The Bible: One Bite at a Time Expository Sermon Series Notes Genesis to The Revelation Sid Galloway © 1999

God's Reason for the Flood: Rotten Socialization (Moral Entropy)  Genesis 6:1-13

Audio Tapes # 33  July 2, 2000       (Notes Updated July 2, 2000)

Review: (Gen 1-5) See the notes on the Web

The Text: Genesis 6:1-13 (Strong's #'s in parentheses)
1 "Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God [bene ha Elohim] saw the daughters of men [adam], that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. 3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 There were giants [nephilim] on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
9 This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

Brief Exposition and Commentary - (Gen 6:1-13)

Note ** Our study will show that the central reason for the flood was the exponential escalation of moral entropy (destructive socialization) across the world. The fruit of sin included social decay. Violence replaced peace and harmony, and saturated God's creation. But within this central message are a few terms and phrases that are difficult to interpret: "daughters of men", "sons of God", "nephilim", etc.. These have been interpreted in two very different ways by equally respected, conservative scholars for centuries. There are other views, but they are not widely held, so we will only focus on the two main and best supported interpretations:

Regardless of who you believe the "sons of God" to be, the core reason for the flood was that they chose women because of physical beauty, rather than spiritual character. This led the whole culture into a process of UNGODLY SOCIALIZATION, that did not put God & His righteousness first (Mat 6:33-34). Remember that such disorder leads to dysfunction and ulitmately the dishonor of God's image in creation.

1. Does "Sons of God" mean rebellious angels who took human wives?

Some respected sources who have taught the angel view include: the Greek (LXX) translation of the Old Testament used during Jesus' day, the Book of Enoch (Rabbis) cited in 2 Peter and Jude, Philo of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Tertullian, Lactantius, Ambrose, Julian, Franz Delitzsch, M.R. DeHaan, C.H. McIntosh, A.W. Pink, Henry Morris, Chuck Missler, John MacArthur

Some Scriptures that support the angel view: These examples use the exact phrase found in Gen chapter 6 ("ben ha Elohim").

Job 1:6 "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them."
Job 38:7 "When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
(c.f. Psa 29:1; 89:6)

2. Does"Sons of God" mean Seth's human sons and grandsons, etc., who took beautiful, but ungodly human wives?

Some respected sources who have taught the human view include: This view only gained prominence in the 4th century, and has become more popular in modern times. Modern proponents include Gleason Archer, Leuopold, Keil, etc..

Some Scriptures that support the human view: There are no examples of the exact Hebrew phrase in Gen 6 used for men. But there are phrases used that convey the same basic meaning:

Deu 14:1 "You are the children of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave the front of your head for the dead."
Deu 32:5 "They have corrupted themselves; They are not His children, ...." (c.f. Psa 73:15; Hos 1:10, etc..)
Luk 3:38 "...the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." [this NT reference is in Greek]

Gen 6:1-2

?? About whom do "daughters" & "daughters of men" refer? The reference to daughters is universally understood to refer to human women. In addition however, those scholars who believe the Sethite view of "sons of God" also interpret the "daughters of men" phrase to mean ungodly women. Both interpretations agree that the reason the women were being sought by the sons of God was merely because of their physical qualities of beauty. The sons of God had no regard for the spiritual character of the women. So instead of two distinct lines of socialization (Cain's and Seth's) as described in Gen 4 & 5, both lines were now becoming corrupted with the attitudes and behaviors of self-serving sin.

Sons of God used wrong priorities in choosing the mothers of their children:
     vs.   
Matthew 7:24-27
See the article: "Building on God's Stable Foundation" © 2000 by Sid Galloway

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Gen 6:3

- "LORD said, My Spirit shall not strive with [judge] man forever".
- "for he is indeed flesh". The term flesh in this verse means "sinful", just as Paul so often used it. The point being made is that God alone is inherently good. Just as the previous chapters emphasized the fact that God alone is self-existent (inherently immortal), here God is shown to be the only source of moral goodness. He is the only root that produces the fruit of His unselfish, righteous love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-24). Apart from God and his sovereign grace, no creature can generate the fruit of righteousness.

* Note: A way to help you remember that the term "flesh" often refers to the heart attitude of self-loving sin, is to spell the word backwards. It spells H.SELF which points to the fact that the problem at the core of any sinner is Himself or Herself.

- "his days shall be 120 years". This refers to the amount of time left until the global flood would come. Some interpret this to be a new maximum life span of humans, but this is not as consistent with the context of Scripture or the reality of human longevity.

Gen 6:4

- "Nephilim" = The term is of uncertain origin and meaning. Some suggested meanings by scholars are: "giants" or "fallen ones". The term nephilim is used only one other time in the Bible, Num 13:32-33, where it clearly emphasizes the large physical size of some human men.

Num 13:32-33 “And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants - nephilim); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Other related references to giants use terms and phrases such as Rephaim, sons of Anak, etc., such as the following:

Deu 2:10-11, 20-21 (The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. They were also regarded as giants, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim."
". . . . (That was also regarded as a land of giants; giants formerly dwelt there. But the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. "

Deu 3:11 “For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Indeed his bedstead was an iron bedstead. (Is it not in Rabbah of the people of Ammon?) Nine cubits is its length and four cubits its width, according to the standard cubit." [His bed was 13 feet x 6 feet.]

Josh 12: 4 "The other king was Og king of Bashan and his territory, who was of the remnant of the giants, . . . ."

1 Sam 17:4 "And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span [over 9 ft. tall]. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. 6 And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. 7 Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels; and a shield-bearer went before him."

2 Sam 21:18-19 "Now it happened afterward that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the sons of the giant. 19Again there was war at Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 20 Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and he also was born to the giant. 21 So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him. 22 These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants."

So Nephilim = Physical Giants: I believe the evidence best supports the interpretation that the term Nephilim refers to physical giants. This fits either interpretation of the phrase "sons of God", since a change in the gene pool of mankind (human genome) would have occurred both ways.

#1. If the phrase "sons of God" refers to human men from the godly line of Seth, then their new decision to focus on physical characteristics would likely include not only the favoring of the beauty of women, but also large size in men. This by the way is what we find in modern society as well. The result of such artificial selection would be that larger men would tend to become leaders, take multiple wives like Lamech. They would likely choose not only beautiful, but also taller than average wives to better match their own size, and so the gene pool of their subsequent clans/tribes would soon be dominated by huge and powerful individuals. This kind of unnatural selection is the same process we use today to breed dogs of dramatically different sizes and colors (i.e., Chihuahua vs. Great Dane). The human gene pool back in those days may even have included genes/alleles for gigantic sizes that no longer remain in our current DNA, since those carriers may have died out in the flood.

Selection, either natural or artificial, does not demonstrate and prove macroevolution. It is merely the reshuffling of genes, which were already present in the genome. No new information is added to the DNA. (* See the new book by the professor at John's Hopkins University, Dr. Lee Spetner, Ph.D., entitled, NOT BY CHANCE).

#2. If the phrase "sons of God" refers to rebellious angels who either physically or spiritually (directly or indirectly) manipulated the human genome, then this too could have resulted in the artificial selection of gigantic individuals. (a form of genetic engineering).
(** See the note below, which further explains the angel view of "sons of God")

- "in those days, and also afterward". This simply means that the nephilim (giants) were on the earth during those days (possibly as a result of the union of beautiful women with the sons of God), and they were also on the earth in the generations to come.

- "men of old" "mighty ones" = infamous due to their power and authority over others. The emphasis of the context is on their selfish, violent misuse of power and authority, in direct defiance of God's desire that those with greater power should serve others, and use their power to bless those who are weaker. One of the Greek terms in the NT for power, is also translated as authority. Those people, and even those animals who have greater physical or intellectual power over others by God's created design, were expected by God to use that delegated authority to maintain God's Kingdom of peace and unselfish love across the world. So the post-Eden, wild nature of creation, selfish competition and survival of the fittest, is not from God. (See our earlier sermon notes on creation.) Jesus made this crucial principle abundantly clear:

Mat 20:25-28 "But Jesus called them [His disciples] to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority/power over them. “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. “And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave--
— “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Gen 6:5-7, 11-13 (God's Reason = The Gravity of the Depravity of Man!)

- "wickedness" "great" "every intent [motive]" "thoughts of the heart" "only evil continually". The strength and gravity of this condemnation given to man is beyond any other found in the Bible. It is a summary judgment on the heart of mankind (1 Sam 16:7; Jer 17:9).
- "LORD was sorry" "grieved in His heart". God is without sin, and immutable (Heb 13:8), so He does not repent of wrong decisions or change His mind as we would think it from a human perspective. Like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, the LORD is deeply grieved over the sin and suffering that was inevitable. But in order to demonstrate the infinite gulf between God who is holy and man who is depraved, the LORD allowed sin to spread and reveal itself.
- "earth was filled with violence" "all flesh had corrupted [rotted] their way".
The exponential escalation of corrupted socialization, moral entropy, had reached a point of intolerance in the heart of God. From Lucifer's heart (Isa 14; Eze 28, Gen 3) to the coming culmination of history, sin spreads like leaven into the whole loaf (Psa 11:5).
- "The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth". (Psa 73:6; Prov 4:17-19)In order to redeem a holy remnant out of this pool of human and animal corruption, God warned that He would purify the creation by withdrawing His hand of protection and provision in response to the violent selfish competition that now infected all living souls (nephesh chayee) in whom was the breath of life. His mighty Hand (1 Pet 5:5-7), that held the pressure of the waters in the vapor canopy and the underground rivers, would be withdrawn in holy judgment ("destroy them with the earth"). The punishment would be "Since you have chosen to be your own gods and rejected Me as your protector, then have it your own way".

Regardless of whether one's sees "sons of God" to be angels or men, God's reason for flooding the earth is the same. God is intolerant of sin, because it grows and spreads and creates more and more suffering.

Now for Gen 6:9-10 and God's Promise to Fulfill His Ultimate Purpose of Eternal & Abundant Life with Him:

- "Noah" = rest, comfort. (Gen 5:29)
- "perfect in his generations" (faithful compared to other men of his day)
- "walked with God" (He chose intimate fellowship with God through submissive faith, Gal 5:25 stoicheo/march, James 2:19. He rejected the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil, which is the PAINFUL PURSUIT OF PLEASURE.)

- This is God's Way Home, The Way of His Son - Submissive Faith

Jude 6-7 "And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. "

2 Pet 2:4-5 "For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; . . . ."

Mat 24:36-39 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. “For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, “and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

As in the days of Noah, so are the times in which we live today. Selfishness, violence, and immorality rule. But just as Noah and his family were lifted above the judgment of God, so too born-again believers in the church ("in Christ") will be raptured up and above this earth before the great tribulation of Israel ("Jacob's Trouble").

Questions for Application:

- Why did God withdraw His Hand and allow the flood?
- How bad is man's heart?
- In light of His Holiness, what might be the future of our nation?
- How about your own life?
- What can you do to warn folks of God's judgment?
- What can you do to persuade them of God's promise? (Acts 17)

Guided Application Project:
(To bridge the G.A.P. between knowledge and action.)

- Make a list of five unsaved people you know need God's truth.
- For each one of them, write out a plan for how and when you will present the good news to them.

> Have them over to watch a Christian video.
> Give them a book and set a time to discuss it after they read it.
>