IDENTIFYING THE SONS OF GOD
There is no problem in identifying the "daughters of men" for this is a familiar method of designating women in the Bible. The problem lies with the "sons of God." Three major interpretations have been offered to shed light on this cryptic designation.
First, a group within orthodox Judaism theorized that "sons of God" meant "nobles" or "magnates." Hardly anyone today accepts this view.
Second, some interpret the "sons of God" as fallen angels. These were enticed by the women of Earth and began lusting after them. Many reputable Bible commentators have rejected this theory on psycho-physiological grounds. How can one believe, they ask, that angels from Heaven could engage in sexual relations with women from Earth? Philastrius labeled such an interpretation a down-right heresy.
Third, many famed scholars contend that the "sons of God" are the male descendants of Seth, and that the "daughters of men" are the female descendants of Cain. According to this view, what actually happened in Genesis 6 was an early example of believers marrying unbelievers. The good sons of Seth married the bad daughters of Cain, and the result of these mixed marriages was a mongrel offspring. These later became known for their decadence and corruption; indeed, it reached such a degree that God was forced to intervene and destroy the human race. This comment of Matthew Henry could be taken as representative of those holding this view:
"The sons of Seth (that is the professors of religion) married the daughters of men, that is, those that were profane, and strangers to God and godliness. The posterity of Seth did not keep by themselves, as they ought to have done. They inter- mingled themselves with the excommunicated race of Cain." (1)
However, in spite of the excellent pedigree of the proponents of this theory, their argument is not convincing. Their interpretation is pure eisegesis--they are guilty of reading into the text what is obviously not there.
FALSE EXEGESIS
Their interpretation fails on other grounds as well. At no time, before the Flood or after, has God destroyed or threatened to destroy the human race for the sin of "mixed marriages." It is impossible to reconcile this extreme punishment with the mere verbal strictures found elsewhere in the Bible for the same practice. If God is going to be consistent, He should have destroyed the human race many times over!
The contrast made in Genesis 6:2 is not between the descendants of Seth and the descendants of Cain, but between the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men." If by "sons of God" is meant "sons of Seth," then only the sons of Seth engaged in mixed marriages, and not the daughters. And only the daughters of Cain were involved, and not the sons. And another strange assumption is implied: that only the sons of Seth were godly, and only the daughters of Cain were evil.
The strangeness is compounded when one seeks for evidence that the sons of Seth were godly. We know from Genesis that when the time came for God to destroy the human race, He found only one godly family left among them--that of Noah. Where were all the other supposedly godly sons of Seth? Even Seth's own son could hardly be called righteous. His name was Enos, meaning "mortal" or "frail." And he certainly lived up to it! Genesis 4:26 reads, "And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." That statement seems harmless enough, but what does it mean when it says that it was only now that men began to call upon the name of the Lord? Upon whom did Adam call? And Abel? And Seth himself?
Some scholars give us a more literal and exact translation to this verse: "Then men began to call themselves by the name of Jehovah." Other scholars translate the statement in this manner: "Then men began to call upon their gods (idols) by the name of Jehovah." If either of these be the correct translation then the evidence for the so-called godly line of Seth is non- existent. The truth of the matter is that Enos and his line, with few noted exceptions, were as ungodly as the other line. The divine record could not be clearer: "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (Genesis 6:12).
In the Old Testament, the designation "sons of God" (bene Elohim) is never used of humans, but always of supernatural beings that are higher than man but lower than God. To fit such a category only one species is known--angels. And the term "sons of God" applies to both good and bad angels. These are the beings of whom Augustine wrote:
"Like the gods they have corporeal immortality, and passions like human beings." (2)
The designation "sons of God" is used four other times in the Old Testament, each time referring to angels. One example is Daniel 3:25, where king Nebuchadnezzar looks into the fiery furnace and sees four men, "and the form of the fourth is like the son of God." The translation is different and clearer in our modern versions, "like a son of the gods." Since Jesus had not yet become the "only begotten son" of God, this "son" would have had to be angelic.
Another example is Job 38:7 which says the sons of God shouted for joy when God laid the foundations of the Earth. Angels are the only entities that fit this designation since man had not been created at that time!
In Job 1:6 and Job 2:1 the "sons of God" came to present themselves before the Lord in Heaven. Among the sons of God is Satan--a further implication that the "sons of God" must have been angels.
Since the designation "sons of God" is consistently used in the Old Testament for angels, it is logical to conclude that the term in Genesis 6:2 also refers to angels.
SONS OF GOD: THREE CATEGORIES
In the New Testament, born-again believers in Christ are called the children of God or the sons of God (Luke 3:38, John 1:12, Romans 8:14, 1 John 3:1). Dr. Bullinger in the Companion Bible states: "It is only by the divine specific act of creation that any created being can be called 'a son of God.'" This explains why every born-again believer is a son of God. It explains also why Adam was a son of God. Adam was specifically created by God, "in the likeness of God made He him" (Genesis 5:1). Adam's descendants, however, were different; they were not made in God's likeness but in Adam's. Adam "begat a son in his own likeness, after his image" (Genesis 5:3). Adam was a "son of God," but Adam's descendants were "sons of men."
Lewis Sperry Chafer expresses this in an interesting way when he states:
"In the Old Testament terminology angels are called sons of God while men are called servants of God. In the New Testament this is reversed. Angels are the servants and Christians are the sons of God." (3)
It is thus clear that the term "sons of God" in the Bible is limited to three categories of beings: angels, Adam and believers. All three are special and specific creations of God. As for the use of the term in Genesis 6, since it cannot possibly refer to Adam nor believers in Christ, we conclude that it has to refer to the angels whom God had created.
LIGHT FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT
Two New Testament passages shed further light on Genesis 6. They are Jude 6-7 and 2 Peter 2:4. These verses indicate that at some point in time a number of angels fell from their pristine state and proceeded to commit a sexual sin that was both unusual and repugnant. Jude 6-7 states:
"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh..."
These angels not only failed to keep their original dominion and authority, but they "left their own habitation." Habitation is a significant word: it means "dwelling place" or "heaven." And the addition of the Greek word "idion" ("their own") means that they left their own private, personal, unique possession. (4) Heaven was the private, personal residence of the angels. It was not made for man but for the angels. This is why the ultimate destination of the saints will not be Heaven but the new and perfect Earth which God will create (Revelation 21:1-3). Heaven is reserved for the angels, but as for the beings referred to in Jude 6-7, they abandoned it.
Not only did these angels leave Heaven, they left it once-for- all. The Greek verb "apoleipo" is in the aorist tense, thus indicating a once-for-all act. By taking the action they did, these angels made a final and irretrievable decision. They crossed the Rubicon. Their action, says Kenneth Wuest, "was apostasy with a vengeance." (5)
As to the specific sin of these angels, we are given the facts in Jude 7. As in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah it was the sin of "fornication" and it means "going after strange flesh." "Strange" flesh means flesh of a different kind (Greek "heteros"). To commit this particularly repugnant sin, the angels had to abandon their own domain and invade a realm that was divinely forbidden to them. Says Wuest:
"These angels transgressed the limits of their own natures to invade a realm of created beings of a different nature." (6)
Alford confirms:
"It was a departure from the appointed course of nature and seeking after that which is unnatural, to other flesh than that appointed by God for the fulfillment of natural desire."
The mingling of these two orders of being, was contrary to what God had intended, and summarily led to God's greatest act of judgment ever enacted upon the human race.
