Who are the “Sons of God” in Genesis Chapter 6? – Part 7
Who are the “Sons of God” in Genesis Chapter 6?
Part 7: The Return of the Days of Noah
By Steve Schmutzer
In Matthew 24:37 and Luke 17:26, Jesus explained that life on earth will be “….like the days of Noah” just before His Second Coming. His disciples had asked Him for a sign that would signal the very end of the age. Among the distinguishing marks of carnality, calamity, and complacency which He explained, Jesus specified this period of antiquity before the Great Flood to describe this future point in time.
This theme fascinates me and I do what I can to learn about it. While I’ve not done an exhaustive study of this matter, I feel common sense tells us several things about Jesus’ reply:
- It’s more than the fact that people will be “….eating, drinking, and marrying.” That’s been happening for centuries as a prerequisite for human survival. Some “scholars” labor to argue that meeting these physiological fundamentals of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is somehow a sign that Jesus is coming back soon.
- It’s more than the fact that folks will be caught unawares. Sure – that’s true, and Jesus even says so. But folks have been caught unawares by other events – and even “judgements” – before. That dynamic alone does not sufficiently mark this reference to “the days of Noah” above all other times humanity has been equally unprepared.
- It’s more than the fact that this period before the Great Flood was a time of great sin. Those who emphasize this angle struggle to explain why God reacted differently to sin then than He does now. At what point does God decide He’s had enough? Since God’s character is unchangeable, this case is weak and irreverent.
Let me be clear – there is some truth within each of these arguments. But as I stated earlier in this article series, “It’s not true enough.” There was much more going on during “….the days of Noah” that prompted Jesus to say what He did. Jesus could have picked any point in history to liken the time before his Second Coming to, but He chose “the days of Noah” and He had specific reasons why.
The prior installments of this “sons of God” series has laid a solid foundation of issues that must be considered in light of this comment by Jesus. Sound interpretive principles, a review of heresies within church history, and multiple points from responsible Biblical exegesis have been introduced. The result is a cohesive storyline has emerged from the greater body of Scripture.
Almost two months into the process, I’ve received enough reader feedback to Parts 1 through 6 of this series to conclude there are four types of people insofar as these themes are concerned:
- THE REJOICERS – This group seems to speak up the least, but it is encouraging when they do. This group already believes in responsible Biblical interpretation as Part 1 of this series discussed. They have independently reached the right conclusions about these matters as a result, and they are thrilled that I’m presenting them the way I am.
- THE REPENTERS – Members of this crowd had held to various errant beliefs about the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1-4 before they considered all the facts. Some confessed they felt pressure to hold to wrong views while others said they were there out of ignorance. Regardless, this group has turned 180 degrees and is now pointed in a proper direction.
- THE REJECTERS – This bunch flatly refuses to accept the truth of the Bible. Most of them choose to camp on one or two verses to the exclusion of all others. They think it’s OK to have broadly-divergent views. Rather than submit to the full counsel of God’s Word, they do and say whatever it takes to stick with the things they most want to believe.
- THE REVILERS – This gang may be in the majority. They are everything the “rejecters” are, but with an added dose of venom. It’s not good enough for them to simply disagree; they need to resort to abusive language and name-calling. This group makes their own case less cogent by their immaturity, and their choices render them as basically irrelevant.
I cannot do anything about the third and fourth groups, and so this final installment of this series, “Who Are the Sons of God in Genesis 6?” is chiefly directed to the first two categories of folks. With the humility and open-mindedness of those crowds in my forward view, it is my hope to help us all “struggle towards the light.”
Permit me to summarize my high-altitude case. This is what I believe the Bible teaches, and it’s a running start as we look ahead to times to come.
God put Satan on notice in Genesis 3:15 that a forthcoming Messiah would emerge through the unadulterated genome of the human race to ultimately and permanently defeat him. That Messiah was Jesus Christ. In that same verse, God also prophesied that enmity would be ongoing between the physical “seed” of the woman and the physical “seed” of the serpent.
The initial expression of this enmity is documented in Genesis 6:1-4 when fallen angels left their divinely-prescribed domain (Jude 1:6) and mated with human women in an effort to corrupt the human genome and eliminate any chance of the Messiah’s arrival. This abhorrent act produced the gigantic Nephilim and resulted in God imprisoning those fallen angels who were responsible (2 Peter 2:4-5).
Though conditions on earth deteriorated precipitously as a result (Gen. 6:5, 12) of the actions of these “sons of God,” God protected the purely-human lineage in the ark and drowned everybody else in the Great Flood. This preserved the conditions for the Messianic promise as well as God’s plan for salvation.
Because God permitted sin to rear its head then as He does now, the Nephilim gene found its way onto the ark. This is documented in the genealogies of the Scriptures and is isolated to Ham’s descendants. God later promised that the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:1-6) and He stated that Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, would face the post-flood Nephilim in The Promised Land (Gen. 15:18-21). Satan narrowed his target to the Jews.
That all happened exactly as God had stated, and it took the Israelites a couple tries to get into The Promised Land as a result. Key battles with the Nephilim, the physical “seed” of Satan, are documented in the process. In the struggle, God told Moses, Joshua, and David to utterly destroy them all.
The Bible indicates a Nephilim connection in the conflict between the “gates of hell” and the ministry of Jesus and His future church (Matt. 16:13-18), and a similar element plays out within the fallen angels that accompanied His crucifixion (Psalms 22:12-13). But Jesus declares victory to the incarcerated “sons of God” which had first spawned the physical Nephilim (1 Peter 3:18-20), and all this sets up the final run into the future where Satan will be utterly crushed exactly as Gen. 3:15 had first foretold (Rev. 20:7-10).
So, back to Matthew 24:37 and Luke 17:26 where Jesus said it will once again be “….like the days of Noah.” Will fallen angels enter the sphere of humanity again to sexually interact with humans and produce hybrid creatures? Will we see enormous Nephilim roaming the earth once more? Will mankind battle against giants in a struggle for basic survival before the Second Advent of Jesus Christ?
I think the basic answer to these questions is, “No,” but I think the better answer is, “Not exactly.” While the enmity between the “seed” of the serpent and the “seed” of the woman will continue to express itself according to Genesis 3:15, I believe Satan is going to try some different tactics moving forward. He’ll be more subtle in the days ahead, but from God’s point-of-view it’s still the same thing.
We have to look at a series of clues in the Bible to get a grasp of what’s coming, and while none of us have a crystal ball, I feel a collective view of these things helps to define a reasonable response to the question, “How will the ‘days of Noah’ manifest once more?”
The book of Daniel offers some points for consideration. In Daniel chapter 2, Daniel is explaining Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the great statue to the king. It’s a panoramic view from Nebuchadnezzar’s time to God’s future kingdom that “….will endure forever” (Daniel 2:44).
Daniel says here of the end of the age just before the return of Jesus Christ that, “….they will mingle themselves with the seed of men” (Daniel 2:43). The text arranges “they” and “men” as two different sources. The implications of this are compelling when they are evaluated alongside Jesus’ warning about the return of the “days of Noah” and the real meaning of Genesis 6:1-4.
The book of Daniel makes another connection between the pre-flood era and the time just before Christ’s return. In the explanation of Daniel’s vision in chapter 8, Daniel is told the antichrist will rise during a time when “rebels have become completely wicked” (Daniel 8:23). It’s not “partly,” and it’s not “mostly.” It’s “completely.” Different translations all make the same point that sin will reach maximum expression just before the Lord’s return.
It sounds like the dynamics of sin just before the Great Flood. Genesis 6:5 says, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Things were not “partly” or “mostly” evil before the Great Flood. They were “completely” so.
In other words, there was a time on earth before the Great Flood when humanity had become so completely depraved that the proverbial cup of sin could not take another drop. Jesus said those conditions are going to return, and Daniel 8:23 appears to state the same thing.
Those pre-Flood conditions were precipitated by the blending of fallen angelic “seed” with the “seed” of mankind. Daniel 8:23 seems to suggest it will take the same terms of the past to achieve similar conditions in the future.
The end of the antichrist and the false prophet is unusual. They are both “….captured and thrown alive into the lake of burning fire” (Rev. 19:20) when Jesus Christ returns and defeats them. They are the first two recipients of this eternal fate, and they are later joined by Satan who is “crushed” for good in Rev. 20:10.
But here’s the kicker – the antichrist and the false prophet bypass the Great White Throne judgment which is a prerequisite event for all faithless humanity. Each unbeliever from all of history is tried by God before being tossed into the burning sulfur. Rev. 20:11-15 describes the horrors of the Great White Throne judgment, and a key point is nobody gets missed.
Hebrews 9:27 prescribes this fate with uncompromising words, “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” Here’s the bottom line: if you reject Christ, you will be judged and sent to hell. There are no exceptions.
But the burning lake of hell was also intended for “the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41), and so that’s why Satan ends up there. But any way you look at this, the antichrist and false prophet are either not human or not fully human. If they were human, they’d face the Great White Throne judgment first, and that doesn’t happen.
That point leads into the next one which is the mark of the beast changes one’s physical nature. Do I know this for sure? No, I don’t. But every rational assessment of the situation lines up with this position.
In Revelation 14, three angels fly through the heavens and loudly proclaim their divine messages to “all those that dwell upon the earth.” It’s the third angel’s message in Rev.14:9-11 that announces if anyone worships the antichrist and his image and takes his mark, then they are condemned to the eternal lake of fire.
This angel’s message is cut and dried. Nobody can repent once they take the mark. God’s efforts to extend mercy and grace no longer apply to these individuals anymore. Put another way, those who take the mark of the beast are already judged because they become unredeemable. The mark is a mortal decision with irreversible consequences.
I believe there’s much more than a choice at play here—there’s a change in one’s physical nature. I think this change ties back to the same reason the antichrist and the false prophet bypass the Great White Throne judgment and are thrown directly into the lake of fire instead.
I believe those who take the mark of the beast will knowingly choose to change their body’s DNA structure from what it had been before – to something else. They will no longer be 100% in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
They may look human on the outside – who knows? The point is their genome will be corrupted. They will effectively be a “hybrid” – a Nephilim. They will have been “mingled with seed” that is not human in a new fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, Genesis 6:1-4, Daniel 2:43, Daniel 8:23, Matthew 24:37, and Luke 17:26.
For many, this will be a very tough choice. They will consider their short term concerns above all else and they will feel pressure to take the mark (Rev. 13:17). It’s that, or starvation. That’s why they’re getting a supernatural message about the gravity of the situation from an angel.
But I believe many others will want to follow their leader. They will want to imitate the antichrist and be just like him (Rev. 13:3, 4). They will admire him and support him in all that he does.
I have little doubt that those who take the mark will be taking some element of the antichrist in the process. It is the mark “of the beast” after all. They will be persuaded that by doing so, they can evolve beyond what they have been to something much more – something like him!
For those that think I’m full of pre-digested compost, the technology to do this exists right now, and it’s being refined daily. Technologies surrounding gene splicing, CRISPR gene editing, chimeras, cloning, transhumanism, singularity, and so on are all the rage now. Many people are eager to submit their bodies to these new frontiers of science, and many more will want to do that when they are fully deceived.
Add to this the phenomenon of UFOs and alien abductions. Folks, these are not “little green men from Mars.” They are fallen angels manifesting in a way they have for centuries. Their agenda is a dark one, but it’s a familiar one.
One of the most well-known researchers in this field was John E. Mack from Harvard Medical School. He died in 2004, but his credentials were impeccable. He researched almost 100 cases of alien abduction, and his conclusion – according to a book he published in 1994 – was that these beings had a covert agenda to develop a hybrid race. He’s no longer alone in that view among the scientific community.
As Christians, we shouldn’t be shocked at this. The Bible, in so many ways, says the same thing! The Bible clearly says fallen angels created a hybrid race once before, and the Bible suggests it will happen again. That doesn’t mean God is no longer in control – it means He is in control. He said this would happen a very long time ago.
While I’ve marched rather systematically through Parts 1 through 6 of this series, I’ve given myself the latitude to skim over some of the points of Part 7. It is not my intent to do a deep dive on the various frontiers of science or the eschatological implications of future Nephilim. Rather, my intent is to sufficiently equip each reader with the basic information they need to then be like “the Bereans” (Acts 17:11).
Examine the issues for yourself. Resist the temptation to snort and brush it all off. Pray for wisdom (James 1:5), and “….study to show (yourself) approved unto God” (2 Tim. 2:15). May God bless you richly as you lean on the truth of His eternal Word.