Angelology 31 (Genesis 6:1-4, Part 3)

Angelology #031; Part 3
Dr. Andrew M Woods
Genesis 6:1-4

I do ask father for the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit to be very much at work today. And I ask that the Spirit’s work of illumination would be so profound this morning that we would leave here changed people. We would leave here with understandings that we did not have before. And I pray You will be with us during the fellowship, lunchtime, and communion service. And I pray for the Your Spirit to be guiding all things. We lift these things up in Jesus’ name. God’s people said, Amen.

Let’s open our Bibles to Genesis 6:1-4. There should be a handout in the back if you need one. And as you know, we are continuing in our study of angelology. We are in the last part of that study where we’re taking a look at the Genesis 6:14 controversy. Remember what these verses say. Beginning in 6:1, ”Now, it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, … [It might be a better translation there—”earth”] …daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw, that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, ’My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless, his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”

So, there’s this this two-fold repetition of sons of God. What does that mean? And who are the progeny of these sons of God having sexual relations with human women? Those are the Nephilim. What does that mean? And so, these are verses that have been extremely debated over the centuries, not only within Christianity but within Judaism. The most popular view probably out there is that the only thing that is going on here is that these are mixed marriages happening between the godly line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain.

Another view is that these are just people involved in polygamy.

But the view that I think is right, and obviously this is right, or else I wouldn’t have included this in our series on angelology, the doctrine of the angels, is that what actually is happening here is that fallen angels are procreating with human women. For what purpose? And by the way, this is lesson 3 that we’ve done on this. And so, every lesson builds on the prior. So, some of this might seem kind of odd to you at first but try to listen to the first two lessons and supplement it with what we are saying here. And hopefully we’re building a complete thought. But it has to do with Genesis 3:15, how there’s coming One from the seed of the woman, Eve, who will crush the serpent’s head. Satan was right there in Eden when that prophecy was given. And so, his goal in human history is to prevent Jesus from being born. And as you go through the Old Testament, what you discover is he came very close many times to eliminating the line leading to Jesus Christ. You see, if he can prevent Jesus from being born, then he wins because his head will never be crushed.

So, what is happening in Genesis 6:1-4 is just another chapter; it’s a slightly different strategy, but it is just a chapter in a long war. I think it was the late Henry Morris, who wrote a book called The Long War Against God. And I love that title because that describes what’s happening here. Satan is involved in a long war trying to prevent God’s purposes from coming to the earth. And the first thing he tried to do all the way through Old Testament history is to try to stop the birth of Jesus.

And so, what better way to do that than to tamper with the genetics of the human race so severely that there can never be one born from the seed of the woman. So, Satan understood that the Messiah must be fully God and fully man according to that prophecy. So, let’s create a race of people that aren’t fully human. And if I can do that, then I could prevent this Messiah from happening. And that, I think, is who the Nephilim are—the progeny of some of the fallen angels procreating with human women.

So anyway, that’s the thesis. And then articulating your thesis is one thing. Proving it is a little bit harder. So, what I’m doing here is I’m trying to give a defense of the angel view. And a lot of you have asked me questions about, ‘Well, if this is true, can it recur today? If this is true, what do you do with the Nephilim in the days of Joshua, because there’s a reference to that in the Book of Numbers? And my response to that is all information will be given on a need to know basis. I mean, you have to just trust me on this, that we’re going to get into that. But it’s hard to get get into answering all these things unless you lay a foundation. See slide on Lesson Overview.

So, when you defend something, you ask, what does the passage say? In this case Genesis 6.

Number 2, are there any New Testament passages that comment on this?

Number 3, what is the traditional view going back to the earliest views in the Church and Judaism?

And then number 4, what are the objections to this view?

So, all these questions about modern day Nephilim and all of these things, we’re going to hit under the objections, and we won’t get to those today. So that will give you an incentive to come back next week.

But last time I was with you, this is lesson 3. When we were in lesson 2, I gave you three reasons from this text that I think that this is speaking of—fallen angels. The first reason has to do with the switch from ‘men’ to ‘sons of God,’ right there between Genesis 6:1,2. So ‘men‘ is used and then ‘sons of God‘ is used. And to me, the way I think about it, that opens the door to the fact that the ‘sons of God’ is something different than human beings or ‘men,‘ because they are distinguished in the opening verses.

The second line of evidence, and this is probably our key piece of evidence, is how the exact same expression, ’sons of God,’ there is a Hebrew expression there, is used elsewhere in the Old Testament. And what you discover is that expression, ‘sons of God‘ is only used five times in all of Hebrew Bible. Two of the times are used right here in Genesis 6, once in verse 2, once in verse 4, and the only other place the expression even appears is in the book of Job. Job 1:6; Job 2:1, Job 38:7. We went through all of those passages last time, and I showed you that ‘sons of God’ always means angels in the book of Job. So, since the Book of Job is the oldest book of the Bible, since it was probably written 600 years before Moses started writing the Book of Genesis, when Moses uses the expression ‘sons of God,’ he is dialing into a rich literary tradition. At least one book of the Bible, which clearly uses the expression sons of God as angels.

And then from there we made a couple of comments about the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Old Testament 200 years before the time of Christ. And what you find with these Septuagint translators is many times when they came to the expression ‘sons of God,’ they put the Greek word ‘angelos,’ or ‘angels,’ into their translation. So, they were very much of the persuasion that ‘sons of God’ can mean angels.

Beyond that, I gave you a few more reasons why I think Genesis 6 is talking about angels. First of all, the word ‘Nephilim,’ fallen ones—the Septuagint translators translated that expression as ‘gigantes’ giants or titans, which from Greek mythology were demigod entities, partly God, partly human. So apparently the Septuagint translators came up with an understanding of Nephilim, consistent with the view I am giving. They are not partly God, partly human. They are a hybrid race of partly human, partly angel. And then beyond that, I think the angel view is the only way to make sense of the statements concerning Noah’s perfection. Noah was not sinless, but his genetics were perfect, and I would assume that his genetics were perfect along with his three sons and their respective wives and his wife. Eight total in the ark. And this is why God preserved Noah, because through his gene pool, which God had protected from the Satanic incursion, Noah’s family, particularly Shem, was qualified—the only people on the earth at the time perhaps qualified to bring genetically into the human race, a person that is fully God and fully human in fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.

Beyond that, we looked at the evil of pre-flood humanity. And our doctrine of total depravity is such that we do not believe people are as bad as they can possibly be. Certainly, every area of our being has been touched by sin, and we all need salvation through Christ. And certainly, human beings today are incapable of doing anything to merit God’s favor. But sometimes human beings, in the eyes of their fellow man, can do good things like give money to the Cancer Research Society, etc…

When you compare our understanding of depravity today to what was happening in pre-flood humanity, you see that people are as wicked as they can possibly be. It talks about how every inclination of their thoughts was perpetually wicked to such an extent that God was sorry that He made man at all. And so, I believe it’s hard to explain that level of depravity without heavy satanic and demonic influence of an abnormal variety, which I think is what was happening there in Genesis 6.

And then the angel view would explain the necessity of the Flood. I mean, the Flood is a global event. It altered the topography of our world globally; we as a result, are three times removed from original creation. The song we have the kids sing in many churches, “This Is My Father’s World” probably is not the most biblically accurate song for the simple reason that yes, this is God’s creation, but we are three times removed from God’s original design. And what three events changed everything?

Number one, the Fall—Genesis 3.

Number two, the Flood—Genesis 6-9.

And number three. The Dispersion at the Tower of Babel—Genesis 10-11.

So, the Flood was something that completely and totally altered this world. And so we have to ask ourselves, ‘Why would God do something as unprecedented as send to this earth a global deluge that killed every living thing other than what was preserved on the the ark?‘ And the answer is because something very abnormal was taking place in Genesis 6. Something unprecedented was taking place in Genesis 6. The contamination of the genetics of the human race, creating a hybrid race. And this is why God sent the Flood. He wouldn’t have sent the Flood if believers were marrying unbelievers. Or if polygamy was going on, but something obviously abnormal was happening for God to intervene with abnormality and the great Flood.

So put all of these things together—this list together with the prior list, and I think you have a pretty decent case that Genesis chapter 6 is actually talking about fallen angels procreating with human women.

So, from there we move from the Old Testament, and now we move into the New Testament, and we try to figure out, if there are any New Testament passages that comment directly on this Old Testament passage? Because I think the New Testament is the best interpreter of the Old Testament. I mean, I know we all have our favorite Bible teachers and favorite scholars, but I think Peter and Jude do a pretty good job where I don’t have to reach out for my favorite commentator without first consulting what Peter and Jude directly say about Genesis 6.

So, the three New Testament passages are:

1 Peter 3:19-20.

2 Peter 2:4-5.

Jude, only one chapter in Jude, so it’s just Jude 6-7

So, with that being said, let’s go over to 1 Peter 3:19-20. Peter talks a lot about the flood because he was a fisherman, he liked water. And so, the Lord used his personality to talk about this global deluge. I think it’s only in 1 Peter and 2 Peter that we learn that there were only eight people on the ark: Noah; Mrs. Noah, Ham, Shem, Japheth and their respective wives. So, they were genetically protected. That is what it means when it talks about Noah’s innocence. So Peter writes this concerning Genesis 6, “…in which also He [that’s Jesus] went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who were once 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.”

So, notice, first of all, that Peter uses the word ‘spirits.’ And a lot of people think spirits is some kind of reference to people in hell or human beings. But that is never how the word ‘spirits’ like this is used. If that refers to people, that would be the only use where ‘spirits’ is used of human beings. But ‘spirits’ is frequently used of angels. And so, what this is speaking of is Jesus speaking to the ‘spirits,’ or angels, in prison.

So, when you look at Hebrews 1:14, it uses the word ‘spirits’ in reference to angels. Hebrews 1:14 says in reference to angels, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” So, Jesus, in between His death and resurrection, went and spoke, or proclaimed, or preached to spirits, or angels. Now where are these spirits or angels? Well, they are in prison. You see that at the end of 1 Peter 3:19. Well, what put them in prison? Well, keep reading 1 Peter 3:20, “…who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting,…“ By the way, God waited 120 years before He sent the flood—Genesis 6:3. In fact, I’ve read some commentators that argue that Methuselah’s name in Hebrew actually means ‘when he dies, it will come.’ Meaning when he dies, the flood is going to come. And that shows you the grace of God because Methuselah is the oldest living man. He lived, I think, 969 years. So, could you imagine living in that time and knowing what his name meant? Every time the guy got a stomach ache or a stomach cramp or the sniffles, everybody starts to panic. But these are all references to the patience of God. God allowed this insanity to go on for 120 years, which is a long time. That’s half the length, roughly, of the United States of America, in terms of duration.

So “…who were disobedient [these spirits]… when the patience of God kept waiting. [And it specifically says], 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.”

So, notice that this imprisonment of the spirits, or angels, relates to the days of Noah. Now notice something else here, 1 Peter 3:19, “in which also He went and made proclamation…” [this is what Jesus proclaimed to the spirits now in prison. And when you study this in the original language, which is Greek, the verb is not euanagelizō, meaning evangelism. Jesus did not evangelize these spirits. He did not present them the plan of salvation. The verb is kēryssō, meaning proclaim. It’s speaking of an announcement. And so, in between Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, He went to where these fallen angels are imprisoned because of what they did in Noah’s day, trying to prevent the birth of the Messiah by tampering with the genetics of the human race, and He announced to them, He proclaimed to them that they lost. They are on the losing side of history. Why? Because the Messiah was born into the world. The Messiah did accomplish His mission of dying on the cross. And the Messiah was about to prove that He was the Messiah through His bodily resurrection from the dead on the third day. That’s what He’s saying to them. So put all this information together, and 1 Peter 3:19-20, to my mind, supports the angel view, because Peter is commenting on Genesis 6, and he’s saying following Jesus’ death, but before His resurrection, He went to Hades or some sort of prison in the earth somewhere, perhaps, and proclaimed victory to the fallen angels imprisoned there. And the reason they were imprisoned there is related to Noah’s day because in Noah’s day, some of them sought to preempt the messianic promise of Genesis 3:15 by contaminating the human race genetically. In other words, ‘your strategy lost‘—here is what Jesus is saying. So that’s passage number one in the New Testament.

And let’s go to a second passage. Flip over to 2 Peter. Peter, in his second book, says the same thing. In 2 Peter 2:4-5, notice what those verses say. “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned,…” [Notice here he’s not calling them spirits anymore. He’s calling them angels. So there’s no debate as to who he’s speaking of]… “but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world…” [Look at this. What’s he talking about now?] but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.”

So you’ll notice here that the angels, they’re called angels here, not spirits. Spirits is another name for angels, but here he directly calls them angels, did something particularly heinous. They did something particularly evil. And so consequently, they are in, some versions say hell, but others, as you continue on, it talks about pits of darkness reserved for judgment. In other words, they’re in a place of incarceration. And then you notice in 2 Peter 2:5, the word ‘and’ which is a connective. So what’s happening in verse five has to be connected with the prior verse, 2 Peter 2:4, because the two are joined together and connected together] “… and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness.” So you’ll notice that the ‘and’ connects the sin of these angels, and it connects it there in 2 Peter 2:5 with the days of Noah.

After you follow the ‘and’ it starts talking about the ancient world, but preserved Noah, and it talks about Noah being preserved in the ark along with seven others. So you’ll notice once again that the angels did something really bad. They’re placed in incarceration somewhere, and this verse 5 is connected to something that happened in Noah’s day, and we know what that was because we’ve read Genesis 6: the tampering of the genetics of the human race prior to the Flood.

Now there are a lot of people who will disconnect 2 Peter 2:4 from 2 Peter 2:5. They’ll think verse 4 is one idea and verse 5 is a different one.

I think that’s hard to argue because of that word ’and’ there that connects the two. But let’s assume they’re right. Let’s assume verse 4 has nothing to do with verse 5. Then my question for such people is when did verse 4 happen exactly? If verse 4 has nothing to do with the days of Noah, then when was the sin of the angels putting them in a pit of darkness reserved for judgment? When exactly did that happen? And the only option that you have is, ‘Well, they say this was Satan’s original fall.‘ And in Satanology, we’ve studied Satan’s original fall. Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-17. When Satan fell, when Lucifer fell and became Satan, he deceived (Revelation 12:3-8), a third of the angels into falling with him. And so people will argue, well, 2 Peter 2:4 is really talking about the original fall of Satan and a third of the angels. It has nothing to do with the days of Noah. The problem is Satan’s original fall—we have no record of it resulting in anyone’s imprisonment. In fact, Satan runs the earth along with his demons, or fallen angels. So when he fell originally there was no imprisonment whatsoever. So I think a far better reading of 2 Peter 2:4-5 is yes, Satan did fall originally with a third of the angels, but when the announcement was made in Eden that there was coming ‘One from the seed of the woman who’s going to crush your head,’ he got a smaller group of his buddies together, a smaller group of the fallen angels. And he said, ‘We’ve got to do something about this. Let’s prevent the birth of this Messiah by genetically tampering with the human race. And that way, the Messiah, who has to be fully human and fully God can never be born. And we and I, you under my authority, can continue to have authority over the earth.‘ And so what he did is he got a smaller group of his cohorts or fallen angels, and he involved them in the sin of Genesis 6. And because those latter angels did something so heinous and left their natural abode, God took that small group, that subset of demons, and He put them in prison. And that becomes your explanation as to why, when you search the New Testament, and study Satanology and demonology, you very quickly learn that some demons are incarcerated, but other demons are obviously free because ‘we wrestle not against principalities and powers and rulers of this dark world.‘ So if you don’t have angelology in Genesis 6, you’re left with no explanation as to why some demons are jailed and some are free.

In fact, notice this chart here. See graphic on GOOD ANGELS & EVIL ANGELS. Satan fell, and he took a third of the angels with him. Two-thirds are on our side. That should make you feel good. Plus, we’ve got God. So we’ve got numbers, as we like to say. But notice the one-third that fell. I mean, the New Testament is very clear as you look at the upper one-third. Some are in jail and others are free. So you have two categories of demons. Now, I don’t know exactly how many are in jail percentage wise, how many are free. The Bible doesn’t tell us. It just tells us that that is a reality. I’ve spent a lot of time, I might even say, wasted a lot of time arguing with people who disagree with me on this. And if you want to disagree with me on this, that’s fine. You know, we can always be friends at the end of the day, you go your way and I’ll go His way. Amen. But this is not something you’d start a new church over. But people are just very upset that I would hold this view. And my answer to them is, ‘Well, can you give me any explanation at all as to why some demons are jailed, connected with the days of Noah, and some are free‘? And I’ve never gotten an answer. So at least I have an answer. My answer is the ones that are jailed are the ones that were involved in the genetic experiment in Genesis 6. The ones that are free are the ones that didn’t get involved in that experiment, and are running the earth, along with Satan as we speak.

So I believe because of the connective ‘and’ in 2 Peter 2:5 that 2 Peter 2:4-5, is a second passage that reveals that the angel interpretation of Genesis 6 is a sound interpretation.

Let’s go to our third New Testament passage, and this is the book of Jude, the Lord’s half brother. It would be the second to the last book, and how our Protestant New Testament canon is organized. If you’re looking for Jude, just go to Revelation, hang a left. You should hit Jude. But notice what Jude 6-7 says. This is passage number three. “And the angels…” [Notice they’re not called spirits here. They’re called 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, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.“ So what is happening here is an angelic sin that apparently is not identical, but it’s very similar to what the sodomites did in Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. And notice that the analogy is drawn here between what the angels did and what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, through the reference to, ‘just as‘ in the NASB, some of your versions say ‘in like manner.’ In other words, the fallen angels, a select group of them did something of the level of a perversion that we find out about in Genesis 19, Sodom and Gomorrah. So what happened in Sodom is not exactly the same as the angelic sin, but it is very, very similar. So if we can figure out what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, you can start to figure out what is happening there in Jude 6 concerning the angels.

Well, we know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The sodomites left their natural sexual proclivity and became involved with unnatural sexual behavior, sexual behavior that is abnormal. Now, the fact of the matter is, God has a sexual standard. And today when you bring this up, everybody wants to get mad at the person bringing it up. But I don’t know why they’re getting mad at the person bringing it up. It’s God’s standard. It’s not like we’re up here just making things up. And I understand that in life, people have fallen short of that standard, and the grace of God is always available for people should they receive it. But that doesn’t change the standard. The standard is there, and you don’t have to get far in the Bible to see the standard. It says in Genesis 1:27-28, “…God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply,…”.

So the original sexual standard is a man and a woman, and they come together and they have children. If you go to Genesis 2:24, you have more commentary on God’s standard. This was pre-Fall, so sin had not contaminated this picture at all. ”…For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; [for this reason a man shall … be joined to his wife]…and they shall become one flesh.“

So the standard of God for sexuality is one man for one woman for one life. Now it is to me, and I don’t want to be nasty about this at all, and how far I even want to get into this. But you’ve got one of the major presidential candidates, and I won’t tell you which one I’m talking about. You can figure it out on your own, whose husband the man whose husband comes up and gives him a big kiss after all the debates, telling him what a good job he does. And this is the presidential candidate that’s quoting the Bible all the time. And I look at that and I say, ‘Am I living in an alternative reality? Am I living in the twilight zone? I mean, I feel like that Star Trek episode where you go into another world and everything’s backwards.‘ I mean, how can you sit there and quote the Bible while you’re kissing your husband when you missed Genesis 1? I mean, did you miss that? I mean, you’re violating the standard that God articulates in Genesis 1, and you’re violating the standard that God articulates in Genesis 2.

So by the time you get to Sodom and Gomorrah, you have such perversion running rampant that the sodomites were involved in rampant homosexuality. It looks to me like in Genesis 19, they’re involved in desiring to rape two men. More on that if we have time down the road and the sodomites are getting involved in unnatural sexual behavior. By the way, when you talk like this, people will say, ‘Well, Jesus never said anything against homosexuality.’ That is like saying, ‘Well, Jesus never said anything about battering your spouse either. Or He never said anything about freebasing cocaine either.‘ I mean, does that make it okay? That’s what you call an argument from silence. Jesus, in Matthew 19:3-6, when questioned about divorce and remarriage, goes right back to the standard of Genesis 1-2. He says, “..Have you not read…?” That’s what I feel like when these people are promoting homosexuality and quoting the Bible at the same time. I feel like saying, have you not read that “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” Oh my goodness, that’s a citation from Genesis 1:27. And then He goes on and says, Matthew 19:5, ”…FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? Oh my goodness. He’s quoting Genesis 2:24. So Jesus, when questioned about the issue of sexuality, in this case, it’s divorce and remarriage, doesn’t get into a big discussion about what all the rabbis think. Rabbi Hillel, on divorce had more of a liberal standard. Rabbi Shammai, on the issue of divorce and remarriage, had a more of a conservative standard. And they all want to know, ‘Well, who are you with? Hillel or Shammai?‘ And Jesus would not take the bait. He says, ’I’m with Moses,‘ and He quotes Genesis 1 and 2 together, and applies the divine standard to the contemporary situation that He’s facing here. So you can play all these games with the words of Christ all you want. But there isn’t any doubt that He affirmed heterosexual monogamy as the divine standard.

And what you find with homosexuality, and not just to pick on homosexuality, any form of sexuality that deviates from that standard: bigamy, polygamy, today they’re not even talking about couples. They’re talking about throuples, three in a relationship; pedophilia, whatever you want to come up with, it is a perversion because it goes against the divine standard. Romans 1 puts it this way “…and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman…“ [They went outside what was normal; what was natural. They went outside the blueprint of God and] “…burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

It’s just a fact. The homosexual community represents a small portion of the population, maybe 1%- 2%, 3% max. The Kinsey Report, Alfred Kinsey tried to argue that homosexuals are 10% of the population. They are not 10% of the population. The reason Kinsey wanted them to be 10% of the population is because he had a sociological and political agenda, and he went around to prisons and gay bars for his sampleset. That was his sample set. So he did not take a sampling of mainstream America. So he got this number 10%. And they’ve been pushing it ever since —10% of the population of the United States, people say, is homosexual. And that’s why when I was going through the public school system, they were always pushing something called Project Ten, meaning we know some of you are homosexual, but you don’t realize it yet because 10% of the population is homosexual, according to statistics. So our job is to help mainstream you into that lifestyle. Project Ten. I have no idea why I’m going off into all this. I better just get back to what I was supposed to do.

The reality of the situation is homosexuality is unnatural and it’s indecent, just like any other violation of God’s standard. When it says they received in their own persons the due penalty of their error. Homosexuals represent 1—2% of the population, and yet they have the vast majority of sexually transmitted diseases. Not that sexually transmitted diseases don’t go to other people and groups as well, but homosexuality receives a disproportionate share, a disproportionate share of AIDS cases, a disproportionate share of suicides, a disproportionate share of spousal abuse. And that’s exactly what God said. ‘You abandon My standard and you move into what is natural and indecent. And by the way, does it take take rocket science to figure out it’s indecent? I mean, the body parts don’t even fit together correctly. And if everything is so normal, let me see your children produced from that union. So abandoned what was natural? They moved into what was indecent. And they received in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

So that sin in Genesis 19, and that’s what is meant by the men surrounding the city, Genesis 19:4-6. And they say, I think it was to Abraham, if I remember, ‘Bring out the two guests that came into you tonight. Two males.’ Was it Lot? I’m sorry. And you’re right. Lot. ‘And so we want to get to know them now.’ Getting to know them is not, ‘uh. Gee, what’s your horoscope? And what’s your favorite color? And where do you like to go on vacation?’ It’s talking about carnal knowledge of somebody. It’s the same word that’s used to describe ‘Adam knew his wife.‘ And we’re talking about a lot more here than just ’what’s your favorite color and what’s your horoscope?’ Because she got pregnant as a result of Adam knowing his wife. When they come to the city and they surround the house… By the way, it says there ‘every person of the city, young and old.’ That’s how sick this was. The kids were involved in it, and we’re not really that far away from it here in the United States, when you have drag queen story time all over in our public libraries getting children involved in perversity. ‘So bring out the two guests so we might get to know them.’ That is the bizarre sexuality that was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah. And that’s what it means when it says they indulged in gross immorality and they went after strange flesh. So you’ll notice the words ‘just as’ in Jude 7 connecting Jude 7 back with Jude 6. So just as the sodomites did something completely perverse and completely unnatural and completely outside the design of God, the angels, fallen angels did the exact same thing in Genesis 6. Similarly, the angels, fallen angels in Genesis 6 left their natural abode. Do you see that there in Jude 6 that they left what was normal; they left what was natural by invading the human realm taking on human form and impregnating human women to stop the birth of Jesus Christ. So just as those involved in the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah left what was natural, the fallen angels did the exact same thing by doing something that called for God to immediately bring judgment. They left the natural abode, and they began to impregnate human women so that the Messiah would not be born. And consequently, those angels, fallen angels involved in that sin, are now jailed. They’re being kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the Judgment of the great day.

Now a lot of people will say, ‘Well, wait a minute. Now, this doesn’t mention Noah’s day at all. The 1 Peter passage did. The 2 Peter passage did. But I don’t see Noah’s day at all. Therefore, this has nothing to do with what happened in Noah’s day. Jude 6 has nothing to do with what happened in Noah’s day.’ And so my response to that is the same. ‘Well, when did Jude 6 happen? I mean, if this has nothing to do with Genesis 6, nothing to do with the days of Noah, then you tell me when verse 6 happened and they all say, ‘Well, that was the original fall of Satan, where Satan originally fell with a third of the angels.’ And I’m here to tell you that doesn’t fit, because the original fall of Satan involved no immediate incarceration. Beyond that, the original fall of Satan had nothing to do with sexuality, and these verses here are very clearly indicating the angels got involved in some form of sexuality that is perverse, because it says ‘in like manner,’ to what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, which is another experiment in abnormal sexuality.

So I think the best interpretation of this is that Satan originally fell. When Satan originally fell, he deceived a third of the angels into falling with him; two-thirds of the angels remained. A third of the angels fell. And then over the course of time, when the the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 was announced, Satan now rounds up a smaller group. We might call this in our Venn diagrams, a subset within the group, right? And he gets a smaller group together and he says, ‘Guys, here’s what we got to do. We’ve got to stop the birth of this Messiah because I don’t want my head crushed. And we know the Messiah has got to be not just fully God, but fully man. So let’s create a race of people. Let’s so tamper with the genetics of the human race, so as to create a race of people that aren’t fully human.’ And because the angels, the fallen angels, not all the fallen angels, but some of the fallen angels, when they got involved with this, did something so out of line, something so heinous, something so pale because they left what was proper, God had no choice but to take that group, a subset, and put them in prison.

Just like in Genesis 19, God had no choice because of the rampant perversion that was taking place in Sodom and Gomorrah, God had no choice but to rain down fire and brimstone on Sodom, so they pushed God’s hand so far by getting involved in abnormality, that God immediately intervened and put some of these demons involved in the Genesis 6 sin in incarceration.

And that’s why when you go to the book of Revelation, remember the book of Revelation? Remember the trumpet judgments? Just say yes, even if you don’t remember. Makes makes me feel better. Do you remember what happened with trumpet number 5? Revelation 9:1-12. All of a sudden a place called the abyss is unlocked and demons come out of there to torture mankind for five months. Have you ever asked yourself the question, what are they doing in the abyss? What are they doing in there? I thought they were free and roaming the planet. Well, most of them are. Some of them are in the abyss. Well, how do they get put in the abyss? Genesis 6 is how they got put in the abyss. So God actually has them kept there under lock and key until they serve God’s purpose in the tribulation period, where they’re let loose out of there and they harass or torture mankind for five months.

So it’s interesting that the angel view, and this is the reason I’m drawn to it, is it puts together the whole Bible, but there are people that will say, ‘No, Genesis 6 has nothing to do with angels.’ Okay, then you tell me why some demons are free and some are in prison because the New Testament reveals both. And their answer is ‘I don’t have an answer.’ My answer is, ‘You may not like my answer, but at least I have an answer. My answer is some of the demons left their natural abode under Satan’s direction, got involved in this terrible sin of something unnatural, just like you read about in Sodom and Gomorrah—unnatural perversion. And so those demons involved in that sin are now in incarceration.

So what you see here is not just the fact that the Old Testament supports the angel view. But the only three New Testament passages that comment on Genesis 6 also support the angel view.

Now what about church tradition? Now, when we talk about tradition, we’re not talking about inspired writings. We’re talking about people, though, who lived a lot closer in time to the completing of the Old Testament canon and New Testament canon than where we live. And so if I’m holding some view on something that’s totally contrary to what every Christian has ever held in 2000 years, then I probably should rethink my position. Right? Now, it’s okay to hold views if no one in church history has ever held it if you’ve really done your work and you’re convinced this is what the Bible says. So I don’t want to discourage you from holding a view. Our view of the pre-trib rapture, there’s not a whole lot as far as I know. Some would counter that, but there’s not a whole lot of evidence in church history of people that held to that view prior to 1800. And even if you could find some people, it’s certainly not a majority view. But I still believe in the pre-trib rapture because I think it’s taught in the Bible.

So with any particular view, if you come down on something that church tradition totally violates, I wouldn’t abandon the view, but just hold on to it and do more homework on it to make sure you’ve really got it right. But in this case, what you find with tradition. And I was shocked as anybody to learn this, that everybody held the angel view. I mean, maybe they didn’t understand genetics and all of these things that I brought up, but they held to some sort of angelic interpretation of Genesis 6 in early Judaism. Now I’m relying here on the writings of Renald Showers in his book Those Invisible Spirits Called Angels, Chapter 5, pages 93 to 109, if you want to see all the citations. But just to sum up, here are all the interpreters within early Judaism that held to the angel view:.

Philo

Josephus

Most rabbinical writers

The Apocrypha

The pseudepigrapha, now the Apocrypha, and the pseudepigrapha, we don’t accept as inspired, but they contain some valid history in them and things like that. And what you discover is all of all of them held to the angel view.

So they obviously got their interpretation from somewhere, and they’re arguing they got it from Genesis 6. And then leave Judaism and go to the earliest church fathers. What did they believe? Again, check out the writings of Renald Showers to get all the quotes. Here are some of the earliest Church Fathers:.

Justin

Clement

Tertullian

Cyprian

Ambrose

Lactantius.

All of them are holding to the angel view. Isn’t that interesting? Well, if the angel view of Genesis 6 is so popular in the early church and in Judaism, then why is it that everybody thinks that the sons of God and the daughters of men are just the Sethites and the Cainites marrying with each other? Why does everybody think that? Why does everybody hold to view number one and not view number three if in fact, early Judaism, early Christianity, all believed in the angel view? I mean, where did this Sethite/Cainite view come from? And again, notice the writings of Renald Showers. Same book, pages 96 to 97. He says “…it is interesting to note that the Sethite Line-Cainite Line view does not begin until the fourth century AD…“ [Wow, that’s 400 years after the church had gotten off the ground in Acts 2.] “This makes it the newest of the three major views…“ [So if you believe in the Sethite/Cainite Line intermarriage view, you’re believing in the newest view and a view that didn’t exist for the first four centuries of church history.] “…The New Catholic Encyclopedia states that this view ‘that sees in these sons of God the Sethites and in the daughters of men the Cainites dates from the fourth century and is influenced by theological concern for maintaining the spirituality of the Angels…‘ I mean, we have so many pictures of angels and they look so good on our Christmas cards. You’re not going to ruin those pictures, are you, by saying angels had an ability to procreate with human women?’ I mean, who’s going to put that on a Christmas card? Renald Showers says concerning this statement in the Catholic Encyclopedia], “…This this seems to imply that the major motivation for starting this view…“ [That’s the Sethite/Cainite view]… ”was not exegesis of Scripture but opposition to the angel view…” And here’s that’s where the Sethite/Cainite intermarriage view comes from. It’s just too weird to believe that. So they came up with an alternative view to debunk the traditional view, which has angels, fallen angels, procreating with human women.

And this becomes a problem with a lot of interpretations that you see out there. They are what I would call reactionary. They are reacting against something they don’t like. And then the reaction view becomes the majority view. And most people think that the majority view was the traditional view. And obviously, it had to be the traditional view because folks got it from the Bible. Renald Showers is saying that they didn’t get it from the Bible. No one even thought that way for 400 years of church history. They got that view because they were reacting against another view.

And so I think church tradition and early Judaism tradition is on the side of the angel view. Now, I know you guys have lots of questions: angels don’t marry; angels are spirits. And my goodness, uh, if you’re going to let this angel view out of the box, then maybe the whole thing happened again in the Book of Numbers. And maybe it happened in David’s day, because it talks about people walking around with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. And if you let this out of the box, are you telling me that the same thing could happen happened today? I mean, could fallen angels have sexual relationship with a human woman today? And so those are the five objections. And so we’ll start answering those objections next time.

So let’s pray. Father, we’re grateful for today. Grateful for your truth. Grateful for Your Word. Grateful for the freedom to look into a controversial issue. And I pray this will be something that doesn’t just fill our heads with knowledge, but will help us put the whole Bible together. We’ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus’ name.

Amen.