Genesis 6 - Part 1 - Demons, Giants, Aliens, Vampires And Your Marriage! Series

Genesis 6 - Angels, Demons, Giants, Vampires, Aliens and Your Marriage!

Every woman wants to marry an angel, but...

Have you ever seen an angel? I have. At the foot of our bed. Wasn’t on drugs. Wasn’t a dream. Wasn’t sick or hallucinating. Sure it was an angel. Such peace. Such a sense of God’s presence and pleasure. Just looked at us with eyes to say that it will be alright during a time in our lives when we needed to know just that.

What is it with angels? They turn up all through the Bible with multiple wingsets, (not just two wings like you see in the pictures), with the Ark of the Covenant, with Jesus after His temptation, in Revelation praising God with voices like thunder. Then way back in Genesis to guard the way back to Eden.

Now they seem to turn up in Genesis 6 ..., or do they? This is one strange passage of Scripture and I don’t pretend that it’s easy getting a handle on it.

The main part of Chapter 6 is about Noah building an ark, but it’s the first few verses that have confused scholars and plebs like me for years. It says this in Genesis 6:1-2 (KJV)

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

"Sons of God". That’s the problem! Those 3 words! What is meant by the "sons of God"? Are these angels, The term "sons of God" is also used of angels in Scripture like in Job where the context is obvious. Now if it’s angels it indicates that angels can have physical relationships with women and have children. That makes it difficult because why would God allow this? How can a spirit do this. And I guess this raises questions about the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary as we consider the virgin birth. To confuse issues further Jesus says that angels don’t marry. So what is this passage all about?

I don’t know what you are thinking at present. Maybe, "Who cares anyway?" Well you can choose to go and read a novel on Sunday mornings or something easy that that you don’t have to think about too much. Or you can choose to at least try to understand what God is wanting to say, because perhaps it’s important. I choose to grapple with the difficult verses, not just the feel-good, learn-as-a-memory-verse verses. Are you with me. God obviously thought this was important too because He put this here, right at a crucial time in history, as Noah’s ark is about to be built and the world is going to experience a flood of immense proportions. It would be so frustrating trying to describe an imminent catastrophe if I had to avoid the first few verses because I don’t even know what on earth God is trying to say. It would be worse still if, like the people of Noah’s day, no-one really cares. So make a choice the morning to ask God to reveal His truth to you and better still, we’ll try to find a way to put it into action in our own lives. Amen?

So here’s what I think. You don’t have to agree but if you’ve thought about it, I would like to hear from you. After all the more we have conversations about these difficult sections of God’s Word, the better we will understand how they can apply to us.

Now in Genesis 5:1 it says that Adam was made "in the likeness of God". Then in verse 3 it goes on to say that Adam had a son "in his own likeness". Adam sinned and became tainted with a fallen nature. Seth is therefore born in Adam’s likeness. The contrast is highlighted in these verses.

But in chapter 4 people from Seth’s lineage start to "Call on the Name of the Lord" (Genesis 4:26), probably due to the influence of Godly men like Enoch who "walked with God" ie people who trusted and believed in God? (Genesis 5:24). We could call them "sons of God" or "children of God" (Galatians 3:26 "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.")

So when we get to chapter 6 and people were having children all over the place, the "sons of God" (ie the believers) were attracted to the daughters of men (ie the unbelievers). It’s the same contrast drawn between Adam created in the image of God and Seth created in Adam’s image. Believers are spoken of as being "of God". Unbelievers are spoken of as being "of men".