In this episode, Pastor Joel sits down with Joshua Lewis and Michael Roundtree, co-hosts of Remnant Radio, to talk about the Nephilim, the Sons of God, and the relevancy of God's word for Christians today.
00:09:52.180In Matthew chapter 24, verses 37 through 39,
00:09:55.060Jesus says for the coming of the son of man that speaking of himself will be just like the days of
00:10:01.360Noah for as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking they were0.56
00:10:06.080marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and they did not understand0.62
00:10:11.440until the flood came and took them all away so shall the coming of the son of man be also first
00:10:17.100Peter chapter 3 verse 20 says because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited
00:10:23.240in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight persons
00:10:28.180were brought safely through water so according to both Jesus and Peter the people of Noah's day
00:10:33.940chose to ignore God's warnings of judgment until eventually it was too late in today's text we see
00:10:39.880the progression in this text Genesis chapter 6 the progression of sin as it relates not just to
00:10:45.660individuals one of the things I find helpful about the Genesis 6 passage is it shows a progression
00:10:50.720of sin as it relates to societies and cultures and even nations. Sin begins with compromise.
00:10:57.300It moves to corruption and ultimately it ends in God's just judgment. So in verses one and two
00:11:03.600of Genesis chapter six, it says, when man began to multiply in the face of the earth,
00:11:08.260the face of the land, the daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw that the daughters of
00:11:12.540men were attractive. They took his wives, any that they chose. Now the debate over this text,0.70
00:11:17.720Who are the sons of God? That's the first question we got to get to. This is a century, centuries and centuries old debate. There are three main views that I'm familiar with. The first is that the sons of God were powerful rulers, princes, likely possessed by demons, demon possessed, who were striving for fame and glory through the means of mass fertility.
00:11:38.820that they had many wives and they were trying to have many, many, many, many sons, many offsprings
00:11:44.900to basically cause their name to be essentially immortal. Occasionally in the Bible, the Hebrew
00:11:52.120word Elohim or Josh, before we got started, he insisted that we say Elohim to be accurate,
00:11:59.040but it's a name for God. And so in the Hebrew Bible, the word, the Hebrew word Elohim is used
00:12:07.820for men in positions of authority. That would be like Exodus chapter 21 verse 6 or Psalm chapter
00:12:12.62082 verse 1 and verse 6. In this view, the daughters of men would refer to all daughters. So all the
00:12:19.340women who were on the earth at this time, they were being taken as wives by these powerful rulers
00:12:25.900or princes, sons of rulers, possessed by demons, trying to have many offspring to further their
00:12:30.840line and make themselves immortal. That's the first view of the sons of God. The second view
00:12:35.460is that the sons of God refer to the godly descendants of Seth
00:12:56.200who went out from the presence of the Lord.
00:12:58.620That's what the Bible says about Cain and his offspring
00:13:00.960in Genesis chapter 4, verse 16 through 24.
00:13:03.760Now, Luke, in the New Testament, he traces the line of Christ back through Seth all the way to Adam, and he calls Adam the son of God. That's Luke 3, verse 38.
00:13:14.860Thus, Adam's descendants through Seth are the sons of God, according to this view, who became corrupt through sinful compromise in marriage.
00:13:23.220They chose to marry on the basis of sexual attraction rather than on the basis of godly character and a godly lineage.
00:13:30.820The result was the compromise of godly standards, which led to the corruption and ultimately condemnation of the entire human race.0.56
00:13:39.320The third view of the sons of God is that the sons of God refer to fallen angels or demons who came to earth in human form and cohabitated with women, human women, resulting in a superhuman race called the Nephilim.
00:13:56.100Genesis chapter 6, verse 4. Proponents of this view argue that Satan was attempting, and I like this, he was attempting to use these fallen angels to thwart God's promise to bring a deliverer through the seed of the woman by corrupting the line of Adam.
00:14:13.120So that's the first kind of expression of the gospel that we see in Genesis chapter 3 when God's dealing out the curses to Adam and to the woman, Eve, and to the serpent.
00:14:23.260We see that even in God's judgment, there's this, I like to call it an Easter egg and a Reformed Baptist covenantal theology of the gospel, the Proto-Evangelium.
00:15:11.600There's just going to be this endless war.
00:15:13.120But what he ultimately promises is that the serpent is going to strike the heel of one of the woman's offspring, the seed of the woman, but that he will have the final victory blow in crushing the serpent's head.0.83
00:15:26.520And so Adam and Eve were saved as all Christians are saved before or after the cross, which is by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.0.52
00:15:34.000They knew Christ as the serpent crusher and they put faith in Jesus and they were saved by grace through faith in Christ work, which would come later.0.55
00:15:43.780They looked forward to the Messiah and knew him as the serpent crusher.
00:15:47.640And so in all of that, the point is that multiple times throughout the Old Testament,
00:15:52.840one of the things that we see is we see the line, this lineage of the woman that's eventually going to bring the serpent crusher,
00:15:59.720the promised seed the promised offspring that's going to crush the head of the serpent we see
00:16:05.020multiple attempts of satan influencing or downright possessing wicked men on earth in order to try to
00:16:12.800end the line and so for instance uh herod trying to wipe out um all the children in bethlehem or
00:16:20.880pharaoh uh same kind of thing with the uh the hebrew boys um or or according to this view the
00:16:28.120sons of God, fallen angels trying to dilute and pervert the biological line of human women0.63
00:16:37.320so that there would not be a pure seed of the serpent crusher, the promised seed, the0.93
00:16:44.680offspring that fallen angels stepping out of heaven, taking on human form, marrying human
00:16:50.740women and trying to pervert that messianic line.
00:16:54.500So the strongest argument for this view is that every other time the term son of God or sons of God is used in the Bible, it always refers to angels, which is pretty compelling. Job chapter one, Job chapter two, Job chapter 38, Daniel chapter three, Psalm chapter 29 and Psalm chapter 89.
00:17:13.940So in this view, the daughters of men would not just refer to the daughters of Cain, but the daughters of both Cain and Seth, all human women and the sons of God refer to not human men, but rather fallen angels.
00:17:27.980And so last thing I want to say, just setting the stage, verse four of our text, it mentions the Nephilim, those who hold to the view that the sons of God referred to fallen angels, say that the Nephilim were an ancient race of giants originated from the union of fallen angels and the daughters of men.
00:17:43.940the word Nephilim only appears one other time in scripture. That's numbers 13 verse 33. There,
00:17:50.440the Israelite spies reported that they had seen the Nephilim and that they felt small in comparison
00:17:55.760to them like grasshoppers. The word comes from a root word meaning to fall upon. It points to men
00:18:02.960of great violence, physical violence, who had a reputation of falling upon their enemies without
00:18:08.640mercy. These men may or may not have been physical giants who descended from fallen angels. The
00:18:13.860point is that they were vicious men with an insatiable bloodlust who would slaughter others
00:18:19.920just for sport. Therefore, we are meant to assume that the generation at the time of the flood was
00:18:25.280notorious for a host of sins, but especially the sin of violence. Genesis chapter six, verse 13.
00:18:32.520This explanation of the Nephilim is further confirmed by God's evaluation of that generation0.87
00:18:37.520found in verse five of Genesis six that says, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great0.95
00:18:43.840on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually verse 5
00:18:49.420is God's description of the extreme corruption of that generation due to God's common grace
00:18:55.540sin does not always reach the outward manifestations that it did in the days of Noah
00:19:01.880however I've got to say this as somebody who believes in total depravity however at the level0.98
00:19:07.300of the heart the unbeliever in our day is no less wicked than the unbelievers at the time of the0.99
00:19:13.260flood. So I believe that Genesis chapter six, verse five is an accurate description of, of the1.00
00:19:18.720unbeliever in the heart, the sinfulness of their heart, even today. However, the differences in
00:19:24.980Noah's day, uh, that, that it wasn't just, um, every thought and every intention of their heart,
00:19:30.780only evil continually. Um, but, but for me, I take that to mean that, that in the days of Noah,
00:19:36.560um, that it wasn't just, this is, is the level of depravity inwardly in the heart, but, but that
00:19:42.580God's common grace had lifted in such a way that, that, that the intentions of the heart were being
00:19:49.120outwardly manifest, especially in sinful acts of violence and murder. And so God, um, he, he
00:19:57.560wiped everyone out except for Noah and his wife, sons and their wives. So that's, that's my
00:20:02.220foundation, Josh. Uh, you obviously, so go for it. No, I just want to clarify in question when
00:20:08.500You said that they're just as depraved as we are today in a Calvinist perspective of total depravity, which I would actually affirm that the total depravity means that we, that our entire being is as corrupted as it, as it, like every being, every part of our being has been affected by sin.
00:20:25.680We're total, the totality of us has been affected.
00:20:28.400Not that we are as sinful as we'll ever be, utter, utter depravity.
00:20:42.320So total depravity, exactly what you said.
00:20:44.040It means that every part of humanity is marred by sin.
00:20:49.440And just for the record, in the Calvinistic perspective,
00:20:52.000we do not believe that Christians are totally depraved.
00:20:55.160And that's a mistake that I made in my early Calvinist days.
00:20:58.020And I still hear people in the Reformed camp that, you know,
00:21:00.900they're new and they're super excited about the tulip.
00:21:02.960They're leaving tulips at John Wesley's, you know, gravesite, you know,
00:21:06.140and say, you know, that the cage Calvinist, and they talk, we're totally depraved. But then they
00:21:10.140talk about themselves in that light. And it's like, no, if you're born again, you're not totally
00:21:14.600depraved. You're not. You are a new creation. In your inner being, you delight in the law of God.
00:21:20.540Something has actually changed. So I don't believe the Christian is even totally depraved.0.73
00:21:24.320And the unbeliever, I don't believe, is utterly depraved. And I personally don't believe that
00:21:29.000there's ever been a man on earth that has been utterly depraved in the fullest extent. But I do
00:21:36.120Two, to answer your question, Josh, I do think that that generation in the days of Noah, that the unbeliever, which would have been all of them except for Noah and his family, that the unbeliever in those days was further down the path of utter depravity than generations today.0.68
00:21:52.220However, I don't think that it's unique to Noah in the sense, his day, in the sense that that could never happen again or that that hasn't happened, at least in part.0.60
00:22:02.220So I would look at the Third Reich and I would look at Adolf Hitler and Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.0.52
00:22:07.020And I would say this is what happens in societies when God's law is ultimately abandoned in the three uses of God's law.0.80
00:22:17.300The second use is that the law of God has a common grace function that works even for the unbeliever as a shield that holds outward expressions, outward manifestations of that inward total depravity at bay.0.93
00:22:29.800Right. That there are people who who are unbelievers. They're totally depraved in their heart. So every intention of their heart is only evil continually. And yet, because of the law of God adopted and executed through societies and legislation and governing civil authorities, there are people who would want to murder, but but are restrained and actually carrying that act out due to fear and not love of God.1.00
00:22:58.100but, but fear of the civil magistrate. And so I do think that there have been societies since
00:23:02.780the days of Noah and that we can track through human history where I would say, yeah, they looked
00:23:07.460a lot like, no, they were savage. They were barbaric. Um, they, they were violent. They
00:23:13.300were physically, but I would say Nineveh. So Nineveh, you know, they used to fillet their1.00
00:23:17.580victims alive is, is, is what most historians say. And they would hang the skins of the people that0.71
00:23:23.400they've laid on the walls of Nineveh. And when the king of Nineveh repents and calls the whole0.92
00:23:29.940kingdom, the whole nation to repentance at the preaching of Jonah, that's specifically what's
00:23:34.540mentioned in the book of Jonah is that he says, we must repent of our violence. And so violence,
00:23:41.000physical violence is always seems to be emphasized as a further progression towards that utter
00:23:48.620depravity. It seems to be the case in the days of Noah, and it seems to be the case in the days of
00:23:53.740Nineveh, when Jonah went and preached repentance to them. It seems to be the case in the days of
00:24:00.300World War I and II and certain nations. And so I do think that totally depraved,
00:24:09.360unbelievers are totally depraved. That means inwardly, all they want to do is rebel against1.00
00:24:13.120God. But that's different than utter depravity, because somebody can rebel against God by being
00:24:17.340nice but it's still but they're still ultimately rebelling against god it's that classic augustinian
00:24:22.960position of a a a sinner cannot do good a saint can choose not to do bad and can choose to do good
00:24:32.360and a glorified believer cannot do bad right like when we get to do so it's it's a it's a classic
00:24:37.620augustinian historic protestant faith yep so that i just wanted to make that clear like that that
00:24:44.560Genesis 6-5, I think, is an accurate description of the human heart, not merely in the days of Noah, but in all ages.
00:24:54.460But it's an accurate description of the human heart for the unredeemed, for the unbeliever.
00:24:59.560I do not believe that Christians are totally depraved.0.97
00:25:01.640And what's unique about the days of Noah, although I do think there have been other time periods and other cultures that have been similar to those people in the days of Noah,
00:25:10.520is that it's not just total depravity intentions and thoughts of the heart but because that second
00:25:16.960use of God's law has been lifted his common grace has been lifted God handing people over Romans 1
00:25:22.580handing them over to their evil the the total depravity intentions in the heart begin to
00:25:28.180manifest in actions outwardly and I cheat I think the chief action being violence and and so I think
00:25:34.620that the people in the days of Noah were uniquely violent however I do think there have been
00:25:40.000cultures and nations and time periods where we're at least close to that level of violence has also
00:25:46.460been achieved. And God, maybe not through a worldwide flood, well, definitely not through
00:25:51.120a worldwide flood, but through other means, God has wiped people out. He has corrected that in
00:25:56.020his mercy. So anyway, so that's it. So what do you guys think? Who are the sons of God? Which
00:26:01.720view would you guys take? Who are the Nephilim? Go ahead and take it. Okay. So you put out there0.61
00:26:07.380are three options for who uh the nephilim is and i would say uh they are ruling okay actually to
00:26:14.240back up you you gave three options for who the sons of god are to answer who the nephilim are
00:26:18.740we have to talk about who the sons of god are because the two are related and you gave three
00:26:23.440potential options for who the sons of god in genesis chapter 6 might be uh the sons of princes
00:26:30.060or the sons of seth and ruling angels and of these three yes those are the three that have
00:26:36.380historically been put out there but the first one no modern commentary i i haven't read any
00:26:42.360modern commentaries that believe that they they all seem to think that it is a dying position
00:26:46.180it's a it's a dying position um sons of seth and ruling angels and even before i say what i'm about
00:26:52.360to say i think i would say this in my opinion the only reason to reject that the sons of god are
00:27:00.240ruling angels part of this divine counsel of god is not for exegetical reasons but because it's
00:27:08.160really weird that angels would have sex with human women like that's just weird and uh but the reality0.91
00:27:16.160is nephilim are weird right that which is the product of that like that's already weird and
00:27:22.200there's just some weird stuff in the bible uh but i don't think we can outright reject something
00:27:27.520just because it's weird, especially when there's really strong exegetical evidence the other way.
00:27:33.760So I think that what really nails it for this is something you said, Joel, that every other
00:27:41.460instance in the Bible where sons of God is used, it's speaking of these angelic beings.
00:27:47.320It's not talking about sons of Seth. It's talking about these angelic beings. So we need to have
00:27:53.420overwhelming evidence to overturn the way sons of god is used every other single time in the bible
00:28:00.620and we don't have that overwhelming evidence in fact we seem to have evidence going in the
00:28:05.980opposite direction uh take for instance uh the let me just reread verses one and two you guys
00:28:12.300just pay attention to the usage of the phrase daughter uh daughters or word daughters okay
00:28:17.400so it's going to appear in verses one and in two and if you believe in the sons of seth theory this
00:28:23.800idea that like well you have the two lines you have the unbelieving wicked line of cain and the
00:28:28.920believing blessed line of seth and the and the position states that the sons of seth uh they
00:28:37.020mixed the line by sleeping with cain's daughters right the cainite women so the believers and the
00:28:44.540unbelievers got married, and it polluted the lime. Now, on the surface, this might seem feasible.0.69
00:28:51.220Again, we're going against the fact that sons of God is never used to speak of sons of Seth,
00:28:56.280but notice this word daughters, verses 1 and 2. When man began to multiply on the face of the land,
00:29:02.040and daughters were born to them. Does it say Cainite daughters? Unbelieving, wicked, evil0.98
00:29:09.040daughters. It just says daughters. Everyone agrees that daughters in verse one is general,1.00
00:29:15.120not restricted to Canaanite daughters. Now verse two, and the sons of God saw that the daughters
00:29:21.340of man were attractive and they took the wise of any they chose. Doesn't it make sense that if
00:29:27.920daughters is general in verse one, that it's also general in verse two, speaking of just daughters
00:29:33.660of women. But if you hold to the sons of Seth theory, you have to say, well, in verse one,
00:29:38.520it is general, but in verse 2, it's a specific kind of daughter of man. It's Cainite daughters.
00:29:44.720But that's even doubly hard, because not only does it violate the context of verse 1, that it's
00:29:50.880general, he actually generalizes it with an adjective, a descriptor, where he calls them
00:29:55.360daughters of man. It doesn't say daughters of Cain. And so, to me, when you put the direct
00:30:03.400context of Genesis 6, 1 to 2, that you're asking me to restrict the meaning of daughters to mean
00:30:09.180only Cain's unbelieving wicked daughters, that's the first part. And then two, to ignore that sons
00:30:16.340of God always in the scripture means some kind of angelic celestial being, that's just too much.
00:30:23.500So I've chosen to accept the fact that something really weird happened, and that is that some kind
00:30:29.480of angelic being, uh, slept with human women. And I would be willing to say, and I mean, Michael
00:30:37.680differ on many of our positions. I would be willing to say that the Ben Elohim in, in Genesis
00:30:42.900chapter six are in fact, some kind of supernatural divine being. When I say divine, I don't mean in
00:30:49.380the sense of God, but in the sense of, uh, angelic spiritual being. Um, and I think that we can
00:30:54.680actually prove that in like jude uh verses five through seven um but but as guys are you about to
00:31:00.220say something i disagree with because i think i agree with this i was going to say when it comes
00:31:04.080to the nephilim particularly i am not willing to live on the same level of confidence that the
00:31:09.860nephilim are in fact angel human hybrids as confidently as i am to say that ben elohim
00:31:15.600are angels so so here's here's the the reference in jude and then we'll back up to the nephilim
00:31:20.580thing, but in June verses six and seven, it says, and the angels who did not stay within their own
00:31:26.460position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he kept an eternal change under gloomy
00:31:31.100darkness until the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah in the surrounding
00:31:37.080cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desires,
00:31:43.800serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. So here in this example,
00:31:49.640he is contrasting angels who left their natural and rightful dwelling and practiced in sexual
00:31:56.700immorality. And he contrasts the men of Sodom who practiced a sexual immorality that was unnatural0.53
00:32:02.480to the angels who practiced something that was unnatural. Now, there's a common objection that
00:32:08.400typically gets brought up in a passage like this, where the Sadducees, they were sad because they
00:32:13.520didn't believe in the resurrection, you see, according to Ravenhill. They were Sadducees.
00:32:16.360That's why they were Sadducee. Anyway, so the Sadducees approach Jesus. They're like, hey, this lady gets married. Her husband dies. According to the law, she has to marry the next guy down in the family bloodline. And she marries all seven of the brothers all the way down. Whose wife is she in the resurrection? And Jesus responds, hey, you foolish guys. Like, don't you know that in the resurrection, there's neither giving marriage or giving in marriage will be like the angels.0.86
00:32:37.500So the argumentation in response to Jude in Genesis is that, hey, Jesus said there's no sexual intercourse. That's not what it said, though. It says that there's no marriage. There's no kind of union like there is marriage here.
00:32:50.840Now, I would suggest that Jesus is male. Jesus is in heaven and he is male. And it would be unnatural for Jesus to practice an act such as this, though he is still male in heaven. And when we go to heaven, we will represent God, both male and female. We're going to possess all of our natural organs, yet it would be unnatural for us to practice in such actions. So I'd make the case that angels could at least potentially have male anatomy.
00:33:16.660me. I completely agree. Let me add something to that real quick. A couple of things. So one with,0.78
00:33:21.680I'm glad you brought up the Jude text. If you didn't, I was, I was definitely wanted us to get
00:33:25.160there. Um, but one thing that's interesting is he's comparing, um, in, in Jude chapters and the
00:33:30.700angels who did not stay within their own position of authority. So, but left their proper dwelling
00:33:34.820place. So the first thing I would say with that, liking it to, uh, Jesus, when they try to stump
00:33:38.900him with the woman who had seven husbands, uh, one, uh, when Jesus says that people are, are
00:33:43.860neither given a marriage or or in uh the the state of marriage covenant marriage in heaven
00:33:48.860um jesus he's he's talking about in heaven that's right uh where these angels left their proper
00:33:57.060dwelling place so they left heaven so so that doesn't conflict with jesus at all because what
00:34:01.700jesus is doing he's saying this is the state of what what's obviously implied is jesus is saying
00:34:06.780this is um the state of of citizens in heaven who are submitted to the righteous rule of god that
00:34:13.580That has no bearing on rebel angels who have left their proper dwelling place.
00:34:18.460And then also, you know, Jude compares it just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which one thing that happened in Sodom and Gomorrah is that angels came and visited Lot and the people of Sodom wanted to have sex with them.
00:35:05.920And so as weird as it is to us that apparently some kind of an angelic being can engage in intercourse with a human being, that actually is what the text directly says.
00:35:17.860And it's what Genesis 6 also teaches if we can agree on what sons of God are, that those are, in fact, angels.
00:35:26.020So now that I think that we can do away with the it's really weird and it can't happen, let me just speak to like practically how I think it could potentially happen.
00:35:36.220I think, Joel, this is kind of what you're going for.
00:35:38.280The very fact that it is just 18 or 19.
00:35:41.700I can't remember which, but in in the Sodom and Gomorrah story that the men, if they actually carried through with their desire, you know, the angels end up blinding them and they, you know, they aren't able to have sex with the angels.
00:35:55.180but they intend to and the suggestion of the text is that they would have and so and so my point is
00:36:02.860we have a scenario where sex with angels becomes a possibility and uh and so it shouldn't stretch
00:36:11.620the mind too crazy and when you read the text itself the angels look and act like human beings
00:36:19.540they're humanoid for sure right there so they they're like angels that have taken on some kind
00:36:23.900human body so in my imagination of it not that i imagine about it too much but anyway in my
00:36:30.780estimation put it that way i'll use a different word in genesis chapter six these these angels
00:36:38.540somehow inhabit use the word humanoid uh inhabit human bodies and sleep with human women but it
00:36:46.380mixes a seed and then we'll see if that gets to nephilim we'll see i think i think with
00:36:51.660with i think there's a mediated position with peter gentry peter gentry would say um when he
00:36:57.000comes to this text and we mentioned this in a show that we did recently kind of preparing for this
00:37:00.900um it says uh and two for their wives yeah uh and then in verse four the nephilim were on the earth
00:37:08.880in those days and also afterward now he looked up the phrase and also afterward and every single
00:37:15.340time it was used in scripture it means that it happened before and afterward so he was he was
00:37:21.420using this text to suggest that the Nephilim or our place marker, that those who lived in that day
00:37:26.740in Moses's time had a lot of mythology surrounding the Nephilim. And hey, there's Nephilim down here
00:37:33.400in the days where they're about to inhabit Israel. Where are these Nephilim coming from?0.98
00:37:38.440And he's saying, hey, look, these guys existed before the angels and afterward, is the way that
00:37:44.160Peter Gentry would argue. Now, there are other scholars such as Dr. Michael Heiser, who we've
00:37:48.640had on the show multiple times and many others who would go to extra biblical literature such
00:37:54.420as the book of Enoch and other texts to say, what would Jewish people would have thought about
00:37:59.360Nephilim? And in those texts, it seems as if the Nephilim are directly attributed to being
00:38:05.300angel-human hybrids. Now, I don't know that I can say with a level of confidence that I can say
00:38:11.080the sons of God are angels. But would you say they probably are? I could say potentially. I
00:38:16.220would say I would say possibly I want to speak with a level of confidence I think the scripture
00:38:19.540does yeah I would go with probably I would agree with you that I don't think we can say definitively
00:38:25.200sure uh based on Peter Gentry's argument that hey this comment like like the fact that it mentions
00:38:30.740sons of God angelic angelic beings sleeping with human daughters that doesn't necessarily mean
00:38:37.420that the next verse about the Nephilim is trying to communicate that these are offspring of them
00:38:43.440it could just be communicating this is a time marker um he has one other argument and that's
00:38:49.040that that this sentence doesn't start with and and that when that almost every sentence in the
00:38:53.800hebrew bible starts with and and because this doesn't start with and it must mean that he is
00:38:59.700writing a footnote to the ahead thought so those are his two thoughts suggesting that this right
00:39:04.440so basically he thinks the nephilim are mighty warriors who were tall yep now we can all we can
00:39:11.180agree that Nephilim were mighty warriors who were tall, right? Yeah. In fact, the word Nephilim is
00:39:17.840used twice in the Bible, once in Genesis six. And I think you might've mentioned this verse,
00:39:23.360Joel. Numbers 13. Numbers 13. Yeah. And on those two occasions, the Septuagint,
00:39:31.020which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint actually translates
00:39:36.000it as giants and so the reason i feel comfortable saying probably uh on that the nephilim probably
00:39:44.820were the offspring of the sons of god and the daughters of men is it's it seems as though the
00:39:52.680flow of the text is trying to drive us to the wickedness of man in the flood and it seems as
00:39:57.960though the flow of the text is you have this unholy union you have the product of that unholy union
00:40:04.500giants and nephilim and look at all the violence and craziness on the earth and you look at
00:40:11.500that throughout the scripture and it looks really bad so that would be one argument for it i think
00:40:16.360the other argument second temple literature specifically first enoch it is not canonical
00:40:23.060it is not entirely it is not the word of god for us today but it does inform us upon the worldview
00:40:29.860just like i quoted and mentioned the septuagint earlier the fact that it that it was a translation
00:40:36.800into the greek it helps us that they translated it as giants it helps you know okay jewish people
00:40:41.640thought of these as giants when they're trying to figure out what that's a fair argument for sure
00:40:44.920in the same way when you quoted from uh jude 5 through 8 or whatever it was uh and it talked
00:40:52.420about these final fallen angels and held in gloomy dungeons for the day of judgment that's
00:40:57.260exactly what the book of first enoch says it says that these angels uh are being stored for the day
00:41:04.720of judgment it's my belief that revelation 9 actually talks about their release and uh leading
00:41:10.560up to the judgment that's a whole nother story but um point being that if this helps us crawl
00:41:16.620into their worldview that this is the way they interpreted it this is the way the uh you know
00:41:22.560the uh people who wrote scripture interpreted it and uh i i think it makes a case for it so putting
00:41:30.460all of that together i feel like we could say probably but i still wouldn't say definitively
00:41:34.500would you go 80 yeah 80 joel i don't want to interrupt you though because let me hop in
00:41:39.760yeah no no that's all that's really good so um one thing that i would say is like i appreciate
00:41:45.360what you're saying michael um and i would be right there with you because this i taught through
00:41:50.280Genesis about two or three years, two and a half years ago, I think, when I was still in California
00:41:55.820and I taught this text. And at the time I held to the position that it was sons of God were
00:42:02.260the sons of Seth. And as of now, I would hold to the position of the sons of God being fallen
00:42:10.780angels. Is it because of what we just said? Did we change your opinion on here? No, I mean like
00:42:19.220No, I came into this recording already with my mind changed.
00:42:22.680But my point in saying that is because what you mentioned multiple times, Michael, that I think is just really good just as almost like a pastoral moment real quick for our listeners is, yeah, there's weird stuff in the Bible.
00:42:37.740And the reason why I held to the Sons of Seth position two and a half years ago, I'm convinced, knowing my heart, is because it just sounded a lot more sane.
00:42:47.580It sounded more intelligent and credible.
00:42:53.680And at the end of the day, I want to believe what's true.
00:42:56.780I want to believe what the Bible says.
00:43:28.920Um, but we shouldn't reject anything because it sounds dumb.0.99
00:43:33.040That's, that's just that, that, uh, that's dumb.0.88
00:43:35.960motive in the heart of man is that is the fear of man. That's approval. We want the approval of man0.95
00:43:41.740and we need to recognize that as being sinful. So for any of our listeners right now who, you know,
00:43:46.900your view, even as you're listening to this, if your view in any way is being guided by what
00:43:52.180sounds, um, not, not most possible, that's different than what sounds most, um, acceptable
00:43:58.340in, in, in the minds of other, other people. If that's your guiding, that's a hermeneutic.
00:44:04.120And that is a unbiblical, heretical hermeneutic.
00:44:07.220That is a wrong way of reading scripture.
00:44:08.920That's reading scripture in submission to man rather than reading scripture in submission to God.
00:44:13.660And so we want to fear God, not fear man.
00:44:16.080So I just wanted to make that pastoral point and then back to the conversation at hand.
00:44:21.740So 2 Peter, because we use the Jude text, 2 Peter 2, verses 4 through 6, very similar.
00:44:29.120It says, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.
00:44:40.440Jude chapter, well, chapter one, the only chapter in Jude.
00:44:43.820But verse five and six says, I want to remind you, although we once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterwards, destroyed those who did not believe.
00:44:53.340verse six, here we are. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority,
00:44:57.900but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the
00:45:03.000judgment of the great day. So verse, so verse six of Jude and second Peter chapter two verses four
00:45:11.800through six, both of them talk about this, this, these gloomy dungeons and chains and these fallen
00:45:18.300angels uh rebellious angels being held prisoners until the day of judgment and so my my question
00:45:24.960is this um how if if god cast these angels out of heaven into gloomy dungeons it seems like there's0.95
00:45:34.080got to be some kind of step in between how did they have sex with human women because you know
00:45:39.360what i mean both jude and second peter chapter two talk about they they were in heaven they left
00:45:45.240their proper dwelling place and they're being held prisoner did they get out of prison or did
00:45:51.200they fall from heaven and they were on earth god allowed them to be on the earth for a time until
00:45:55.820he locked them in gloomy dungeons what are you guys thoughts on that am i making sense yeah i
00:46:02.340think so so i i've always understood it that they departed they did their wicked deed and when you
00:46:09.780when you look at the book of Jude and it connects sexual immorality with
00:46:14.800their actual fall. So they, they left,
00:46:18.840they committed this, this wicked form of immorality.
00:46:24.300And as a result of that, God judged them.
00:46:26.820I feel like it's been a while since I've read first Enoch.
00:46:29.880I feel as though that is actually the sequence that it talks through it,
00:54:21.160at the end of david's life there were guys who killing giants with six fingers and snowy
00:54:25.280right exactly so yeah but anak and his in his lineage and goliath i believe is a part of that
00:54:30.880so it could be you're right it could it could be in numbers 13 that these 10 spies who come back
00:54:40.080are cowards and that technically they didn't see nephilim they saw dudes who were five foot
00:54:44.940ten and standing on a platform and they didn't get a good good look they had platform shoes on0.97
00:54:48.420Yeah. So that could be, I would probably lean against that, but, but either way,
00:54:53.280I don't think it matters that much because like we're saying there were giants,
00:54:57.180nonetheless, nonetheless. So I think two theories that people throw out there.
00:55:03.380And one of them, you mentioned Joel, and that is that angels have continued to fall
00:55:09.200at various times and maybe not all the time, maybe just like once again, since the flood or
00:55:15.520twice who knows but that basically it happened again okay so that's one theory maybe the most
00:55:22.080popular another one certainly less common amongst evangelical scholars conservative scholars but
00:55:29.140some conservative scholars will still say this that the flood was more localized and the way
00:55:37.040they get around like the whole it was only eight people or that two things when it says like the
00:55:42.380whole world was flooded they'll they'll say well whole world's kind of a relative term to them you
00:55:47.680know paul says in colossians 1 the gospel has been preached throughout the whole world he doesn't
00:55:51.180mean that literally the gospel has been preached in mongolia um but it's kind of just like a general
00:55:56.260superlative term and then they'll say well and the the nephilim weren't human so there were eight
00:56:01.900people that uh eight people that made it into the ark but uh the the nephilim might have somehow
00:56:12.120survived they were standing on top it says the mountains were covered but the the nephilim are
00:56:16.180on their they were just top of the mountain and their platform shoes yeah yeah and i'm pretty
00:56:21.280sure and i'm pretty sure the uh i'm pretty sure the babylonian like flood myths or whatever talk
00:56:26.280about their their giants surviving the flood uh go ahead so yeah so i totally understand that i i
00:56:32.340would lean against that view just because you know god promises never to flood the earth again and we
00:56:37.520have floods all the time and so so you know one of the ways that we understand that god hasn't
00:56:42.780broken his covenant um is that it's not a global flood and so if it was a territorial flood now it
00:56:49.120totally makes sense i understand what you're saying like the world but if it's then i would
00:56:53.240no i know it's not i know it's not yours i know you're just saying that is you know what some
00:56:58.020people believe and so i'm just stating for our listeners that would not be my view um not not
00:57:02.760because because i i mean in terms of the word world i'm a calvinist so so i'm totally down for
00:57:08.280interpreting the word world you know the world meaning you know um every tribe tongue and
00:57:13.920language without necessarily meaning each and every individual or the known world so i i don't
00:57:18.380have problems with those interpretations the problem that i would have is is less of of
00:57:23.160understanding the world in that context because the word world is used in multiple different ways
00:57:27.920I mean, just John, in Joe and I in text, he uses the word world in at least four different ways to describe, you know, the evil system under Satan's domain in order to talk about the cosmos, the physical creation, in order to talk about worldly people.
00:57:42.840So there's just all, you know, worldliness.
00:57:46.400But the biggest thing is we all three of us, we definitely believe that God doesn't break his promises.
00:57:51.100And so for me, I'm not an expert on flood history, but from the little bit that I've gathered, there have been some massive floods of massive areas.
00:58:02.940And so then it's like whatever God said he wasn't going to do, it seems like he's done again.
00:58:08.760One real cool thing, though, with God hanging his bow in the sky, Revelation says that eventually he's going to take that bow back down, that it's a weapon.
00:58:17.000So God flooded the earth, destroyed everyone, and hung his bow, that it's weaponry, it's war, yeah, it's war language, and that God, you know, that Christ, when he returns, is going to take the bow back down and ride on that white horse.
00:58:34.500So it's like God has, in his common grace for a time, is bearing with long-suffering, great patience, sin, but he's going to take that bow back down.0.88
00:58:43.120So anyways, the last thing I was going to say with that is it also just seems to defeat the purpose because it seems like the main thing that God is doing in the flood is wiping out the Nephilim.0.93
00:58:52.800So the idea that, you know what I mean?
00:58:55.020So it just seems kind of, so even though I don't have a clear text to describe a progression of angels falling on Monday and then some more following later on Tuesday, that is easier for me to swallow because that doesn't seem to blatantly contradict anything in Scripture.
00:59:11.700Whereas the other view, I'd rather take an implicit view of this progressive fall of angels than take what seems to be an explicitly contradicting view of God didn't actually flood the whole world and the whole purpose of judging the world he actually failed in because some Nephilim were able to escape.
00:59:35.300Basically, God was impotent in his attempt to judge.
01:00:39.820The Nephilim show up in Genesis 6, and clearly Moses, who's writing Genesis 6, know who the Nephilim are and is writing commentary on the Nephilim.
01:01:18.620Let me, I think, Josh, honestly, like we were joking earlier about like my view, you know, changing right now.
01:01:26.000I actually, I think it is changing right now because I think you're making a really compelling argument.
01:01:31.600So just reading, plain reading of the text, when man began to multiply, Genesis 6, man began to multiply in the face of the earth, face of the land and daughters were born to them.
01:01:39.040The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive.
01:02:00.900So we could say fallen angels, everything we've said, still holding, trying to pervert,0.67
01:02:04.900stop the messianic line by deluding the seed of the woman. That's verses one and two. Then verse
01:02:10.560three. So the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh. His day
01:02:15.560shall be 120 years. Real quick. My view on that is not, well, Moses lived to be 120 years and
01:02:20.480that's what this is talking about. And Kenneth Copeland, he's going to be 120. I don't, I don't
01:02:24.220believe that. He makes that claim. But what I do believe about verse three is that, that basically
01:02:31.860my view is that, um, these sons of God, fallen angels came to the earth, um, approximately 120
01:02:39.320years before God sent the flood. Um, so that's, that's my view. And, and that lines up with other,
01:02:46.780uh, texts in Genesis, for instance, it took about a hundred years. We know from scripture for Noah
01:02:51.500just even to build the ark. And so it was 120 year period of Noah and Noah was a heralder.1.00
01:02:56.780Noah was a preacher, right? So he was a heralder of righteousness. And there's a sense in which
01:03:02.280Christ preached. So that's now instead of second Peter chapter two, that's first Peter Christ
01:03:07.780preached to spirits in dungeons. And, and so I don't believe in a descent to hell, but a descent
01:03:14.980when Jesus died to Hades to shield to the grave. And so I don't believe that Christ himself,
01:03:21.360But I believe the spirit of Christ through Noah was preaching for approximately 120 years, 100 of that during the building of the ark to the wicked hybrid generation of fallen angels, sons of God and women preaching repentance.0.93
01:03:41.780And so verse three, then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever.
01:03:44.900So because fallen angels were polluting the messianic line where the seed, the serpent crusher was going to come, God said, all right, that's enough of that.
01:03:57.040120 years, not each individual man is going to live for 120 years or 120 years is going to be the cap of man's lifespan, but rather 120 years until I destroy everyone through the flood.
01:04:08.640And then verse 4, it says, it almost seems like it's like changing subjects.
01:04:12.920You know, it's like, all right, verse one through three, got that.
01:04:17.220Oh, also, by the way, the Nephilim were on the earth during those days.
01:04:19.900And also afterwards when the sons of God came.0.78
01:04:22.680And so it could be like the Nephilim were on the earth in those days because they came from the sons of God having sex with daughters of men and bore children to them.0.66
01:04:35.880And so we're just reading in verse four.0.83
01:04:37.820We're reading Nephilim are those children born by the daughters of man and sons of God.
01:04:42.140whereas it could very well be saying the nephilim happened to be there too right so the nephilim
01:04:47.580you're familiar with that passage in genesis where he says the garden which was east of eden
01:04:51.940wait so some people have postulated okay well then there's that means there was a city in eden
01:04:56.500and the god made an entire city and then east of that he built adam and eve so adam and eve aren't
01:05:00.480the father of all whoa whoa whoa settle down so what if moses was just saying this is a geographical
01:05:05.040place that my readers are familiar with and it was east of this place that my readers are familiar
01:05:09.120with not that god had literally created a city and then created a temple with people in it what
01:05:14.300if he's just using this as a time marker or a space marker to inform his specific audience
01:05:19.200that that's what i think for me i just think that contextually if this is all driving toward the
01:05:24.880flood and wickedness like why would he mention this random thing it just like it seems like a
01:05:31.340well i don't think it's random it seems like a point foot pointless footnote it doesn't it doesn't
01:05:35.420do anything. Uh, whereas if you start with in verse two, the sons of God, they, uh, they took
01:05:41.640the daughters of, of women as wives. So they went into them. So there's sexual intercourse in verse0.81
01:05:47.820two. And then in verse four, it's not only intercourse, but the bearing of children,0.70
01:05:53.480it seems to be a continuous flow of thought driving down to them, bearing of children.
01:05:58.880And so with the Nephilim listed right in the middle of that, it seems that the Nephilim
01:06:03.800would be those children again i'm not saying definitively i'm just saying yes well i'm with
01:06:08.780you michael i i definitely think that makes sense and i probably i i feel like right now i'm kind of
01:06:14.060just torn like in the middle i think i can totally see that being it but i don't think it i don't
01:06:18.240think the alternative view means that that verse four would be random i see it as like verse four
01:06:23.340still has a ton of significance because it's saying all the more reason for the flood there
01:06:27.840are two reasons for the flood um whereas you're saying there's one reason son sons of god being
01:06:33.300fallen angels had sex with the daughters of men and produced the Nephilim. And we got to wipe that
01:06:38.220out. Whereas you could say verse four is still significant with the other view saying there's
01:06:43.020two reasons. There's the sons of God trying to disrupt the messianic line, um, the fallen angels,
01:06:48.800and there's the Nephilim who are not necessarily the hybrid offspring of fallen angels and man,
01:06:55.840But they are men of renown. They are giants like Goliath and Anak. And in this state where fallen angels are influencing people, giants, that much physical prowess and capacity with unchecked depravity, right?
01:07:16.920That, like, heading towards from total depravity, heading outward manifestations towards utter depravity, I would imagine giants could do a lot of damage, even more violence if you're 10 feet tall than someone who's 5'10".
01:07:30.380Yeah, especially because, like, if you consider that they were, like, born of the union between sons of God.
01:08:27.640You guys let our listeners know how they can follow you and how they can, you know, how can they keep up with you and what some of the stuff you guys got in the pipeline.
01:08:36.840And then our listeners, make sure every time you listen to Ruminant Radio, come back and listen to me two times just to make sure that they're not screwing with your mind, getting some weird guests on that show.