Today’s post is intended to be a follow up on my post from a couple days ago entitled “Angel Abductions“. If you haven’t already read that post, I would recommend doing so as it will provide the context for what follows.
What I want to talk about today is a subject of much debate among Bible believing Christians. It is a subject both strange and mysterious but one that is important to understand in order to have an accurate understanding of many portions of Scripture. The topic that I am referring to is the Nephilim. My desire in discussing the Nephilim is to highlight the real reason for the Great Flood of Noah’s day to suggest that it should be viewed not as an act of wrath by an angry God, but rather an act of grace by a God of love.
If you rember back to my Angel Abductions post based on Genesis 6:1-2, you’ll recall that I attempted to show that prior to the flood, there were angels that abducted human females to copulate with them. My wonderful wife was gracious enough to point out that I originally didn’t clarify that I was speaking of Fallen Angels as opposed to the Holy Angels that serve God. I’ve since gone back and made a revision to the post to bring clarity to this point.
Now, building upon this view, I’d like to call your attention to verses 4-9 of the same passage in Genesis chapter six:
Genesis 6:4-9 There were giants 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. 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. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 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.” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
What we have in this passage is a continuation of the story that began in the first two verses of chapter 6 about the “sons of God”. Once again we find a reference to sexual intercourse occurring between these sons of God (Fallen Angels) and the daughters of men (human females). Now the obvious question that arises when we begin talking about this type of sexual relationships is, “what does it mean in terms of offspring?” The offspring wouldn’t be fully fallen angel, nor would they be human. They would be a blend of the two. They would be something new, something different. They would be hybrids! And if that is the case, wouldn’t a new term be needed to classify and describe these new lifeforms? The answer is, yes! And thus we come to the word, “Nephilim”. This word is only used in a few places in the Bible, and depending on what translation you are reading, it may be translated as the word “giants”.
With that in mind, we need to pause for a moment to talk about the meaning of the word Nephilim. This is a Heberw word that comes from the root word, “Nephal”, which means “to fall”. Adding the “im” at the end of the word is what maks it plural. Thus, what we have here is a word meaning, “fallen ones”. Unfortunately, some versions of the Bible translate this word into our English word “Giants”. While it’s true that the Nephilim were giants, (based on Numbers 13:33 when the Hebrew spies saw the Nephilim in the Promised Land and described them as being so tall that the Israelites were like the size of grasshoppers compared to them) describing them this way is a bit inadequate.
Simply calling them Nephilim or even calling them Fallen Ones brings clarity to the fact that they were not fully human. As Dr. Chuck Missler points out in the video I’ve attached below, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the Greek word “Gigantes” was used as the translation of the Hebrew word Nephilim. As you can see, it is quite easy to take the Greek word Gigantes and translate it into the English word “Giants”. However, this is a mistranslation as the Greek word “Gigantes” actually means “Earth-Born” and is the word used in other Greek literature to refer to the mythological Greek “Titans”. And who were the Titans? They were the ones like Hercules, Atlas, etc. who were considered demi-gods. (Children of gods & humans – i.e. hybrids!)
Now, this brings us to the reasoning for the flood. If you are like me, you’ve probably heard all your life that God destroyed the world in the flood because the people on the Earth in Noah’s day were utterly wicked and evil. Of course this is true, but it’s very limited for building a good case as to why God had to destroy everything on Earth. I mean, doesn’t it sound a bit like overkill? It makes God look like an angry, vengeful, and homicidal God lacking any degree of compassion. But how can that be when compared to the kind, merciful, and gracious God of the New Testament? And let’s take it a step further. If it was mankind who was wicked and evil, why did God have to destroy all the animals?
Well, the answer to me is that there is more to the story than just the wickedness of man, and if considered in light of the Nephilim, the story makes complete sense. It’s at this point I want to ask you to start looking at this with our modern day, 21st century, scientific viewpoint. Think DNA.
What happens if you start with a population of humans on the Earth and then another population of hybridized creatures (Nephilim) is introduced into the origial group? Over time, as the hybridized Nephilim begin to interbreed with the human race, more hybridized beings would be produced. Eventually, the more time that passes, the more intermingling/hybridization takes place until the entire population is affected.
Thinking about this genetically, if the Fallen Angels mated with human females, there would be a combination of Fallen Angel DNA with human DNA producing a new blended DNA in the offspring. That DNA would be passed on from generation to generation gradually spreading to the entire population. In other words, the original DNA that God created in humans would no longer be pure; it would become genetically CORRUPT.
May I now call your attention to Genesis 6:11-12:
Genesis 6:11-12 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
Notice the phrase “all flesh had corrupted their way”. If the reason for the flood was merely because of wickedness, this is sure a weird way of describing the problem. However, if the real problem was that genetic corruption was occurring, it makes much more sense. Furthermore, when we read above that “Noah was perfect in his generations”, think about that again genetically. Noah was perfect in his GENErations. Is the picture starting to come into focus?
But we still haven’t fully answered the question as to why God had to destroy the world and how could a global deluge be understood as an act of love and grace. Well here is the answer… If you were the devil and you knew that one day God was going to send a Savior for the human race (See Genesis 3:15), how would you try to prevent that from happening? If you knew that one day a Messiah would be born and that He would have to be pure and without sin in order to redeem mankind what would you do? You would corrupt the DNA of the human race!
A hybridized human/angel is not fully human. If they’re not fully human, there can’t be a savior for “humanity”. In other words, Satan’s plan was to corrupt all flesh to prevent Jesus from coming! And so effective was his plan, that if God had not stepped in, he may have succeeded. (Well, at least in theory…Of course God can’t be outsmarted) But God did step in. God knew that in order to put an end to all of this wickedness, this Satanic meddling into the genetics of humanity, God in His great love and mercy decided to give the Earth a fresh start.
Noah, being perfect in his generations (pure genetically), was chosen by God to be preserved in order to give the human race another chance. God saved Noah so that humanity could continue on, so that Jesus could be born, and ultimately, so that anyone who puts their faith in Him could be saved in order to spend eternity together with Him.
Yes, God used the flood to judge the wicked on the Earth in Noah’s day, but the bigger picture is that He destroyed the Earth as an act of grace! He wanted us to be able to have eternal life and to have a relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus. Therefore, He put an end to the corruption to enable this to happen. The flood was an act of love.
Okay…assuming you’ve actually made it this far in my post, let me say that I’ve only just scratched the surface on this subject. I could probably write about 5 posts this long about the subject, but I hope I’ve given you something to think about. At some point down the road, I plan to write additional posts that will bring everything I’ve just talked about into our current modern age and show why this topic should matter to us. So, I encourage you to learn more aboout it. One of the best resources I can point you to is this YouTube video of Dr. Chuck Missler. His lecture on this subject in the video is top-notch!
http://youtu.be/Kzb_lcldLTQ