was just general beauty or attractiveness, those tastes are dictated by the world around us.

Thin or stout, dark or light, made-up or natural.

All these things change with time.

The prettiest girls when I was in high school had HUGE hair - big 1980’s hairdo’s held together with Final Net and White Rain hairsprays.

That went out of style rather quickly.

Proverbs 31:30 “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

1 Timothy 2:9–10 “likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.”

The sons of Seth should have been looking for GOOD women;

Instead they settled for GOOD-LOOKING.

They fell to the same temptation Eve had - they saw these women were a delight to the eyes.

There is nothing wrong with being good looking (or so I’m told);

And there is nothing wrong with marrying an attractive wife (or husband).

But what the sons of Seth discovered is that if the attractive woman doesn’t love God, she is bad for you.

This chosen line, called by God’s name, dropped off man-by-man as each one chose the beauty of the world over the beauty as defined by God.

Young people - be VERY sure the person you intend to marry loves God more than they love YOU.

Make sure that if it came down to a choice between you and God, they would choose God every time.

It’s really hard for us to find fault in the sons of Seth today:

Young men attracted to young women.

But we have to remember what God says, as He calls us His sons and daughters in 2 Corinthians 6:14–18

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.””

The truth is that it is far easier to be pulled away from God than for you to pull the other person TO Him.

YOU are the one who has to compromise in the first place, and you will have to continue to compromise until you fall completely.

And then those that fall away will receive the just punishment from God.

But these women may not have just had natural or fashionable beauty - they could have just been immodest.

This has been a temptation for believers from the beginning - and this book is the book of beginnings.

Even the people of God may be lured away to great sin when it can be done without worldly consequence.

Lot fell to his daughters;

Judah to Tamar;

When Balaam wanted to place a stumbling block before the whole nation of Israel, ungodly and immodest women were used to lure them to idolatry and destruction.

Samson fell to Delilah;

Solomon to a thousand compromises of the one-man/ one-woman decree of God from the beginning.

And Israel fell time and again to the baals and the Asherahs.

And we see the same things today - the temptation to sin without consequence:

Birth control that isn’t used wisely, but used to promiscuously engage in sin with less worldly consequence.

The spiritual consequence is grave when we take God’s gift and warp it, but we are often more controlled by worldly concerns.

And if control measures fail, there are armies of Satan’s apologists that will tell you murder of an unborn child is ok, even defensible.

As if their sacrifice purges you from your sin.

Your computer and phone stream all manner of evil and sin to you so often many of us are numb to it:

Not just illicit images, pictures you shouldn’t even have in your head,

But how much of your life is wasted in scrolling, gaming, and watching shows that are literally programming you to the fashions of today and our world?

How many YEARS will each of us waste in online gossip, peeking into the secrets of others they promiscuously put out there for everyone to see?

It is sin without worldly consequence, but one that is designed to cause God’s people to fall EVERY DAY.

Brothers and sisters - are you spending your days learning to be more like the world,

Or are you spending every possible hour learning how to be more like our Lord?

You’ll not learn about following Jesus Christ by studying the things of this world;

You will only learn of Him by reading His word, praying with His Spirit, and walking in the obedience to the truth?

What has our Lord left you these gifts He has given to do?

Hide them so you can go out and pursue the things of this world?

Or has He given them to you to cultivate, flourish, and grow, so that when He returns, your faith will be proven by your obedience.

Obedience doesn’t save you;

But true faith is always accompanied by godly works, borne out of the love of the One who saved you.

In verse 3, God sets a time for His judgment:

Genesis 6:3 “Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.””

He isn’t talking about man only living 120 years - that would be remarkably long even in our day.

It would be short for the children of Enosh - most living over 900 years.

If you do the math, with these lifespans, we find that Seth died a mere 14 years before Noah was born and Enosh was living when Noah was born.

We don’t know the lifespans of the descendants of Cain - I suspect they are much lower for many reasons;

But not least of all because of the untimely deaths due to the violence of the society they made.

But when God declares 120 years, He is telling us that this is the date of His great judgment.

Noah may have known, or he may have acted in simple obedience - it doesn't matter.

Peter calls Noah “a herald of righteousness” - but think about this:

He preached righteousness for a century, building an ark during that time, and not a SINGLE person was converted or repented.

Not one.

Because Noah didn’t live in the time of the gospel we do.

The Spirit would not soften the hearts of ANY of those who had fallen away, who had rejected God and chased after the pleasures of this world.

And though they lived hundreds of years, it was centuries of decay and hardening for those who were disobedient.

My friends - you don’t have 120 years.

You won’t be alive in 2146,

I won’t be alive in 2146,

And no one who can hear the gospel from you will be alive then either.

But though the time is short, God has given His Holy Spirit to convict people of their sin,

To make them alive in Christ,

And to effectually call them to Himself.

We dare not neglect this great salvation - I beg you not to let the pleasures of this world cause you to hesitate one second from calling on our Lord Jesus Christ to save you.

Let’s look now at verse 4:

Genesis 6:4 “The Nephilim [fallen ones] 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.”

We see the result of the intentional marriage of a believer and unbeliever:

The children are in great danger of falling away as well as the believer.

Now, for those of you who have become believers and your spouse hasn’t, don’t despair:

This passage is about those INTENTIONAL unions.

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, addresses those who have been saved by Jesus Christ prior to their husband or wife.

Look at what is said about the children here, though:

They were the mighty men of old.

Men of renown.

How tragic.

The world APPLAUDS the falling and failure of the faithful.

There is nothing the world will idolize more than a traitor against God.

These were men of renown.

They were the ones held up as examples.

They had shaken their fist at God,

turned their back on Him, perhaps a little at a time,

And now the world made them the poster children for the greater humanity.

They were the mighty men.

They were the celebrities.

They were the ones who heard the devil’s temptation:

Matthew 4:9 “And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.””

The enemy of their soul promised them power and wealth and fame - and he delivered happily.

As long as they walked away from God and lived by the rules of the world.

Remember the words of Jesus:

Mark 8:36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

The renown they lived under was the applause of the world for their lifestyle, for their bold choices in moving against God.

They were the humanists.

They were the pop stars.

They were the living legends of their day.

And their lust and perversion and violence knew no bounds;

They filled the earth with violence of every kind.

You haven’t lived in a time THAT fallen - thank God.

We live in a day when the enemy of your soul has been bound.

When his power has been throttled back, and is allowed only as far as our Sovereign God will allow him to go.

They weren’t even threated by Noah preaching God’s truth;

Their hearts were so seared, they didn’t oppose him.

They just ignored him.

They might hear his words urging them to return to God by repenting of their grave sins, and they mocked and laughed.

Romans 1:32 “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

That’s what the Bible means by “renown” - everyone, to a man, gave approval to the severe violence these man unleashed on the world.

Genesis 6:5–8 “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. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 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.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

One man - that’s how close God’s promised line came from being wiped out.

Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord - one man.

One thin line, preserved by God on an ark made of gopher wood.

The Nephilim are what the people of the world had become - those who were universally fallen and odious to God.

Their ranks swelled, and without the indwelling Holy Spirit in His people, our world would become this earthly picture of hell that we see here in Genesis.

The names of the Nephilim aren’t remembered - none are named.

Their names may have soared in their lifetimes, renowned throughout the world.

But their names have died, as did their bodies, reserved for judgment on the Last Day.

Their renown and fame will serve them nothing as they stand in their wickedness and filth before the holy God of heaven.

Don’t envy them -

Pity them and others in our day who have been lured into the same trap.

Jesus Christ died to FREE you from that trap.