Ruined

What does it mean when something or someone is "ruined"?  Not a pleasant thought, is it?
Today's text is Genesis 6:11-13 (ESV).  Notice the word "corrupt" in this passage, because a more accurate translation of it would be "so corrupt that it was totally ruined".1  (The NET version, in fact, uses the word "ruined".)  We've now returned, here in the blog, to the book of Genesis!

11Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh,^c for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Some of us question God's actions in this story, because we cannot fathom how "bad" things were.  Surely, we reason, things could have been turned around or repaired.  After all, the Bible is filled with other stories of how God took the most extremely sinful people and the most horrible, seemingly-irredeemable circumstances and did miraculous spiritual transformations.  But, to make this wrong assumption is to demonstrate misunderstanding of how bad things actually were.

In their lust for knowledge and power, mankind had "sold out" to the fallen angelic beings who had come to live among them, after their expulsion from Heaven, after their failed rebellion against Jehovah Sabaoth, (the God of Angel Armies, the Lord of Hosts).  Being thoroughly evil, these beings had intermarried with humans, thereby ruining the human bloodline of every family making that irreversible choice.  And yes, they had a choice.  We see this from the deliberateness of the phrase "had corrupted their way".  The Fallen surely provided a strong temptation, but God never leaves Man without a choice.  (It was the exercise of free will in the Garden of Eden that started this downward spiral, after all.)  The legacy of the "ancient aliens" (to borrow the title of a popular TV show here in America), the demonic Nephilim, the gibborim (Genesis 6:4), was complete, pervasive violence.  They were not a benevolent group of entities.  No, they were hell-bent on destroying the human race, in order to prevent a pure human bloodline through which Messiah would be born.  And, they very nearly succeeded.

Satan and his minions (thankfully, the major architects of the pre-Flood world's ruination are currently locked up tight in Tartarus....2 Peter 2:4) are today still at work, trying to convince us that we are all hopelessly ruined.  Perhaps you have felt that way.  I know that I have . . . and, from time to time, still do.

There is good news, though - - such incredibly good news!  Because of Jesus, and His finished work, NO ONE is hopelessly ruined.  As long as there is breath in the body, there is the potential for God to turn things around, to redeem the broken. There is only one sin which cannot be forgiven2 , and that sin is a deliberate decision on the part of the person who willfully commits it.  (If you don't know what that unforgivable sin is, click on Source 2 below, because it is a whole blog post, in itself.)

When we feel hopelessly, irrevocably ruined, the best thing we can do is to look at the Word of God and cling to His promises.  Here's one of them, that the Lord brought to my mind just now.  Perhaps it was meant not only for me today, but for you also.

12What do you think? If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray? 13And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. 14In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost.

Matthew 18:12-14 (NET)

And, one more....

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

1 Cor. 10:13 (NASB)

Yes, God IS faithful!  In the next post, we will examine Noah's Ark and God's promises to Noah, which still apply to us today.

Sources:

1    https://biblehub.com/commentaries/genesis/6-11.htm

2    https://www.gotquestions.org/blasphemy-Holy-Spirit.html

The Sons of God

We have been off-and-on (with a foray to Israel, for example) studying the difficult book of Genesis since the end of May, 2018.

Here we find ourselves now confronted with one of the most difficult passages in all the Bible, a passage that has multiple interpretations, some of which are fantastical.  Here is today's text, Genesis 6:1-7 (ESV).

1When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.3Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in^a man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4The Nephilim^b were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

5The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

Immediately, several questions arise.
1.  Who were "the sons of God"?
2.  Why were they allowed to intermarry with the "daughters of man"?
3.  Who were the Nephilim and what were they like?
4.  Can God regret His own actions, feel sorrow for His own actions?
5.  Why did God change His mind (vs. 7) and save Noah's family?
6.  What is meant by "and also afterward"?

So, let's begin with question 1, which has three possible interpretations.1

I.
Some believe the sons of God refers to fallen angelic beings who were allowed by God in the antediluvian days to have free access to Earth (having been expelled from Heaven in Satan's rebellion), interacting with humans, teaching them, and eventually interbreeding with them to produce half-angelic offspring with characteristics such as extreme height, superhuman strength, "men of renown".
This view, although fantastical, is supported by texts such as Job 1:6, 2:1 and 38:7, all of which present the phrase "sons of God" as angelic beings.  Other verses which render this view probable are Mark 16:5 and Genesis 19:1-5 and Jude 6.
God emphasizes in Genesis 6:3 that mankind is FLESH, as opposed to being an angelic being, and them puts a limit of 120 years on men as a lifespan, whereas we see in Scripture that previously people lived hundreds of years.  Could the intermarriage of human and angel been an attempt to achieve immortality?  Indeed, we see lifespans continue to decrease after the Flood, so that it is rare anyone lives over 120 years of age.3
The early Hebrew writers, as seen in the Holy Scriptures, as well as in apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings (Book of Enoch, etc.) are unanimous in their agreement that "sons of God" were angelic beings.  This was the view of both pre-Christian Judaism and of the early Church.

A potential "fly in the ointment" is Matthew 22:30, which is used by those who hold one of the other views to reject this one.  Let's look at the words of Jesus in this verse.

30At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Note that Jesus is talking about the holy angels who are in heaven, not the fallen angels.  Nowhere in Scripture is it stated that angels cannot "marry", but that they DO not.  The fallen angels did not care about God's created order, nor about the preservation of the uncorrupted human bloodline, nor about God's plan for the ultimate redemption of man.  Rather, the fallen angels, at the direction of their commander, Satan, actively sought to derail all three, which is what drove them to have sexual relations with human women.

The book of Jude, verses 6-7, tell us that God imprisoned these fallen angels for their heinous sin and then destroyed all human life except for Noah's family.  Had He not done so, this corruption of the human bloodline would have continued to the point that Messiah could not have been born and redeemed the human race.

II. and III.
Closely related to each other are the other two interpretations of this verse.
One says that "the sons of God" refers to the chosen messianic line of Seth intermarrying with the children of Cain.  R.C. Sproul held this view2 as did John Calvin.3
The other postulates the "sons of God" were powerful human rulers.
The main flaws with these two interpretations are three-fold:
a.  God had never forbidden the two family lines from marrying, nor had He forbidden women to marry "powerful human male rulers". (As a side note, were the human women of Cain SO much more attractive than the human women of Seth? SMH...)
b.  Mere human reproduction would not likely have produced such genetic abnormalities as the Nephilim, Anakim and Rephaim (Joshua 11, Numbers 13) . . . all races of giants, with superhuman strength.
c.  No mere intermarrying of humans could have provoked the extremely harsh judgment of God described in Genesis 6:5-7.  However, a corrupted human bloodline and the extreme proliferation of fallen angel evil on the Earth could have.

Before closing today, let's deal with question 2 from the beginning of today's post. 

WHY did God allow this?!

We need to remember that the Bible is God's revelation of His redemption of Man.  I believe God allowed this descent into depravity to demonstrate the depths of mankind's sin, and why we are helpless to save ourselves.  The people before the Flood had no Scriptures, no written revelation of God that survived the Flood to this day, unless Noah carried some writings onto the Ark.  Our Scriptures do not say....
Is it any wonder God then, after the Flood, gave mankind The Law, The Torah, through Moses.  Had He not, and had He not locked up in Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6-7) those evil, fallen angels, history would have likely repeated itself.
The point is - - throughout the Scriptures, God continues to unveil His redemptive plan, beginning in Genesis with a stark picture of how badly we need a Savior.


Sources:

1    https://www.gotquestions.org/sons-of-God.html

2    https://www.ligonier.org/blog/who-are-sons-god-and-daughters-men-genesis-6/

3    https://knowingscripture.com/articles/who-were-the-sons-of-god-and-the-nephilim-genesis-6-1-4