The predominant
idea which emerges clearly from this
text is that a new stage has been reached in the evolution of evil in the early
civilizations of man. We shall see that
this is in fact the prelude to the great flood, which becomes the greatest judgement of God on earth apart from that which is to be when Christ returns.
From Chapter 3
onwards we read of much trouble as man, as a result of his willful disobedience
against God is driven out of the garden
of Eden. Cain, the son of Adam kills his brother Abel out of jealousy. This
becomes the record of the first murder. Chapter
4 records that Cain went away from the presence of God
and settled in a restless land. His grandson Lamech begins a new habit of polygamy and he also commits murder. In Chapter 5 we read of a line of
men who walked with God, and who are found in the
ancestry of our Lord Jesus, but we read
of their death. Truly, the emergence of sin has brought lack of peace and death into
the world. A pattern of self-
destruction has emerged in the world.
Chapter 6 creates an additional dilemma, which we shall consider
now.
THE SONS OF GOD
MARRY THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN ( vv. 1&2)
The
beginning of the end of this civilization happens when the sons of God look to the attractive daughters of man and take
them as their wives. This clearly had a negative effect upon
them and this is affirmed in Genesis 6: 3 and
5-7.
But who are these sons of
God and who are these daughters
of man ?
The
view that held by some early
church fathers such as Justin Martyr,
Tertullian, Cyprian and Ambrose[1],
was that
this referred to an intermarriage between angels and human beings.
The reason why they thought this was
that this phrase, ‘sons of
God’ almost always refers to angels
in the OT [2]
and so the thought arose that these must
have been angelic beings that married
human beings. They thought for instance of the
angels, who appeared to Abraham, warning
him that Sodom (proverbial for its great sin of sodomy - Gen. 18:20; 19:5) was about
to be destroyed by God. They thought of these three angels that appeared as ordinary looking men, to be demonic types of those that might have misled the daughters of man.
Against this view
there are two weighty arguments. Firstly,
there is no specific reference to angels in Genesis 6. In fact, there is no
reference to angels at all in the first
6 chapters of Genesis. Secondly, the Lord Jesus tells us in the synoptic gospels[3] that the angels do not marry because they are
eternal beings who do not propagate. So, these are
strong reasons for rejecting that particular view.
The
plainest explanation is that these were marriages
taking place between the seed of God and the seed of Satan[4],
based upon that pivotal division found in Genesis
3:15, as we have consistently argued in our previous expositions of Genesis. The godly line
through Seth, based on divine election, are the sons of God. It is these sons of God that make this very poor choice, to take as
wives the attractive daughters of
man (singular) - that is, of the descendants of the man
Cain, who walked away from the presence of God. God
has a word on this matter. Before we get to some specific observations with
regard to this in Genesis 6, we must point
out that
the first five books of Moses[5]
as a whole, provide numerous
warnings of God against any intermarriage of believers and unbelievers. In this regard we need to remember Genesis
26: 34,35, the marriage of Esau to a ‘Cainite/ Hittite‘ woman (i.e. a wife not taken from the godly seed), a fact
that made life for his parents Isaac and
Rebekah bitter.
We
also think of the story of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah who
was raped by Shechem the Hivite in Genesis
34. The rape of Dinah by Shechem was enough cause for revenge on behalf of Jacob’s
sons, but it was the fact that Shechem
was uncircumcised, and not a son of the
covenant (Gen. 34:14) and daring to
make a marriage proposal to Dinah for marriage, that sent Jacob’s
sons, Simeon and Levi into a murderous frenzy! There are other such illustrations, and the
point is, that the intermarriage between
the people of the line of Seth and the line of Cain, the sons of God and the
daughters of man are not encouraged in the Bible.
So
what was happening here in Genesis 6? Moses indicates that after the multiplication of man on the
earth (6:1) the sons of God, the line of Seth, were rebelling against God. The way in which they expressed that rebellion
was by
taking as their wives any they
chose among the daughters of man. In plain language, the appearance of the beauty of the women of Cain
overruled the sense of the spiritual judgement of the sons of Seth. Hormones overruled the godly heritage.
God’s
displeasure with this is clearly seen
in 6:3.
It is very clear that God is not angry with angels who did this! No! The judgement
here will not be against angels, but
against man! God is angry with the sons of God, born in the line of
Seth, because they were
compromising their godly heritage!
God is angry with the daughters of man for
being seductive and subversive of
His rule.
At
this time there was as yet no written
law, but the fact was that this law of ‘holiness unto the Lord in marriage
relationships’ (Gen. 2:24,25) was written
on the hearts of the sons of God. And once the law was given to Moses at Sinai this
fact is established and upheld in the time of Ezra when
this problem is addressed in Ezra
9. Right through the Old Testament
God forbade his people to marry those
who were not his people[6],
and the same principle continues right down into the New Testament. We that are in
Christ are instructed to marry only in the Lord. (1 Cor. 7:39)
So,
the first question for a son of God with
respect to a prospective marriage partner is not, ‘is
she beautiful ‘, but ‘is she godly’ ?
Sadly, many Christian sons and daughters have pierced themselves with
grief because they have
entered into an ungodly marriage, because beauty and physical attraction
and chemistry and need are very powerful impulses working upon their fallen minds and hearts.
At
the heart of this great problem that arises in Genesis 6 is
this problem of indiscriminate sexual attraction and activity [7] It is
significant that Jesus linked this event with Matt. 24:37: “As it was in the days of Noah, so
shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man”. Is this world wide focus
on rampant perverse and illegitimate
forms of sexuality the indicator of our Lord’s soon return?
Indiscriminate sexuality (i.e. forbidden forms of sexuality) is the main cause whereby marriages and families are
destroyed. It is ultimately the cause why a society or a civilization is
destroyed. This
early generation is destroyed because of
unrestrained sexual desires;
Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed on the
same account; Paul’s analysis of the nature and development
of sin in Romans
1 :18ff follows the same line of reasoning - unnatural unrestrained sexual relations are the reason why God destroys
a society, and the final handing over of a society is when God
hands men and women over to
dishonourable passions (Rom.1:26).
As
one looks at the condition of our own society, one looks with great concern at the spread and acceptance of the homosexual life style.
We look with great concern at the fragility of so many marriages, and one can’t help but thinking that many marriages are fragile because they are built on an improper foundation. Many
people marry for the wrong reason. They
marry because they are lonely or
infatuated or madly in love. But these things do not sustain a marriage when the temptations of life arise, such as when children come and when romantic
evenings go out of the window!
Marriage is not firstly a
feeling. It is a theological thing,
because God created marriage (Genesis 2). There must be a God centred purpose, a commitment to biblical companionship in marriage. A marriage may be begun with the grandest of wedding feasts and
with a romantic get- away as a honey moon,with
everyone excited, but it is not
going to last,and the cracks appear very quickly if there is no
commitment to the basics that God has designed for a successful marriage.
GOD’S
RESPONSE - A WORD OF WARNING TO THAT GENERATION.
We
are told, “Then the LORD said, “My Spirit
will not abide (contend) with man for ever, for he is flesh ; his days shall
be 120 years.” (v.3).
In
vv. 5-7
he elaborates on this fact
and we shall consider this next time.
God
saw what was happening to the people that He had made. They were brilliant
people, made in His image. They were accomplished in poetry and song
and skilled musicians. They were skilled
workers of metal and bronze; pastoralists and agriculturalists (Gen.
4). The women were beautiful and some of the men were impressive giants (the
meaning of Nephilim ). And yet they all fell short of God’s glory – the glory that He had designed for
them from the beginning of the world, except for the sin which they freely chose! God saw all this
and He saw how man was
developing and He was unimpressed and so
He decreed that, “Man is
flesh; his days shall be 120 years” (6:3).
We note, that man now lives substantially shorter than
the first patriarchs mentioned in Gen. 5.
It
was, of course not God’s desire that any
of them should perish but that all should turn from their sin and live. He took
no pleasure in their deaths. He spoke to their consciences, and he addressed
them personally through preachers like Enoch and Noah. He was good to His creatures. He was patient
with them, and we are reminded of the words of Peter that “God
waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared ” (I Pet. 3:20). That is the nature of our
God. He is patient and longsuffering
with us. He hasn’t given up on us. He is still working with us . He is
still preaching to us .
But
He will not abide or contend with men forever, when they
go on in their sin. Verse 3 and then verses 5-7 and
the next few chapters will show
us that. There comes a time when God
says, “Enough! You have had heard enough sermons. You
have been prayed for enough. A time will come when His Spirit will be
withdrawn and God shall speak no more.
The Saviour will become our Judge.
Now
I don’t know how long God is going to contend with our generation.
We have lived under incredible privileges. We have had the full
gospel given to us by the appearance of
Christ; we have lived under the
anointing of the outpoured Holy Spirit, and we have been no more
responsive than the sons of God have
been in Noah’s day.
The
time for the final
judgement is approaching. The
Lord Jesus is your only refuge. He is
your only righteousness. Flee to Him. Abide
and live in Him. Amen.
Communion
[1] This
view is also held by some
modern commentators
[2] E.g. Job 1:6; 2:1
[3] Matthew 22: 30 , Mark 12 :25 and particularly Luke 20:34-36
[4] e.g. Matthew Henry holds to this view
[5] i.e. the Torah , or Septuagint
[6] Except
if they came into the covenant of
God with Israel , e.g. Ruth and
Rahab
[7] Moses himself was guilty of this very thing
. His first wife was Jethro’s daughter Zipporah, but Moses took another wife
and she was a woman from Ethiopia, a Cushite (Num. 12:1), and it caused
division between him and his sister Miriam.
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