Angelology 032 (Genesis 6:1-4, Pt 4)

Dr. Andrew Woods

All right, let me open this up in a word of prayer, and we’ll get started. Father, we’re grateful for this morning and for another opportunity to worship You, to learn of You, to serve You. And so I just pray You’ll be with us during Sunday school as we take a look at a controversial part of Your Word, and in the main service it follows as we continue our study through the Book of Revelation. I just ask, there’ll be a great time of fellowship today and learning and worshiping amongst Your people, and we’ll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. God’s people said, Amen.

 

Well, I can see who the elect are today. All the people that remembered to set their clocks forward must be persevering Christians. So that means you’re one of the elect. Alright. All that. All that daylight savings time stuff. I just wish we would ignore all of that until Monday except in the fall. I like it better in the fall. Because the only people it hurts when you think about it is people that go to church, right? So I want to everybody wants to start a revolution today. I want to start a church revolution that we will not set our clocks at all until Monday morning. What do you think about that?

 

Well, let’s open our Bibles to Genesis 6.  I noticed several people are here, new or visitors, I should say probably for the Chafer Conference. And so I just want to warn you that you showed up at a really weird time in this study. This is part of a series that we’ve been doing in Sunday School on Angelology, or the doctrine of the angels, and we’re in a part of that series, the tail end of it, where we’re trying to figure out the controversy of Genesis 6:1-4. So we’ve talked about the good angels, Satan, the demons, and now we’re taking a look at the Genesis 6:1-4 controversy. So let’s open our Bibles there and refresh our recollection. It says, “Now, it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, … [or better said, the earth] …and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for 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 the big issue here is, who are these sons of God? And who is this product of the sons of God, the Nephilim?  And we’ve gone through the different views: it’s just polygamy, some say; it’s just the Sethites and the Cainites intermarrying. But what we’re seeing here, at least what I’m seeing, is something of an angelic nature. It has to do with fallen angels procreating with human women. Why would they do that? To stop this prophecy. Genesis 3:15 is a prediction that from the seed of the woman, or Eve, is going to come One who will crush the serpent’s head. And that prophecy was given to the serpent, or Satan. And so Satan now works in history, many times in the Old Testament, to prevent the birth of Christ. What’s happening in Genesis 6 is just the latest chapter in the saga. He’s using a slightly different strategy here. He’s trying to create a race of people that aren’t fully human. That’s who the Nephilim are according to the view I’m espousing.

 

The Nephilim just means fallen ones. So he’s trying to so tamper with the genetics of the human race that a Messiah who must be not only fully God, but fully man, can never be born. And is this really a defensible view? We’ve seen number one, that it is a defensible view when you look at the Old Testament. And I gave you many Old Testament proofs, but probably the main proof is that expression ‘sons of God’ is only used three other times in the Bible, the identical Hebrew expression. And that’s in the book of Job, and Job, which is the oldest book of the Bible, the only book that was in existence when Moses penned the Pentateuch. Job, not once, not twice, but three times, and we went through all of those passages, clearly identifies the ‘sons of God’ as angels. And I gave you several other proofs as well, but that would probably be the main proof.

 

From there we went into the New Testament, and we saw that the New Testament is the best interpreter of the Old Testament because the figures in the New Testament books, wrote under divine inspiration. So obviously, we would want to attach a lot of weight to what the New Testament says, and the New Testament, not once, not twice, but three times, comments on this event, and it links an imprisonment of angels, demons, in other words, to what was happening in Noah’s day.

 

So what I’m seeing when looking at all of the Old Testament and New Testament data, is that Satan originally fell and deceived one-third of the angels into rebelling with him against God. Now some of those fallen angels, and that’s what 1 Peter 3, 2 Peter 2, and Jude 6-7 are speaking of—some of those demons that fell with Satan, not all, but some, a subset, a select group, got involved in Satan’s strategy to prevent the birth of the Messiah in Genesis 6, by tampering with the genetics of the human race.  Those angels involved in that sin are in a place of incarceration. That’s what those three New Testament passages teach. And those three New Testament passages connect them with something sexual that happened in the days of Noah. And that becomes the only real explanation as to why some of the demons are free today. Clearly, some are free. Amen? Because we wrestle not against flesh and blood. I mean, when the alarm clock went off this morning, you were involved in spiritual warfare. At least I was. But I have to show up because I get paid to show up. As Howard Hendricks used to say to his congregation, ’I get paid to be good. The rest of you are good for nothing,’ is what he used to say. But clearly, we are involved with wrestling with demons that are free. But the New Testament, three times, tells us that some demons are jailed. And so, the only explanation you have to that is Genesis 6. If you don’t have angelology in Genesis 6, you’ve got no explanation as to why some demons are free and some demons are incarcerated.

 

From there we went into church tradition, and I showed you that the angel view is actually the traditional view of Judaism earliest.  It is the traditional view of the Church Fathers. And the Sethite/Cainite view doesn’t even come about until the fourth century AD, so tradition clearly is on the side of the angel view.

 

So we’ve looked at Old Testament and New Testament tradition, and what we’re moving into here is the objections, because this is controversial. There are a Lot of objections to this view. I’d like to walk you through at least five objections. I don’t know if we can cover all of these today, but let’s see what we can do here.

 

You might want to slip over to Matthew 22:30. Because there are many people that will tell you that Genesis 6 has nothing to do with fallen angels at all, and certainly not fallen angels having a sexual relationship with a human woman. So one of the passages that’s quoted, in contradistinction to contradistinction to the angel view is Matthew 22:30. Some of you may have been thinking about this passage as we were teaching through this material. Matthew 22:30 says, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.“ So the thought process is, how could the angel view of Genesis 6 be right? How could an angel have a sexual relationship with a human woman? We all know that angels don’t marry. And so people use this verse to criticize the angel interpretation of Genesis 6.

 

But I don’t think this verse can be used to effectively debunk the angel view, because you have to specifically look at what this verse says and at what this verse doesn’t say. I don’t think when Jesus articulated His words recorded in this verse, that He was saying that angels are sexless or are incapable of procreation. First of all, Jesus never says angels are sexless. What He says is that they don’t marry. Now, is it possible to have sex without being married? I mean, that never happens, does it? So it’s a statement, not about the sexual activity of an angel. It’s a statement about marriage, first of all. And beyond that, Jesus is very clear concerning this statement concerning angels. He says, they “are like the angels in heaven.”  He’s making a statement about the good angels. He’s not making any statement whatsoever about the realm of the demons or the fallen angels. So, Matthew 22:30, as interesting as it is for those two reasons, it‘s not talking about the sexual activity of angels. It talks about their married state, number 1, and number 2, it’s not even a statement about demons. It’s a statement about good angels. For those two reasons, I think people expand the verse to make it say more than it’s really saying. So that takes care of objection number 1.

 

Another very common objection that you hear from people is the angel view of Genesis 6 could not be accurate, because everyone knows that angels are spirits and a spirit can’t have sex. And so they base their view on Hebrews 1:14, which says, “Are they not all ministering spirits … [speaking of angels] … sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?“ So the argument is, ‘Well, angels are spirits, and you’re talking about an angel having sexual relations with a human woman. How could that happen when an angel is just a spirit?‘  So, how would I answer that? Well, my answer is, yes, typically, angels are spirits. They’re of the spiritual realm. However, they can take on human form. You say, ‘Well, where are you getting this from?‘ Well, it’s as early as the book of Genesis. So you might want to slip back to Genesis 18:22 for a minute. These are visitors that came to visit Abraham; there are three of them. Three visitors. One of the three, I’m convinced, is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. It’s what you call a theophany or a Christophany: Jesus before the manger. Several reasons, I believe that, but the other two, the theophany is just described as being a man. The other two are just described as being men. So it’s interesting, you’re reading Genesis 18 about these visitors that came to the tent of Abraham.  Genesis 18:22 says, “Then the men… [so far so good] …turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord…. ‘[and then you get to Genesis 19:1, and it talks about these two men going to Sodom, and all of a sudden, it changes everything when it says] … ^19:1Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.”

 

So in Genesis 18:22, you’re given this impression that Abraham just had two visitors, three visitors total, and then two of them leave for Sodom. And then all of a sudden, you get to Genesis 19 and learn that the two visitors that he was with in his tent that he showed hospitality to, were actually angels. So that shows you right there that angels — yes, they’re primarily spirits; of a spiritual quality, a spiritual capacity. But there’s no doubt from the Bible that they have the ability to take on human form. And before we learn that these two actually were angels, notice what it says there in Genesis 18:5-8, “…and I will bring a piece of bread, that you may refresh yourselves; after that you may go on, since you have visited your servant.” And they said, “So do as you have said.”  So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Quickly, prepare three measures of fine flour, knead it and make bread cakes.”  Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a tender and choice calf and gave it to the servant, and he hurried to prepare it.  He took curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and placed it before them; and he was standing by them under the tree… [look at this:] …as they ate.”  So is this not interesting that angels, and we don’t know they’re angels yet; Genesis 18, we just think they’re men. In Genesis 19 we learn that they’re angels, but here they’re actually eating and partaking in a meal together. So I would have to conclude from this that angels in their human form, have the ability to take in food. By way of inference if they have the ability to take in food, they also have a digestive tract in their human form. If they have a digestive tract in their human form, that means they would probably also, like any other person, have the ability to eliminate waste—meaning that they have [not to get make this sex ed class], but they have the appropriate male gland to urinate or to eliminate waste. Now, isn’t that interesting? That’s the same gland that a man uses to have a sexual relationship with a woman.

 

So this view that I’m espousing, people will attack and say, ‘Well, this is ridiculous. We all know that angels are spirits, and I agree that typically, angels are spirits, but clearly angels can take on human form. Clearly they have the ability to digest food, eat, and eliminate waste as well.

 

So can you use this idea that angels are spirits and therefore the angel view of Genesis 6 can’t be right? Not when you look at the whole Bible, in my opinion. Because angels can take on human form. In fact, when you go to Genesis 19:4-6, you learn of the sodomite crowd that surrounded the household of Lot and demanded that Lot’s two guests, in this case, the two angels that look like men, be released to this mob for sexual purposes. So for the crowd to make this claim, they saw two men that they were obviously sexually attracted to. Now, that can’t be just talking about a spirit. This is obviously talking about angels that have the ability to appear as young men. So you can see what kind of city this was, Genesis 19:4-6, you can see why God, in this very story, rained down judgment from heaven and destroyed this city. But it says, Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house,… [Now look what it says here,] … both young and the old, all the people from every quarter;… So that’s the depravity that you have in Sodom and Gomorrah, where you have this basically sexual mob involving old people and young people. So they were having drag queen story time, for example, in the public school libraries or public libraries to sexualize the children at a very early age, to the point where even the young and the old are involved in this mob. And it’s sort of scary when you look at this and see that God allows societies to go so far before He says, ‘That’s it!’ And He brings judgment. And you wonder, with all of this sexual redefinition and all of these things going on in our age, how much longer God is going to put up with it from the late, great United States of America. And the part of it that’s always bothered me about this sexual redefinition that’s going on is the intentional targeting of the youth. I mean, do whatever you want in your own bedroom, but when you target young people, that’s completely different. When you come into the public schools and demand an opportunity to teach some perverse lifestyle, that’s totally different. You’ve crossed a line there.

 

And a lot of this thinking comes from the Alfred Kinsey study. I think I shared that with you last time, that they say, ‘Well, ten percent of the population of the United States is homosexual.’  Well, the reality of the situation is that number is fake. It’s fake news, ten percent. That goes back to, I don’t know, around 1948, right around that time period where Kinsey produced this study, and his sample set consisted of prisons and bars where there’s an abnormally higher percentage of homosexuals. He came up with this number based on this flawed data, a flawed sample set, that ten percent of the population is homosexual. And so, you know the drill. You repeat a lie long enough and people will believe it. So that number has just been passed down. People keep saying ten percent, ten percent, ten percent. It’s been said so long that everybody believes it’s true, when if you look at subsequent studies based on real data, the population of homosexuals in the United States is probably closer to 1%-2%, but they need the ten percent number because they need to come into the schools and indoctrinate people into the lifestyle because their thinking is that ten percent of the kids are homosexual. They just don’t know it yet.

 

Well, where are they getting that idea from? They’re getting it from Alfred Kinsey, who came up with this flawed data. And so they have, as I was coming of age, Project Ten in California, where it’s now basically a right that they have to come into schools and teach all of this perverse lifestyle to kids, because ten percent of these kids need to come out because they’re struggling with their sexuality anyway, because Alfred Kinsey told us that.  And so let’s bring these kids into liberty by showing them all of this perversion. So that Project Ten, Alfred Kinsey, ten percent of the homosexual population is homosexual, all of it fits exactly with what you see happening here in Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

By the way, the issue with homosexuality, I hope you understand this, is not homosexuality. The issue with same sex marriage is not same sex marriage. The issue with rights for homosexuals is not rights for homosexuals, because when you look at the economic data, what you discover is that homosexual couples enjoy a standard of living much higher than heterosexual couples. Why is that? Because a lot of times you have two men in the relationship. A man typically has a higher income than a woman in the United States. And there are a lot of different reasons for that. Think about all of the disposable income that you have. Because they don’t reproduce, they don’t have to pay college tuition. They don’t have to pay for diapers, groceries. And so they have all of this money sloshing around to invest into political causes. And that’s why the homosexual movement is as popular as it is in the political realm, because politicians pay attention to who gives them money, you see?

 

And the issue with homosexuality has never been homosexuality.  It’s never been rights for homosexuals. Look at their standard of living—it’s massive. Well, then why are they pushing this agenda? Well, the agenda is to take certain things and capsulize them into law, and once they do that, they can come into Sugar Land Bible Church and say, ‘We’re a same sex couple and we demand that you as the Pastor marry us.’ And if the Pastor stands on biblical convictions and says ‘No,’ well, now the force of law is applied against that Pastor, where that Pastor is fined or jailed, or the church is fined, or the church is shut down.  They do this with the Boy Scouts of America. They do this with the Girl Scouts. They do it with any organization that has any semblance of biblical truth.

 

And so, the reason why there’s been this push over these many decades to treat the same sex movement as a civil right, is because it becomes a billy club to beat down conservative organizations.  And so the issue has never been about rights for homosexuals. It’s been a convenient tool, a legal tool in the hands of the left, the progressive movement, all of those that want to fundamentally transform the United States of America and to shut down conservative voices.

 

So that was a nice digression, wasn’t it? But you can see where our culture is basically caught up almost to what’s happening here.   Genesis 19:4-6, Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; and they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight?… [Now we know those are angels]… Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.” [Some of your versions say “that we may get to know them” and get to know them is not ‘let’s figure out their personality type and their favorite color, and their horoscope reading?’ Get to know them is carnal knowledge. Adam knew his wife. Genesis 4:1. And we know that’s more than ‘Gee, let’s sit under a tree and figure out if we have the same personality type’ because she got pregnant because of that knowledge. And that’s what is being meant here. This is basically, I don’t know how to say it nicer, a sodomite gang rape of two men that this crowd thinks are men, but actually are angels. And it got so bad that Lot, who was not really walking with the Lord at this time, as you can see in Lot’s life, I have a sermon entitled “Are You a Lot Like Lot?”  Because he’s an example of a believer who’s righteous positionally, but he’s clearly making decisions here that aren’t in harmony with God’s Word. But even Lot, in his carnal state, went out to them at the door and shut the door behind him.  Even he, the same Lot who was involved in incest with his two daughters at the end of this chapter. And by the way, that’s from those unholy unions— Genesis 19:30-38. That’s where we get the Ammonites and the Moabites: perennial enemies of the nation of Israel. Those groups harassed Israel all the way through as they were seeking to enter Canaan. But even Lot who was involved in drunkenness and incest and all of these things, even he recognized that this was not right. And so he goes out the doorway and shuts the door behind him.

 

So my point in bringing up all of this is just to show that this crowd who wanted to rape these two men thought they were men. They didn’t think they were spirits. You cannot sexually molest a spirit.

 

Beyond that, the book of Hebrews, and Hebrews here may be referring to the Abraham story in Genesis 18. The book of Hebrews 13:2 says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” So it is entirely possible to be hospitable to a person, when in reality, that person is actually an angel, and the person exercising hospitality doesn’t even realize it.  Because angels, yes, they’re spiritual beings, but they have the ability to take on human form. And that may be a description of what was happening with Abraham in Genesis 18, where he received these three guests, and he fed them, and they ended up traveling then to Sodom; there we’re told that they were actually angels.

 

So the objection that the angel view of Genesis 6 is not right, because angels are spirits, can quickly be countered  just by looking at all of the biblical data that angels have a clear ability to take on human form. In fact, based on some of the verses we read last time, the demons, the sons of God involved in Genesis 6 are in a place of incarceration. They’re committed to pits of darkness. Jude 6 says they’re “in eternal bonds.” Some of your Bible versions say they’re “in chains.” Now, let me ask a question. How do you chain a spirit? I think that’d be difficult, wouldn’t it? But if they’re chained, they’re in their human form, then suddenly this business about imprisonment and ‘in bonds and in chains’ starts to make sense.

 

So the first objection from Matthew 22:30, angels don’t marry. I don’t think that objection works. The second objection angels are just spirits. I don’t think that objection works either, for the simple reason that angels, in their fallen state, can still take on human form.

 

The third objection to the angel view is the fact that the Nephilim are mentioned in the Book of Numbers. So Genesis 6 is not the only place where the Nephilim are mentioned. They’re also found in the book of Numbers 13:33. And you say, ’Well, wait a minute. I thought the flood destroyed the Nephilim.’  In fact, I’ve tried to argue that that was the point of the flood—to get rid of this genetic experiment that went crazy because it says in Genesis 7:19, concerning the flood waters that ‘covered all the high mountains under the entire earth,’ “Every living thing that moved on the earth perished…“… ‘All the creatures perished. All mankind, everything. Every living thing. Only Noah, and of course, those with Noah, 7 others, other than they, perished.’ Noah is protected because he is uncontaminated, as we tried to argue, with this genetic manipulation. That’s why he is called unblemished, which is the same Hebrew word used to describe the Passover lamb’s genetics in Exodus 12, I think it’s around verse 5. So people say, ‘Well, if the flood destroyed all the Nephilim, then what are they doing again in the book of Numbers?’ Because, and by the way, I like to use this quote from HC Leupold, because a lot of people today are trying to argue that the flood was just a local event.  No, it was not a local event. It was a global event because in Genesis 7:19, you have a double ‘all’ in Hebrew, and he writes, ”A double ‘all’ cannot allow for so relative a sense.  It talks about ‘all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered.’ So to put this in Texan, he wasn’t just saying, ‘y’all.‘ He was saying, ‘all y’all.’ And I need to write a book on going from California to Texas and the changes in vocabulary, because I didn’t understand the difference between y’all and all y’all. I thought they were synonyms. But y’all, as best I understand it, correct me if I’m wrong, is a subgroup. Like if I say to Veronica and Eric, ’Y’all come up and see me afterwards.’ But when I say, ‘All y’all, we’re finished with Sunday School until the main service. And that’s for all y’all. Not just y’all.’ You’re saying, ‘Why did I come to this class this morning?  This guy is crazy.’ We are talking about something bigger. So when it uses a double all, it’s saying the whole planet was under water. It’s what it’s talking about. So that includes the Nephilim. That’s why God sent the flood, which was a catastrophic, abnormal judgment. He didn’t send a flood just because believers are marrying with unbelievers or people are involved in polygamy. He sent it when there was something abnormal happening with the genetics of the human race.

 

So if the Nephilim perished in the flood, why do we see them again in the book of Numbers 13:32-33?  Notice what that passage says, So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim. [Well that’s post-flood. You mean the genetic experiment of Satan happened a second time?] There we also saw the Nephilim [the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

 

So, from the biblical story, the nation of Israel is in captivity for 400 years in Goshen.  They pass through the Red Sea. They come to Mount Sinai at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula if you take the traditional view of where Mount Sinai is. They receive the law, and they only have to travel eleven days before they get into Canaan. They got to a place called Kadesh Barnea, which is basically on the southern border of Israel. They looked into the land. They saw giants in the land.  They went into fear, other than Joshua and Caleb, and God banned that generation from entering Canaan. And in the process of looking into the land and seeing giants in the land, these intimidated spies say, ‘We saw the Nephilim.’

 

So, if the Nephilim is a product of angels and humans procreating, and if all of the Nephilim perished in the flood, then what people say is that if you believe that, then you also have to believe that the same thing happened some time around the time of Joshua or before, because the spies said, ‘we saw in the land the Nephilim,’ which is the only other place that Hebrew word is used other than Genesis 6.

 

So, a lot of people draw data from a source without really recognizing the source they’re drawing from. A lot of this comes from an older Bible called Dakes Bible, and he has a book, and there are many things in the book that are very helpful, by the way, I’m not casting aspersions on the whole book, but his book is called God’s Plan for Man Revealing God’s Perfect Plan for All of Creation. Finis Jennings Dake clearly articulates a second angelic eruption creating the Nephilim in Numbers 13.

 

So he says, ”There were two eruptions of the fallen angels among men. They produced races of giants on the Earth each time. The first eruption was before the flood, and the second one was after the flood.  This is plainly [notice the word plainly] stated in Genesis 6:4: ‘There were giants in the earth in those days… [Now do you see which words he puts in brackets there] [before the flood]; [In other words, he just added something to the biblical text that’s not there]…and also after that, [see the second bracket] [after the flood], when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.’”

 

Dake goes on and says, “…We also know from history that there were giants in the Earth before and after the flood. Genesis 6:4 records the fact that ‘There were giants in the earth in those days’ before the flood,…[Doesn’t say that—he’s adding before the flood and after the flood to Genesis 6, and I’ll tell you what I think Genesis 6 is actually talking about there in just a minute]. ‘There were giants in the earth in those days’ before the flood, for the whole passage speaks of the time before the flood of Noah, and shows why God sent the flood. Then we have many Scriptures of giants in the Earth after the flood, coming from the same source, the sons of God and the daughters of men. There were no daughters of Cain left on Earth after the flood, for only Noah and his family were kept alive in the ark after the flood…”

 

[So he’s arguing for a second angelic eruption, creating a new batch of Nephilim post-flood. Elsewhere, he says,] “…there were two eruptions of fallen angels among men who married the daughters of men and produced two races of giants upon the Earth—one before the flood and the other after the flood. [And he basically uses the same line of argumentation here]. He says, …The second eruption took place in this dispensation, for when Abraham entered the land at the beginning of the next age, it is said that ‘the Cainite was then [already] in the land’ (Gen 12:6; 13:7). [So he thinks there’s post-flood Nephilim. He thinks that’s who the Cainites were].  He goes on and says, …This second eruption took place soon after the flood,…”  So that’s his explanation of the Nephilim in Numbers 13. These are kind of lengthy quotes. And so I don’t know if I need to read all of them, but you kind of get the idea. And a lot of people are probably drawing from Finis Jennings Dake without knowing who they’re drawing from, but he clearly articulates two angelic eruptions:  one pre-flood explaining the Nephilim, one post-flood explaining the Nephilim in Numbers 13:33.

 

So having said all that, what do I think about the Nephilim in Numbers 13:33? What I think is that the Nephilim in Numbers 13:33 are not literal.  They’re figures of speech. ‘Well, wait a minute, Pastor. You’re allegorizing the Bible here.’ No. You have to pay attention to who is speaking in Numbers 13, God is not laying down propositional truth the way he does in Genesis 6. What’s happening in Numbers 13 is that the spies at Kadesh Barnea had looked into the land of Israel, saw giants in the land, and they went into being intimidated. These spies, we are told, came back with a “bad report.” Now the word there for report is actually not just ‘bad,’ it’s an evil report. So, if you buy into literal Nephilim in the days of Joshua, you’re buying into, not propositional truth from God but a report from the intimidated spies who were bringing back an evil report. And as they brought back this evil report, I want you to see how they frequently used figures of speech to describe their fear. I mean, there’s no doubt that what they saw in the land was giants, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that what they saw in the land was the same literal Nephilim that are described in Genesis 6, because they say this: ‘we saw’ “a land that devours its inhabitants.” Now, does a land literally eat up its inhabitants? No, that’s a figure of speech called a personification. It’s where you assign living attributes to an inanimate object to describe the power of that inanimate object. It’s like when the Bible says, ‘the mountains clapped’ and things of that nature.  We don’t really see the mountains clapping. It’s a figure of speech. It’s called a personification.

 

And they use a second figure of speech: “We became like, like grasshoppers in our own sight.“ Now, what kind of figure of speech is that? It’s a simile where you equate two things through the linking word ‘like’ or ‘as’—a simile.

 

And when you drop the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ you’re using a  metaphor.  I think that’s what these spies are seeing. They are panicking because there they see giants in the land. I don’t have a problem with giants in the world. I mean, have you gone down to watch the Houston Rockets play lately? I stood in my youth next to Kareem Abdul Jabbar as a Lakers fan, and man, I became like a grasshopper in my own eyes pretty quick. And I’m not exactly the shortest person on planet Earth. I mean, I’m used to being the tallest person in the room, but I was just a shrimp compared to him. And of course, we know all the way in the time of David, there were giants. Goliath was a giant. And David took with him five stones, and most believe he took four other stones, because those were Goliath’s brothers who were also giants. And so they’re seeing a challenge.  And what these spies are doing in their intimidated sense, as they’re bringing back an evil report, they’re analogizing their predicament to the worst thing that they could think of in the history of mankind up to this point, which was the pre-flood Nephilim. And I think the language there is metaphorical because it’s being surrounded by all of these other figures of speech.

 

And it is interesting to me that the nation of Israel, under Joshua in the book of Joshua, entered the land and they were in the land for how many years before the Babylonian captivity—800 years. And during that whole 800-year time period that you can read about in biblical history, nobody says, ‘Oh, yeah, we battled the Nephilim.’ So where did they go? Well, they were never in the land. It’s just a figure of speech analogizing their predicament to the worst thing they could think of in Jewish history or in the history of the world up to that point in time. So they are being analogized metaphorically to the Nephilim. So, consequently, I don’t think Numbers 13, when you actually study who’s speaking and the report they’re bringing back of an evil nature, in their intimidation and all of their analogies, is speaking of literal Nephilim, because there are no literal Nephilim in the land for 800 years.

 

And just to show you that I’m not just yanking things out of thin air, my professor, Dr. Ronald Allen, in his exposition of the book of Numbers, which you can find in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, writes this concerning Numbers 13:33.

 

He says of the spies, “By speaking evil,… [that’s what that word means when it says, ‘they brought back a bad report’. It’s an evil report. So do you really want your theology to be based on somebody speaking an evil report? “By speaking evil concerning the land, the faithless spies, … [that’s who everybody’s building their theology on, he faithless spies. See, the doctrine of inspiration does not guarantee that everything that’s said in the Bible is true. What it guarantees is that the conversation happened exactly like it says, because there are people that are saying things in the Bible who are saying things that are untrue. For example, Satan said in Genesis 3 to Eve, ‘you will not die’— well, that became a lie. The only thing the doctrine of inspiration guarantees is that Satan actually said that. So when you read the Bible, you have to pay attention to the context, because it could be God speaking in Genesis 6, or it could be a wicked group of people speaking in Numbers 13. It could be Jesus speaking, who cannot lie. Or it could be the devil speaking who is the father of lies. And this is the problem with this post-flood Nephilim theology. Building so much out of that particular passage is that they’re not paying attention to the context and the conversation.

 

Ron Allen says, “By speaking evil concerning the land, the faithless spies were speaking evil of him. At this point, their words became exaggerations and distortions. The Anakites (who were of large size), were now said to be Nephilim, the race of giants described briefly in the mysterious context of the cohabitation of the sons of God and the daughters of men. The use of the term Nephilim seems to be deliberately provocative of fear, a term not unlike the concept of boogeymen and hobgoblins. The exaggeration of the faithless led them to their final folly: ‘We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.’” We have noted the possible use of rhetorical exaggeration, hyperbole…” Allen gives other examples of this happening in the book of Numbers. But then he concludes as follows:  “…In the report of the evil spies, we see that rhetorical exaggeration can work both ways. By describing themselves as mere grasshoppers [obviously a figure of speech] … in the sight of the fabulous Nephilim, they frightened the sandals … [Now he’s assuming they were wearing sandals out there]… they frightened the sandals off the people and led a nation to grievous sin of unbelief against their caring God.”  And that’s the sin where God said, ’Okay, y’all can just wander around out here for 40 years until you’re all dead.’  It was from this evil report.

 

So when you look at this in context, I really don’t think this report here is designed to communicate, as Dake says, a second angelic eruption.  And yet people use that passage all of the time to argue for post-flood Nephilim. In fact, there are whole conferences that you could go to today where they pack the place out, where it’s all about giants in the land and Nephilim, and they go around the world trying to find Nephilim skeletons, and you ask them, ‘Where are you getting all of this from’? They’re getting it from the book of Numbers 13.

 

So they’re they’re hyping up all of this hysteria over a passage that, to me, is highly suspect.

 

Now, what about Genesis 6:4 where it says …The Nephilim [in the pre-flood era] were on the earth in those days, and also afterward,… [Dake wants that verse to say, ‘the Nephilim were on the earth pre-flood and also on the earth post-flood.’ He has to read the word flood into this passage. It doesn’t say that. And so from that he develops this idea that there was a second angelic eruption. But what you have to look at very carefully here is in Latin, the terminus, a quo—beginning point. When he says ‘The Nephilim were on the earth in those days,’ what’s the beginning point? And also afterward, what’s the end point? Dake thinks it’s the flood, but that’s not what the passage says. In fact, what the passage actually says is this pre-flood world went on, Genesis 6:3, for one hundred and twenty years. Now think of the length of time one hundred and twenty years is: that would be roughly half the age of the United States of America. So when it says the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and afterward, and no terminus a quo is specified, it doesn’t have to mean Nephilim were on the Earth before the flood, and Nephilim were on the earth after the flood. It doesn’t have to mean that at all. It’s just talking about a massive chunk of time. Pre-flood, we don’t know the beginning point and the Nephilim were on the earth in those years—year 40 and afterward. Year 80. All pre-flood.

 

So my point is, people are taking a lot of passages to hype a sensation of post-flood Nephilim to create a conference that packs things out. And the fact of the matter is, the passages that they’re using are highly dubious. Now, I know the passage you’re thinking of, and I don’t have time to talk about it, but it’s the passage where Jesus says, ‘as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man?’ Aha! The Nephilim are going to come back. That’s what Jesus says, right? So Jesus says it’s going to be just like it was in the days of Noah, in the last days. Now, in the days of Noah, we had Nephilim.  So the whole angelic eruption is going to happen yet again in the last days; angels are actually going to start procreating with human women. And let’s throw in Numbers to show it happens in the post-flood world. And let’s throw in Genesis 6:4.  Let’s string these verses together and let’s hype this up. Let’s become Nephilim chasers, and let’s find skeletons of Nephilim and all of these kinds of things, when in reality, I think the skeletons that they’re unearthing, if at all, are from the pre-flood world, not some kind of second eruption. And they use that passage ‘as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be.’ The problem is that passage is qualified. It says that they were eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. When you study parables in the Bible, and that’s a parable, if you go back to verse 32, you’ll see the word parable. Parables have a single point. Parables are not designed to produce all of these other layers of understanding. They want to communicate one point, and Jesus tells us what the point is, ‘as it was in the days of Noah…people were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage. And so it will be when the Son of Man comes.’ Jesus is not saying the Nephilim are going to come back. I mean, if everything’s going to come back, we need to see an ark again, don’t we? And we need to have flood waters again, which would violate God’s promise in the Noahic covenant. The only point that Jesus is making is that people prior to the flood could care less about God. They were wrapped up in life, and that’s how it’s going to be when Jesus comes back a second time. That’s His only point. It’s not to communicate a resurgence of Nephilim in the last days.

 

So that point we’ll get to next week. So all of that being said, I don’t think these first three objections really are much to counteract the angel view. Angels don’t marry; angels are spirits. And what about the post-flood Nephilim? which I think are just figures of speech or metaphors by the evil report of the spies.

 

Well, look at that. Shucks, I talked so long, I can’t take questions. What a shame, because I know some of you I can see the look in your eyes. I can see the whites of your eyes. Some of you are red. Some of your eyes are red. Either because you’re so mad or you missed an hour of sleep. But we’ll take all all the questions in due course. So let’s pray.

 

Father, let’s thank You for Your truth, for Your Word. Help us to divide Your Word properly so we may not be swept into confusion in these last days. We’ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. God’s people said, AMEN.