Judgment is Set
Genesis 6:1-5
We have been following the lines
of two sons of the first man Adam, whose body was formed from the dust of the
ground by Jehovah, the living and
true God. As we have seen, Adam’s firstborn son, Cain, refused to be
dependent upon and responsible to Jehovah, the Creator and Redeemer of
all, for eternal life, that one might have a deathless glorified body to live
in forever.
Cain turned to his own way and
went out of the presence of Jehovah Elohim and began building a city
(Gen.4:16-17; see Jude11). Cain was beguiled and mentored by the evil one, the
self-appointed god of this world (see 2 Cor.4:3-4; 1 Jn.3:10-12).
The other son, Seth, was begotten
of Adam’s seed when Adam was 130 years old (Gen.5:3). Seth was chosen by Jehovah
to be the progenitor of the people through whom would come the Anointed Son of
God after the flesh. Seth was given by Jehovah to carry the seed to be
passed down through the ages to Heli, the father of Mary, the virgin mother of
Jesus’ humanity (see Gen.4:25; Lk.3:23-38). In Genesis 5 we have the record of
the sons who carried the seed down through their generations to Noah and his
generation, the tenth generation from Adam.
Through the names of the sons in
both lines we are given to see the great difference between man going his own
way and building for man’s glory, and the preaching of the righteousness of God
through faith in God’s Anointed Son, that one be born again and go into God’s
Kingdom of sons of God.
It is interesting to consider the
longevity of the true prophets in the line of Seth. A record is given of each
one having been begotten by a prophet of Jehovah, the God, and a
record of his firstborn son, and the days he lived to raise a family, and age
he died. Prophet after prophet died in a good old age, with the exception of
the one - Enoch.
“Enoch walked with the God, and
he was not, for the God took him (Gen.5:24). With the birth of Enoch’s
son Methuselah, the God gave Enoch a prophecy of a judgment coming upon the
affairs of men living on God’s earth. God did not give any timing of the
judgment to Enoch, but that the prophecy be kept before man’s thinking, Enoch
named his firstborn “he dies, it is sent” (Gen.5:21).
Enoch was 65 years old when
Methuselah was born. Methuselah was 187 years old when he begot Lamech. Enoch
lived 300 years after he begot Methuselah. So Enoch lived 113 years after
Lamech was born before the God took him. Lamech was 182 years old when Noah was
born. So Enoch preached until 69 years before the birth of Noah. Adam was 687
years old when Methuselah was born and Adam was 874 years old when Lamech was
born. Adam died when Lamech was 56 years old.
Adam and Enoch and Methuselah and
Lamech must have had many a discussion on the righteousness of God, of which
each one preached, and on the absolute imperative of each person born in the
flesh being born again a son of God to go into the Kingdom of God. Did they go
to hear one another preach? Did they go out two by two? There also must have
been much conversing on the subject of the coming judgment.
As we look for our blessed hope
of the new glorified body of eternal life with our Lord’s coming to gather us,
His Body, the Church, to Himself, we also look for the afterwards of a new
heavens and new earth, wherein dwells righteousness (see Phil.3:20-21; 1
Thess.4:13-18; 2 Pet.3:13). Those first true prophets looked for the coming
judgment, a deathwatch on a condemned city world, and afterwards a new
beginning with a cleansed earth.
Was Methuselah healthy to the
end, when it was his time to depart his earthly body? Was he like Moses and his
eye was not dim, or his natural life force not abated? (see Deut.34:7). We are
not told. His name was a forewarning of Jehovah’s disapproval of man’s
thoughts and works, of man’s refusing to receive the gift of eternal life
offered in His Covenant Son.
In the line of Adam’s firstborn
Cain, the record begins with the death of Cain’s twin brother Abel by the hand
of Cain, a bloody, brutal murder. The record ends with a song of murder. In
Genesis 4 there is no record of the date of the birth or the date of the death
of the false prophets. Nothing is said of dying. We do not know if any died or
if all were kept alive for the judgment. The point being, in blotting out the
living and true God, they did not live. They would not receive life eternal
necessary to overcome the death of a lifeless, bloodless body that is no longer
breathing. There was no eternal life with power to raise up the body out from
the dead. They were born dead and remained dead (see Eph.2:1-3; Jn.8:24), and Jehovah
took their breath away and blotted them out of the living (see Ex.32:33;
Deut.29:16-20; Eccl.8:8; Ps.69:28; 109:13). And, as not being among the living,
their name was not recorded in “The Book of Life,” and they will face another
judgment, the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of time, after which they
will be cast into the lake of fire, where they will forever be (see
Rev.20:11-15).
There is no eternal value to men
who will not receive eternal life, that their body live after death and live
forevermore. After the Flood nothing more is said of the line of Adam’s son
Cain. None were left to carry on a record.
Through the preaching of the
righteousness of God through faith in His Covenant Son in whom is the one hope
of eternal life, the Spirit of God has been convicting those of mankind to
judge their own heart according to the word of God and overrule the lawlessness
and enmity of the mind in going one’s own way (see Gen.6:3; Jn.15:26; 16:7-15).
Through the preaching of
righteousness and through the conviction of the testimony of the Holy Spirit to
the witness of the preaching, the long-suffering Jehovah had been giving
man the opportunity to repent, to change his mind and turn around and disown
himself as his own person and his own god and follow the Covenant Son in union
with His death, burial and resurrection of his body to eternal life (see
Mt.16:24-27).
Moses’ record is matter-of-fact
and brief and to the point. Mankind was beginning to multiply on the face of
the earth, the habitation provided him by his Creator God. Mankind is
multiplying after his kind, bodies of human flesh, conceived and birthed of
man’s seed, each bearing the image of the earthy body of the first man (see
Gen.5:3; 1 Cor.15:47a, 49a).
Eternal life is given to each personal
being. Each person is a soul of life of spirit being (Gen.2:7; Is.42:5;
Zech.12:1). Jehovah Elohim shares His life of spirit with the soul. His
life is eternal. The life of the body is in the blood (Gen.9:4; Lev.17:11, 14;
Deut.12:23). The body is temporal and purposely so. Each personal being is
given a choice to become a son of God (see Jn.1:9-13). No one is coerced.
Eternal life for the body is a gift offered in God’s Covenant Son
(Rom.5:12-21). The offer is made in the preaching of the gospel of the Anointed
Son. In the gospel is the holy calling to become a son of God through obeying
the truth and being born again through the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God,
who lives and abides forever (2 Tim.1:9-10; 1 Pet.1:17-25).
As Adam through Noah were
preaching the righteousness of God through faith in the coming Covenant Son,
they had God’s record in the heavens as their basis for truth. They preached
the word of God to be obeyed (see 1 Pet.1:9-12; 2 Pet.1:19-21; 3:1-6; Lk.1:70).
The heavens declare the glory of
God and the record of the Eternal Covenant which God had made with Himself is
recorded in the stellar heavens in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the
Eternal Covenant.” The gospel of the Covenant Son was written in the constellations
of the heavens on day four of the Creation, so the truth could be made known to
Adam, Jehovah’s first man, and his wife Eve, and to everyone born of
Adam‘s seed (see Gen.1:14-19; Ps.19:1-6; 97:6).
The person and work of the coming
Anointed Covenant Son of God is declared in the names of the signs and their
decans, in the names and colors and the magnitude of the stars in the
constellations of the signs and the decans (see Job 9:8-9; 38:31-33; Amos 5:8).
All are figures of the true Anointed Son of God coming with righteousness for
the soul and eternal life to raise the earthly body up out from the dead -
deathless and glorified.
Mankind was multiplying in the
Theocratic economy of Adam’s family in Eden, but mankind was also multiplying
in the organized society of the world city being built by man to the glory of
man. In the city men had replaced Jehovah, the God of the
Covenant, with a “mighty one,” a so-called god of man’s imagination.
There is only one living and true God - Jehovah,
one Deity of three personal beings who purposed to make man in His image
(Gen.1:26; see Is.45:5-46:5; Zech.14:9).
Though the truth was being
preached in the Theocratic economy of Eden, we cannot conclude that everyone
born in Eden, born of the seed of man in the image of the earthy, became
regenerate through obedience to the truth. Not all became the righteousness of
God through faith in God’s Anointed Son. Nor should it be thought that all
those having been born in the organized civil society of the city of Enoch were
ungodly. The location of birth did not determine righteousness or ungodliness.
Faith in the Covenant Son determines righteousness.
Righteousness is a choice. It is
a gift given through choosing to believe into the One who became sin for His
creation of mankind, that man might become the righteousness of God in Him (see
2 Cor.5:21; Rom.5:22-26). Through those of mankind, male and female, who would
choose the righteousness of God, God would have born sons of God, thus
fulfilling His purpose for His creation of man - to have man in His image,
after His likeness (see Gen.1:26-27; Jn.1:12-13; Gal.3:26; Heb.2:9-17).
“And it came to pass, when men
began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and
they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose” (Gen.6:1-2).
No explanation is given. There is
nothing unusual about men choosing to take wives for themselves. Why make a
point of this group? These sons of God are of another creation. Bene
ha elohim is a term that Scripture uses only for the angelic creation who
are sons of Elohim by right of creation. They are not men. Though it is
not explicitly stated in Scripture, we take from what is said of angels they
were all brought into being at one time, brought into being together, an
angelic host of myriads of angels.
Some theologians have explained
this intermarriage of the sons of God and the daughters of men as an invasion
of human beings by fallen angels. They attribute the invasion to a ploy of
Satan to contaminate the human race to keep the promised Seed of the woman from
being born and of His then becoming the salvation of His creation of man.
In this union of these “sons
of God” and these “daughters of men,” there would be no mixture of
angelic nature with human nature to contaminate the human race. Angels and man
are two creations of God to fulfill two purposes of God.
In Jehovah’s Covenant
purpose, there is an earthly environment for mankind. A society of mankind
requires a Theocratic universal government. For His government over the earth, Jehovah
Elohim would need ministers.
Jehovah dwells in heaven.
His ministers would dwell with Him. God created His ministers angel spirits
(see Ps.104:4). God Himself is spirit in His very being (Jn.4:24). In His
being, God is a soul, a personal being with intellect, emotions and
will. The life or being of God is spirit. God does not have a body. Bodies are
for the earth. In an environment of nature, a body is necessary. In heaven, a
body is not necessary.
God brought His angel ministers
into being as souls of spirit being, personal souls with intellect, emotions
and will. The very life enabling the ministers to activate the intellect,
emotions and will is spirit. God shared His life of spirit with the ministers,
that they might have “being” - spirit being. They do not live in a natural
realm so God did not create bodies with life for His ministers. In verse 4 of
Psalm 104, we have Jehovah Elohim making His angels spirits and in verse
5 we have Him laying the foundation of the earth.
We read of the bene ha elohim
in Job 1:6 and 2:1. In chapter 38 of Job Jehovah calls Job to account
and questions Job concerning His creation and who brought forth the creation.
In verse 7 Jehovah calls the angelic host “morning stars,” who sang
together as they watched God lay the foundation of the earth. These are the
newly created bene ha elohim, the sons of God. In Psalm 29:1 and 89:6 we
find a synonymous term in the Hebrew, bene elim, also referring to
angels. In Psalm 29 bene elim is translated “mighty ones” and in Psalm
89 translated “sons of the mighty.” In English translation, the fact of the
reference being angels can be missed.
As for His creation of man, God
formed a body. God put all of the elements for a body of human flesh in the
earth when He created the earth. On the sixth day of ordering and arranging His
creation of heaven and earth, Jehovah took the elements of the ground
and formed a natural body for man. Jehovah Himself breathed the breath
of life into the nostrils of the body He had formed and man became a soul of
life - a living soul (Gen.2:7; 1 Cor.15:45a). Man came into being a soul
with intellect and emotions and will. The life of the soul, that which enabled
man to activate his intellect and emotions and will, is spirit. Man came “to
be” a personal being who could think and desire and make decisions and choices.
God shared His life of “spirit”
with His angel ministers and with His sons of man. Each one, God, the angels
and sons of mankind, share a soul of spirit life. The Hebrew word “breath” is
translated “spirit” in Proverbs 20:27: “The spirit of man is the lamp of
Jehovah.” God made man a soul of spirit being that He might share with
man the things of spirit being.
It is in the spirit of the very
being of the soul where man can be given understanding of things beyond the
natural seen and felt things of this world. In man’s very being of spirit life,
the Holy Spirit can enlighten the eyes of the understanding to see the deep
things of God that cannot be understood through the natural realm (see 1
Cor.2:9-13). Those who desire to be so enlightened will see and believe God.
Jehovah gave mankind a
body for His purpose to have sons of God. Man is first born in the body of
flesh of mankind - human flesh. The nature of man is in his body of flesh. The
nature of man is human flesh as distinguished from creatures of other flesh
(see 1 Cor.15:38-39). Creatures of other flesh are souls of flesh. They do not
have spirit being, only flesh life in the blood. For man, God purposes another
birth of the body. God’s purpose is for sons of God born in His image.
We speak of the natural
man as “born such” or “inborn.” We speak of natural death of the body.
We equate natural with the study of plants and animals and the earth and
things of nature. Man’s nature is in his humanity. Angelic ministers do not
have a nature. Therefore there could be no mixing of angelic nature with human
nature. That is not the issue in Genesis 6.
There is the issue of the bodies
for these sons of God. Being a creation of another order of spirit
beings, these sons of God - angels - were not given bodies of flesh. They
therefore do not marry, nor are they given in marriage, nor do they procreate
(see Mt.22:29-30; Mk.12:24-25; Lk.20:34-36). As already stated, a flesh body is
not necessary for one who dwells in heaven.
However, angelic beings could and
did take bodies of men. In Genesis 18 we have on record of where two angels
came with the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus to visit Abraham. They came in bodies of
men. That is how Abraham saw them, as did Lot (Gen.18 & 19; see
Dan.9:20-22; 10:4-21).
We recognize that the angels in
Abraham’s day came to fulfill an earthly ministry of God’s government on earth.
The angels of Genesis 6, however, took bodies of men to fulfill their own
desire to have sons of human flesh. Men’s bodies have a reproductive system
with seed to reproduce after its kind - human flesh.
Moses did not consider any
explanation of the bene ha elohim necessary. As we can see from passages
in the epistles of 2 Peter and Jude, the sons of Israel had understanding of
the proving of the angelic host and, recorded for us of the Church in the book
of Revelation, of one-third of them not keeping their first place. They did not
keep to their created purpose as ministers to the heirs of salvation - the
heirs of the earthly Kingdom - and they left their own habitation [dwelling] in
heaven with their Creator (see Heb.1:6-14; 2 Pet.2:4-5; Jude 6; Rev.12:3-4).
As Moses did not see a need for
any explanation, he simply began to give facts concerning happenings of “when
it came to pass, men began multiplying upon the face of the earth.” Simple
brief facts of the time of the judgment first prophesied by Enoch, who had the
testimony that he pleased God. Enoch walked with the God in agreement and the
God taught Enoch of coming events to the end of the Gentile dominion on the
earth (Jude 14-15).
In Genesis 6:1, Moses’ first
statement shares a very important happening. “And it came to pass, when men
began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took
them wives of all whom they chose” (Gen.6:1-2).
The Hebrew word for “fair” or
“beautiful,” as some English translations put it, has the literal meaning of
“good.” In this particular passage the meaning of the Hebrew word is one of
“abstract goodness.” What was it about these particular daughters of men that
the sons of God in this particular company at this particular time saw as good?
These particular daughters of men would give the bene ha elohim sons of
human flesh.
After the statement of the fact
of that one happening on earth at the time, Moses made mention of the coming
judgment prophesied by the true prophets of Jehovah (see 2 Pet.3:2-6).
In this way Moses connects these two happenings. Moses introduces these sons of
God taking wives of the sons of men at the time he speaks of God setting a time
for the judgment of the ungodly.
“And Jehovah said, ‘My
Spirit shall not always strive with man, for he also is flesh. Yet his
days shall be a hundred and twenty years’” (Gen.6:3).
The Hebrew word for “strive” is
used in a legal sense. The term speaks of cross-examining the opponent to
reveal his guilt. How was the Holy Spirit striving with man? How was the Holy
Spirit seeking for men to judge their own heart and admit they were wrong to
continue to go their own way and to not receive the eternal life offered them?
Through the preaching of the
righteousness of God through faith in God’s coming Son of the Covenant, the
Holy Spirit was bearing testimony to the truth of the witness of the true
prophets of Jehovah (1 Pet.1:9-12; 2 Pet.1:19-21).
What was it man would see if he
would judge himself by the gospel of the coming Son? That in one’s humanity one
has only a body of human flesh, a temporal mortal body. If one does not receive
the Gift of the Son sent with righteousness for the soul and eternal life for
the body, the body of flesh will one day stop breathing, become lifeless and
return to the dust of the ground to perish forever. The gospel of the coming
Son makes clear: One must be born again. One must be born from above through
obeying the truth, be born of the incorruptible Seed, who lives and abides
forever (Jn.3:3-8; 1 Pet.1:17-25).
Jehovah, the living and
true God, created man flesh for a purpose. He gave man a high calling to become
a son of God and bear the image of the heavenly Lord forever. Having created man
mortal flesh of humanity, with the life in the blood, if Jehovah takes
man’s breath away, his body will become lifeless. Since mankind was refusing to
receive the Gift of God’s Covenant Son, Jehovah set a deadline for the
coming judgment, which would leave the bodies of the wicked, ungodly men
lifeless.
Moses simply gives a brief record
of certain happenings in those days when men began to multiply on the face of
the earth. There is nothing mystical. Each statement is a simple
straightforward fact for the record of those last days before the judgment of
the Flood of waters, which took away the breath of men who chose to remain in
mere flesh bodies.
Moses had one more fact to record
before he returned to his subject of the sons of God who took wives of the
daughters of men. “There were giants [nephilim] in the earth in those
days” when the sons of God took wives of the daughters of men, “and also after
that” (Gen.6:4a).
The nephilim were on the
earth. The word “earth” is emphatic. Scripture does not say nephilim
were “in the city,” the organized civil society of man building to his glory.
Nor does it say “in Eden,” the Theocracy established in the righteous seed, but
in the earth - in both places where men dwelt.
Who are these nephilim or
giants who were on the earth in those days before the judgment of the Flood of
waters and even afterwards? If there were giants after the Flood, they cannot
be the progeny of the sons of God and the daughters of men. Those offspring of
the union were among the men of flesh whose breath Jehovah took away.
None survived to have sons for descendants.
First, “giants” is a very
misleading term. “Giants” refers to “great stature physically.” The term is
also used figuratively, as “giants of industry,” etc. If we link the term with
the progeny of the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men, it would
be used in the figurative sense. But Moses links the “giants” with the deadline
given for the judgment and with the union of the sons of God and the daughters
of men.
The clue is in the Hebrew word nephilim,
mistranslated “giants.” The word nephilim comes from a primitive root
“to fall.” In English, nephilim translates “fellers,” those who cause to
fall. Here are fallen ones who fall upon others to cause them to fall (see
Prov.4:16).
From what have they fallen? From
the grace of God, from the high calling of man to become a son of God through
the righteousness of God through faith in His Anointed Covenant Son, who was
named Jesus at His birth, “Jehovah is salvation” (see Mt.1:18-25;
Lk.1:31; 2:21) Through the new birth of the high calling, one makes his exodus
out of the creation of flesh to be born again a son of God, a new creation
raised up out from the dead to live forever in a body of eternal life.
Moses’ purpose in inserting the
statement in the record concerning the nephilim between the first
fact that the sons of God saw and took wives of the daughters of men, and the
fact that the daughters of men bore children to them is to connect the nephilim
with both the sons of God and the daughters of men.
In the order of his statements,
Moses draws attention to a connection of “the nephilim,”men in human
flesh who were preaching a false gospel and teaching occult practices, with
both these sons of God and daughters of men who married one another. Though
Moses did not so directly state, he gives us to understand that the nephilim
were the connection between these daughters of men and these sons of God
marrying and bearing the mighty men of renown, men of great reputation.
Put together, we understand that
the nephilim were receiving their false teaching from these sons of God.
The nephilim, in turn, having fallen from the grace of God in His having
provided mankind eternal life for the body, and the nephilim having
believed in the supernatural powers of the sons of God bought the lie, “You can
become a god,” a perversion of the Covenant in the stellar heavens (see
Rom.1:21-23).
These daughters of men in some
way had become involved in the teachings of the false prophets and in this way
became involved in the supernatural, which led to being involved with the
supernatural realm of these sons of God by creation. Having received this “new
light” of the mysteries of the supernatural realm, these daughters of
men willingly chose to unite with these sons of God.
Why would these angels, these
sons of God, desire to take bodies and marry women born of man? Taking a body
in the likeness of the natural man would limit the powers of the angelic
creation to the earth. A natural body requires the atmosphere surrounding the
earth.
Though angels could take bodies
of men, they must have permission from God. In taking mortal bodies of human
flesh, these sons of God chose to leave their first place and the purpose of
their having been brought into being. In choosing to become men of flesh, they
would be limiting themselves to the tent of flesh, and thus, to the earth, to
live as men in the flesh live.
It seems reasonable that God
would have forewarned them of the consequences of their decision. God is always
just. He had already forewarned of the coming judgment. In the judgment man’s
flesh bodies would be left lifeless to perish. The spirit being, the soul of
each one, would go to Sheol.
Did God forewarn these sons of
God that they would share the same judgment of the men whose bodies they took?
They too would be sent to the place of spirits who had departed the body?
We have two New Testament
passages relating to this time before the Flood. In the early church there were
ungodly false prophets causing men to fall from their high calling to become
sons of God.
One passage is in Jude and the
other in 2 Peter. Jude was the half brother of Jesus. They had the same mother
(see Mt.13:55; Mk.6:3; Act.1:14; Gal.1:19). Peter was one of Jesus’ original
twelve disciples, who spent four years with Jesus. He was considered the leader
and spokesperson of the group and part of Jesus’ inner circle, with John and
his brother James (Mt.10:1-4; 16:13-16; 17:1-3).
In his epistle, Jude wrote of
ungodly men in his day, who secretly crept into church assemblies, “perverting
the grace of God and denying the only Master, God, even our Lord Jesus Christ”
(Jude 4b, Jay Green, Greek-English Interlinear).
Here are fallen ones in the days
of the early church, secretly preying on others to cause them to fall from the
grace of God. Jude wrote, “From of old they were marked out to
condemnation,” destruction.
Then Jude gives some examples of
God destroying ungodly persons who would not believe Him. First the sons of
Israel (Jude 5), God’s own people whom He had sent Moses to redeem and deliver
out of the cruel bondage of Egypt. The ones who refused to believe in the
righteousness of God through faith in His coming Covenant Son left their
carcases in the wilderness of Sinai (see Heb.3:7-19).
Then Jude speaks of angels who
did not keep their first place and deserted their dwelling place (Jude 6).
Where was their dwelling place? With Jehovah Elohim in heaven. In Jude’s
day these angels had been condemned to Tartarus and kept in everlasting
chains under darkness for the judgment of the Great Day, the Day of the Lord [Jehovah].
Jude’s third example is Sodom and
Gomorrah, and the cities around them (Jude 7). A little phrase, “in like manner
as these,” connects those cities with the condemned angels. Sodom and Gomorrah in
like manner committing fornication, and going away (from God’s design)
after other flesh, were laid down as an example of undergoing the vengeance of
everlasting fire.
The example made of Sodom and
Gomorrah was long before death and Hades will be cast into the lake of fire
forever (see Rev.20:14). The overthrow of those cities and all the plain took
place when Jehovah rained upon them fire and brimstone from heaven (see
Gen.18:1-19:29).
Jude makes clear the just
judgment of Jehovah. God dealt with His own people who refused to
believe into His Covenant Son the same as with the unbelieving angelic creation
who would not keep their place and also with the wicked fornicators. The sin of
each group was a hardhearted refusal to obey the will of their Master.
Jude also tied these with the
“way of Cain.” “Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain” (Jude
11). Woe to those who continue to go their own way and refuse to repent and,
with a change of mind, bow to the will of their Master-Creator and go His Way
(see Prov.14:12; 16:25).
Peter also left us a record of
these angels. In his second epistle Peter speaks of the false prophets among the
people, God’s people Israel, causing Jehovah’s people to turn the
grace of God to the use of their own unbridled lust, and deny their only
Master, God. And even after that, nephilim, false teachers among the
Body of Christ secretly bringing in destructive heresies and denying the Master
who has bought them (2 Pet.2:1-3). Denying Christ Jesus, the Redeemer of the
earthly body of human flesh, denying His salvation of eternal life for the body
of flesh, the false dreamers destroy themselves.
Peter connects the angels
delivered to chains of darkness with the false prophets and teachers. Peter is
the one who tells us where they are chained, down in Tartarus, which has
been translated “hell” in English Bible versions. And Peter connects those
angels with the ancient world of Noah and the judgment of the Flood (see 2
Pet.2:4-22).
There could only be one reason
for these sons of God taking bodies of human flesh to have sons in bodies of
flesh. Why did they desire to have sons? What was the real motive? There was
purpose in their desire.
“When the sons of God came in
unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became
mighty men who were of old, men of renown” (Gen.6:4b).
Moses records that these sons of
God in Genesis 6 took wives of the daughters of men who became men of renown,
men of great reputation, known for their mighty works done to the glory of man
to make a name for themselves. Moses does not list the works.
Could it be that these sons of
God saw a way to have the kingdom of the earth for themselves? The bodies taken
by the sons of God would only reproduce after their kind, bodies of human
flesh. The son born would not be supernatural but, as the angelic creation
possess knowledge beyond man’s natural capacity, they would be given that
knowledge to possess. The sons of God would have taught their sons to do mighty
exploits, a strategy to take the kingdom of this world for themselves.
Satan and his angels, with whom
these sons of God had formerly defected, were mentoring men in the flesh to
build a world city to take the kingdom of this world. It is a well-known fact
that down through the history of man doing great things to the glory of man,
men were in contact with demon forces (see Eph.6:12).
Were these sons of God traitors
to the cause? With sons of their own who could be trained from birth, these
sons of God with their descendants could take the kingdom from the world city.
Why would Jehovah Elohim
permit these bene ha elohim to take bodies and marry daughters of
men and have sons who could do great exploits? Jehovah Elohim would use
it to His purpose.
God is no respecter of persons.
Each personal being receives a just judgment, and the recompense is: each one
receives his just reward. Each one receives that which he has stored up. Either
the reward of his faith or the consequence of his unbelief (Rom.2:4-6;
Gal.6:7-8).
With the union of these
sons of God and these daughters of men, a third community of persons
came to be dwelling on the earth. First there was the Theocracy established in
Eden by Jehovah Elohim, His claim to the sovereignty of the earth. Then
there was being built the organized civil society of godless men in the city of
Enoch. And then this new godless community of these sons of God and the
daughters of men and their progeny.
The next thing Moses records is,
“And Jehovah saw the wickedness [evil] of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually” (Gen.6:5).
In Scripture, “good” and “evil”
are often put in juxtaposition. “Good” brings eternal life and eternal life
brings good (see Deut.30:11-20). “Evil” brings death, and death in trespasses
and sins brings the death of destruction, the perishing of the mortal body of
the dust of the ground to return to the ground from where it came (Gen.3:19).
Life and death had been set
before mankind as they were multiplying on the face of God’s earth. The
righteousness of God through faith in the coming Anointed Covenant Son was
being preached. The Holy Spirit was testifying to the justice and mercy of God.
The testimony of the Holy Spirit was to the heart to reveal the truth and
goodness of God’s judgment, that men might judge their own thoughts by God’s
judgment and admit their guilt and repent and receive the eternal life offered
in the Covenant Son. “Good” and “evil” are according to God’s judgment of
righteousness and justice.
In the beginning God dealt with
mankind collectively in His first man Adam. Through the proving of the first
man, death through the sin entered the world. Death passed upon all, for
all sinned (see Rom.5:12-14; 3:23). Man was proved to choose to serve himself.
In the pride of his own self-will man turned to his own way to choose to know
good and evil for himself apart from God’s judgment.
Man, born turned to his own way,
must be turned around to go God’s Way and obey the truth to be born again
through receiving the eternal life in the Son, that his mortal body might not
perish but, in resurrection, be raised up out from the dead deathless and
glorified (Jn.3:3-21).
As man was multiplying on the
face of the earth, individually life and death was set before each one born of
the flesh, flesh. There was the gospel of the coming Son, the Anointed Son of
God’s Eternal Covenant written in the stellar heavens to be made known through
righteous preachers of the righteousness of God and of the justice and mercy
and goodness of Jehovah Elohim.
The light of the knowledge of the
glory of God, which is seen in the face of the Covenant Son, was shined into
each heart, that the eternal life in the Son be received and each one choose
the “good” set before him (Jn.1:9; Tit.2:11; see Col.1:23b; 1
Tim.2:4-6). Yet men kept choosing the evil, that which God does not approve and
therefore, He cannot accept, and that which ends in death. In the city, a world
system was being built to keep men in the darkness of their death in trespasses
and sins. The “world system” would keep the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God from shining into the heart, lest man turn to God and receive eternal
life and become a born son of God (2 Cor.4:3-4). And there were the nephilim
with their demonic teachings.
God saw this great wickedness of
man on His earth and He traced it to the source - the imagination of the
thoughts of men’s hearts. The source of the wickedness was in man’s thinking,
in the thoughts of his imagination. Men loved darkness rather than the light
(see Jn.3:16-21). Their own plans and doing were more important to them than
God’s righteousness and justice. They despised God’s gift of eternal life and
they rejected His love. Man must be destroyed from the face of the earth. Man
had chosen death over eternal life - evil over good. What a very
grievous and sad ending.
This concludes our lesson.
