You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 4:2 (NKJV)
There are a lot of talks these days about the Nephilim of the Bible. Many well-meaning pastors and teachers have made statements, written articles, and added to sermons their beliefs about what the Nephilim and the sons of God are. Some say that the Nephilim are the hybrid offspring of angels and women, and then there are the ones who refute that claim. The ones who refute the claim usually use the scripture to substantiate their side or the “human view”. But it’s not the argument that is the tragedy, it’s the confusion that it has caused. And yes, there is a lot of confusion, and that confusion is the result of three things; lack of sufficiency, lack of attention to what the Word says, and too much attention to what it doesn’t say.
Let’s begin with the beginning, or at least where the confusion started, and that is in Chapter 6 of the book of Genesis where God makes clear his intentions and reasons to flood the earth.
Let’s take a careful look at Genesis 6:5-8:
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. (NKJV) (emphasis added for this article)
In the scripture above, you’ll notice the bold letters, which until verse 8, is of what the LORD is referring to as the object of His “grieved heart.” That object is man, flesh and blood, pure “man”, and the gift of nature that was given to him to take dominion. No hybrids, no spiritual beings, just man and wildlife.
We will get to verse 8 later but for now, let’s go closer to the real beginning. And that is Genesis 1:21,24, & 27-28
21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good(NKJV) (emphasis added for this article)
24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. (NKJV) (emphasis added for this article)
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (NKJV) (emphasis added for this article)
This is where the laws of nature and the truth that God is the only Creator are established. “According to its kind” means that a squirrel cannot mate with a fish and an angel cannot mate with a person.
“In His own image” and then followed by “have dominion” is a basic precept and also a foundational truth about God and His authority.
If something outside of the basic precepts listed above were to happen like spiritual beings creating offspring with humans, then that would undermine both the Sole Creator aspect of God, along with His omnipotence, His omniscience over His creation, and His omnipresence throughout His creation; which is all creation. In other words, it would make the created equal to the Creator in certain abilities. Likening the created to the Creator is another religion all on its own.
Teaching that something like spiritual beings (angels or demons) can mate with humans and produce offspring is galactically treacherous to the Creator because it gives the perversions of the Word more fuel to thrive. That fuel is simply that the Word of God cannot be trusted or is too confusing to understand. Both of these problems are what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 23:4 when he says of the Scribes and the Pharisees “For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they will not move them with one of their fingers”. And the perpetrators of the Nephilim conspiracy theory usually let the confused (burdened) stay mortally confused to protect their narratives, and more often than not, their stature.
Back to verse 8, the one with the word grace emphasized. It says that Noah found grace with the LORD. It doesn’t say what Noah needed grace for, but obviously, God knew that Noah’s response to that grace would please Him. All the previous scripture were about why God decided to destroy man, and that was because of the great wickedness of man, and not the unauthorized hybrids. God knew that Noah would obey him, not because of his genetic purity, but because verse 9 says that Noah “walked with God”. He was separated from the others by his walk with the Lord, he was a son of God who kept His spirit. That is why he got the job to construct and captain The Ark.
Of course, being a descendant of Seth was also part of the selection process, because you know, it’s part of the line.
In part 2 we will move on to the topic of the “sons of God”, and the “daughters of men” where the scripture is used to substantiate the simple truth, and further reveal how God was working it all for our good.