Who were the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1-4?
We live in such a fast paced world where it is so easy to let someone else do our thinking for us and we just accept what we hear, taking for granted that it must be true if we trust the person saying it. But we know that the great deceiver, the father of lies is still prowling in our midst and seeking whom he may deceive. In Matthew 22:37 Jesus tells us to love God "with all our mind". I think one way to 'use our minds' is to discern truth from error
I am what people call 'black and white'. I don't allow a very wide grey area in my beliefs. If I hear or read something that presents a conflict of opinion or interpretation, I need to know which one is true and I can't rest until I have searched out the answers.
Yesterday I was listening to a Bible Teacher, David Pawson, whom I have admired and enjoyed and respected yet in the teaching video I listened to yesterday, he explained a passage in a way that really upset me and I was so disappointed in him.
Pawson is not by any means the only one who believes as he does -- he is in the company of well-known Bible teachers such as John MacArthur, Chuck Swindol, J. Vernon McGee, David Jeremiah. I tried to find a well-known Bible teacher who took an alternate viewpoint but couldn't find any except for Lisa Laizure, a well known Bible study teacher with over 350 bible videos. She was the only familiar name I could find that held to an opposite viewpoint. although I found many others whose names I had never heard.
Since the men I named are all very open with what they believe, I think it only fair to be able to point out why I disagree with them.
I cannot understand why that list of well-known Bible teachers all hold to a view that makes absolutely no sense to me in light of what the Bible clearly says.
The passage in question is Genesis 6:1-4
Verse 2 reads... "that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful and they took wives from themselves of all whom they chose." and then in verse 4 we read.. "when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them."
The controversy is concerning who the 'sons of God' are. The above-named list of teachers all agree that these 'sons of God' were fallen angels who intermarried with human women and started a whole new race of people called Nephilim , who are still on earth today.
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Here are the reasons that convince me they have to be wrong , Consider the following list and see what you think,
1. There are 9 other references where the phrase "sons of God" is found in our Bibles.and every one of the references refer to either 'good angels' or 'righteous people' .. .not one of the references refer to fallen angels.
2. Angels cannot 'marry' - . Jesus in Mark 12:25 explains that when people rise from the dead they are like the angels - not marrying or giving in marriage.
3. Moses wrote Genesis (along with the other 4 books of Moses) Every time he wrote concerning an angel he referred to the being as an angel, never a 'son of God'. So why would he in this one instance call fallen angels "sons of God'.
4. Heb. 1:7 tells us that angels are 'spirits', they do not have physical bodies.. They can only 'appear' in human form when God sends them to minister to someone (or in any other form that God chooses them to appear) .- Hebrews 1:7 - For these 'evil spirits' to be able to take 'wives' from human women they would need real physical bodies. Where would they get them?? Only God can create, angels do not, cannot create so if evil spirits suddenly take on physical bodies God Himself would have to 'create' them for them so that they could carry out their evil desires... Really ? I don't think so, do you? And God never included the fallen angels in His plan of salvation so the Nephelim -- even though they were half human -- could not be saved.
5 . Everyone was destroyed in the flood except for Noah's family. So then how did these Nephilim survive the flood to still be here on earth today? God's judgment was to destroy the wicked people -- surely the Nephilim would not have survived. Some teach that the 'evil spirits' even today can take on physical bodies and impregnate women.
6 . When God gave account of His creation He decreed that everything would reproduce after its own kind. Nowhere do we see a crossover of two kinds of creatures or beings. So if angels crossed with humans and created a new species,, or a kind of hybrid-people, then God's decree failed.
7. If this passage is looked at with simple logical thought we must first look to see this passage in context. What came just before these verses.. We can ignore chapter 5 because it is an inserted genealogy. But chapter 4 describes two groups of 'people'. First we are shown that Cain, who was rejected by God for his wickedness went out and made his home in the land of Nod, built his own city, had wives and begat children.
Then we see Seth, who was a righteous man, taking the place of Abel. Seth also married and had children ... and we are told in verse 26 that his descendants began to call on the name of the Lord.
So we have two 'groups' of people -- one evil and one good.
Then in the chapter 6 passage, the story continues.. and we see that the 'sons of God' - or the group that called on the name of the Lord -- looked at the women, who descended from Cain , saw they were beautiful , lusted and gave in to temptation, and took wives from them.
No need to add fallen angels into the story!!!
Some may say.. "Okay, but this doesn't affect salvation". Maybe not, but it says something about God that isn't true and that offends me. To believe that God went against His own character to create physical bodies for fallen angels so they could 'enjoy' a physical relationship with human women and beget children who were half evil spirit and half human is an insult to His Holy righteousness and a direct contradiction to His plan of salvation offered to all mankind.
This week I heard a theologian say that theologians were the most gullible of people - they were easily convinced to believe what they were told. . BUT the common people are not so easily fooled, as we see in the time of Jesus. It was the common people who heard Him gladly! Aren't you glad you are a 'common people' ??
I am.
P.S. So then who ARE the Nephilim? Since they cannot be some hybrid new race .. we know that they are 'human beings.
The simplest explanation is usually the closest to the truth,
Here are my thoughts.
First, the word Nephilim is the Hebrew word for ‘giants’. The KJV and NKJV use the English word ‘giant’ instead of the untranslated Hebrew word. That demystifies it immediately, doesn’t it?
We have eleven Bible references to giants – we all know Goliath and see also Deut. 2:10, 11, or Joshua 12:4. Always the people were afraid of the ‘giants’.
We are not given an explanation of who the Nephilim were - probably because it says they were 'well-known' so no explanation was needed, Like if we wrote something and mentioned the Hell's Angels ... we would not bother to explain who and what they were, taking for granted everyone would know.
So also the Nephelim -- but we have some hints that I think are clear enough.
Nephilim simply being the word for ‘giant’ and thus suggesting tyrants or bullies.
It isn't much of a stretch to explain them as a 'powerful' gang or organized group of men who were ‘big’!! They were maybe bandits or I think more likely, like the Bolsheviks who took political control and persecuted and oppressed the people of Russia in the early 1900’s - ruling over the people who feared them - recognizing no law but their own.. I lean toward the later because it says they were 'men of old' -- so they had the advantage of age and influence.
