Alright, so now we get to in chapter 6 one of the most difficult to understand passages, maybe in the entire Old Testament, if not it's probably in the top three or something like that. It's really, really confusing and it can be difficult to understand and they're having misinterpretations about this passage. We're in chapter 6 verses 1 and following, let me just read this and then we'll go to the notes and we'll unpack it all. Okay.
So Genesis chapter 6 verse 1, it says, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men were fair and they took two wives such as they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, where he has flesh, but his days shall be 120 years. The Nephim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown or the men of the name.
Verse 5, then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously and the Lord was very sorry that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart and it goes into the story of the flood. So this passage, these five or six verses here are very, very confusing. What are they talking about? So this whole story, the sons of God and the daughters of men is the hinge between the stories of Cain and Seth and the flood that comes right afterwards.
So it's really, really important to understand this particular section, this brief brief account, this narrative correctly because there is a continuity here. There is a flow of the story between what happened with the two lines of Cain and Seth, which we just discussed and what we're going to talk about next lesson, which is the flood and how the whole earth is corrupt. It was violent. Men's thoughts were evil continuously from his youth, etc.
So let's answer this question. Who in the world are the sons of God and the daughters of men? One of the interpretations that goes back to antiquity, some men and educated persons of the ancient world would say they are angels. Some sort of spiritual beings that come down and see that the daughters of men were good looking right?
They're toe, they're fair and they lust after them and then they sleep with them and then they have these children and then the lean, the mighty men and that's kind of one of the interpretations that's out there that circulate it for a very long time. So who are the sons of men? Now, our sons of God and the daughters of men. The sons of God, it is true in scripture, can refer to angels.
That is absolutely true. Son of God refers to, sons of God can refer to angels. Here in your notes have Job 1 verse 6 as one example there and that is undeniable. Angels can be called sons of God in other parts of scripture, but they're not referred to as sons of God here in Genesis.
This is really important. So the expression of son of God, simply, and this is where a little bit of systematic theology helps us a little bit of good old fashioned Thomism from St. Thomas Aquinas can get us, get set straight here of what this title means. Son of God is and I think simply refers to their state as adopted children of God.
Angels are also children of God because they participate, the good angels I would say, the good angels participate in God's life just like human beings do. So all the stuff that we talked about before about how Adam was created in the image line is of God. One of the things that means is a sonship. So humanity by grace is given a participation in God's own life, thereby making humanity children of God.
That was lost at the fall. We talked about all that stuff. The same thing applies to angels. God, if they're in a state of grace, all right, that can't get into angelology, but after the angels fell, there was the temptation, 30 angels fall away, the good angels that stayed faithful, like Michael means who is like God, St.
Michael fights against Satan. They receive the beatific vision and they receive a participation in God's life. So in a real sense by grace for the angels, they are children of God. You can say it in a certain sense, they're sons of God.
They participate in that trying life. That's simply what it's referring here. Okay. It's referring to whenever you see angels talk about a sons of God, that's what it's talking about.
But men also receive that title as well, even as we saw in Luke chapter 4, Adam is called a son of God. How could this in this particular passage in Genesis chapter 6? Why is it not referring to angels? There's a number of really solid points, considerations to prove, I think, the monster will be proven show that sons of God here in Genesis chapter 6 is not referring to angels.
Okay. If it were referring to angels, I'm just right here on your notes, let her do it. If it did refer to angels, number one, angels are not mentioned before or after this story at all, like they're total silence, no angels up to this point, no angels after this point, really in all of Genesis 1 through 11, we do find angels in the patriarch period, but not in the primary history period of Genesis 1 through 11. So they just do not show up before or after that makes no sense for them to all of a sudden lust after human beings, after the women, and then can see these weird, you know, mighty men children from them, okay?
That doesn't make any sense contextually in the scripture, okay? The other thing that doesn't make sense is that if these sons of God referred to angels, why is it that only humanity is punished? If the angels are the ones who sinfully lust after women, and then they disappear, they don't show up again, why is all of humanity as well as the angels that's punished and not angels? That doesn't make any sense.
It would seem like the angels would have to be punished as well, and you don't find that anywhere here in the context, okay? So those are a couple of reasons why it can't be angels. They're very simple, logical facts. They're that according to scripture and tradition, teaching to the church, Jewish theology and Christian, angels are pure spirits.
They're purely spiritual beings. They do not have bodies. They're not material beings like we are. So to put it kind of telekically, they just don't have the equipment to procreate.
They don't have the equipment to marry because the marriage is the context here, taking to life such as they chose. They just simply don't have bodies. They can't conceive a child in any way, shape, or form. It is impossible.
And even Jesus says in Mark 12 or 25, talking about, you know, after the resurrection about humanity, when they rise from the dead, they're neither married nor are they given a marriage, but they're like the angels in heaven. Now, Jesus is not saying that human beings after the resurrection, they become angels. That's not true. Human beings are body soul composites as we discussed before, even after death, our souls long for the reunification of our bodies.
Human beings to be a human being means to have a body and a soul. So even in the resurrection, it's necessary that we receive our bodies back to be a human being. So Jesus is not saying like a hallmark theology, we're going to become like angels after the resurrection. We get our little proverbial cloud and heart and we just play, you know, hymns which forgot all eternity.
That's not what he's saying. In heaven, there is no marriage between men and women, okay? Angels do not marry neither will human beings after the resurrection after the second coming. The new heavens and the new earth.
So Jesus says they don't marry logic, basic logic, basic theology says it's impossible for them to marry, it's impossible for them to procreate. So I think for all these reasons, it's not referring to angels. There's a different context. And in context, what we've been talking about for the whole first part of this lesson is that in context, the sons of God must refer to the righteous Godly line of Seth.
And the daughters of men refer to the fallen away humans in the ungodly line, the unrighteous line of Cain. These are the two lines that we've been discussing this entire lecture. In context, right after chapter five comes chapter six. And we're talking about these two lines now that are beginning to be intermarried.
Okay? So I think we've already proved multiple times going all the way back to Genesis one. Adam was created to be a son of God. He lost that, of course, through his sin.
But in his line from Adam to Seth and all the way down, they call upon the name of the Lord, they are righteous, they're godly. So they are the sons of God. The daughters of men are all those humans that have rejected God who like Lomac, we talked about, you know, he is the sixth generation after Cain. That's the epitome of evil and violence and immorality.
So they are the ones that are the, so yeah, the daughters of men are the ones that come from Cain. So I also want to clarify one other thing here. It's also on your notes. This is a literary device.
That's a man of the righteous line. Saw that the women of the unrighteous line were good looking and they intermarried and took whomever they wanted. It's an expression. Really, you could say the children of God and the children of men.
Okay. So it's men and women of the righteous line began to lust after the unrighteous line. And then men and women of the unrighteous line were also intermarrying with the righteous line for getting what I'm saying here. Although I do, although I do think it's true that there are children of both lines, the other thing you could say is that when it says the sons of the daughters of the daughters of inward fair, really, like you can find context with this and like Ezra and the Amaya, it's probably like the leaders, like these royal priestly leaders that are in the righteous line that are failing here.
And they're the ones that's being emphasized here. They're the ones that are taking women from the unrighteous line. So I think both of those things are true. Religious, yeah, the religious and royal leaders of the righteous line see that fall, basically fall from grace and then intermarrying with the unrighteous line.
But it doesn't mean it's just men. That's my main point right here is men and women from both lines intermarrying. Okay. All right.
So this expression, they saw that the daughters of men. I was talking more about this. They saw that the daughters of men were fair toe and they took such as they chose. This has two powerful echoes that we've seen in previous chapters.
Number one, it echoes Eve. In the garden, saw, same words here, saw that the fruit was good. Okay. Tove and took it.
All right. Saw that was good, desired it and then took it even though it was forbidden from her. So this is an echo of Eve and the fall of Eve and Adam in the garden. But this also is an echo of Lamech.
We talked about him earlier in this lesson. He took two wives. So he was the first man to have been said to be a biggamous, but technically a biggamous, get two wives. He took these two wives for himself, thereby breaking the marital covenant between one man and one woman.
And so in the same way now, his descendants, okay, or rather the righteous line, like Lamech, are taking two wives such as he chose. And this is very, very much polygamy, not just biggamy, but they're taking whomever they want, probably in violent means as well, thus again, echoing the tension between man and woman because of sin. So that, I think in context, it's very, very clear. The commentaries I recommend give a lot more support for this, but that's essentially what's going on.
Not angels, but in context, it's the sons of God, the righteous line of Seth falling. Okay. So then at this point, God says, you know, my spirit will not abide in man forever. These days will be 120 years.
I do not think that this refers to the lifespan of a human being because even Moses much later on lives to be 120 years. So what I think this is referring to, and there's a couple of different interpretive possibilities here. But it's referring to is basically countdown, a countdown to the flood. So 120 years from that point, the flood is going to come.
We're talking about the flood in the next lesson. The flood is going to come and wipe out sinful humanity, violent and corrupt humanity. So 120 years of repentance is what's coming. Okay.
So, and that actually makes a lot of sense. Based on what we talked about, Enoch and him being a prophet to his generation calling him to repent because the flood is coming. Enoch knew that. All right.
So don't forget that. And I think of page two of your notes. Okay. So they're the fallen ones.
Now, Nephilim has this kind of mythical name to it. The Nephilim, the sons of God, and pregnant the daughters of women. They have the Nephilim, the mighty men. Nephilim literally just simply means the fallen ones.
And that makes total sense. If the sons of God are sinfully lusting and maybe with violence, lusting after women, they are the fallen ones. They have a term from God and now they're acting like the descendants of Cain and intermarrying with the descendants of Cain. So Nephilim simply means the fallen ones.
And it refers to how humanity as a whole, but specifically the righteous line of Seth are fallen from grace, so to speak. They become corrupt and violent and unrighteous. And the mighty men, literally, it's the men of the name. They think about it.
They're notorious. They're infamous. They're so violent and they're so unrighteous and they're so immoral. They have this unholy reputation, this notorious reputation of being, and we'll talk more about Nimrod, one of my favorite names in scripture, next lesson.
He's a mighty man, right? Because he's violent, okay? That's what's happening here. It's not like, so the confusion of this is because the Septuagint translates this as the mighty men as gigante, which are giants.
So it's almost as if it kind of perpetuates this misinterpretation that angels, impregnate women, and the babies of angels and women are pretty impressive. They're giants and there's these rock monsters or whatever it might be out there. But no, it just simply means the men of the name, the men of the name, the men of the noun, they're notorious sinners and rebellious against God. That's what that expression simply means, okay?
So all of this results in widespread sin fall from grace from the righteous line. So I hope that I'll make sense here as we come to this conclusion of this lesson because this particular five or six verses is the hinge between the line of the seven and the line of came and then the story of the flood. It's because the two lines intermarry. In fact, before I forget that theme of the righteous not intermarrying with the unrighteous is the thing that goes all throughout scripture.
I mean, you go through salvation, this is my salvation history course or read some of the books, whatever you're going to see, read the Bible itself. You're going to see over and over and over again, Moses and Joshua, and then on one side and on the other side, Ezra and Nehemiah saying, do not intermarry. Do not intermarry with the pagans because you're going to begin to worship like them. You're going to commit idolatry.
You're going to commit immorality. You're going to commit violence, et cetera, et cetera. The righteous line must protect themselves against the immorality of the unrighteous line. And that's what we're seeing here in Genesis 6 and that's what you're going to see going all the way through the Old Testament.
All right. So with that in mind, let's conclude here this lesson. We're going to say our prayers. I'm Dr.
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