rebellion – Auriesville Tubthumper

“And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart”. (Genesis 6:6)

I chose the title for this because of the incredible reverse of sentiment from the Lord in only six chapters of the first book of the Bible. As the book begins we see God creating the world. It is a wonderful display of His awesome power and His purpose. He creates man and woman made in His image. Before long though, sin enters the picture and what was once bathed in innocence becomes shattered by the Fall. [The Fall was the willful disobedience of Adam and Eve.] They broke the fellowship with God and evil was unleashed causing the destruction to begin. One right after the other events began happening. We had Adam and Eve getting expelled from the garden of Eden, next we saw their first son become a murderer, evil bred still more evil and the world He created became so vile that God spoke those words I began with. God started out saying, “It was good”, He said it repeatedly but ended by saying, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:7)

I hope you read and study the Holy Bible. It provides a fantastic spiritual history for you.

Before we get into the heart of things let us start with some background information about Genesis. There are 50 chapters in the book of Genesis comprised of 1,533 verses holding 38,267 words. The key word for the entire book is “Beginnings”. A key verse for the topic I am addressing is Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The topic I am covering with this title is the first half of the book, “the four great events”. Another key verse is Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Please note that Christ is that seed of woman.

Genesis was written by Moses 1450 – 1410 B.C. and Moses was born at least three centuries after the events in Genesis ended. In actuality, the book was written by God but breathed through Moses. We will be dealing with what is called, “The Fertile Crescent”, in chapters 1-11 which spanned more than 2,000 years and 1500 miles. We will learn why God chose Israel to be His redemptive people by the time we end chapter 11. We will only be focusing on the first 11 of 50 chapters, therefore how God chose Israel will be covered with chapters 12 to 50. In this topic, we will be covering the four great events which are: Creation– God is the sovereign Creator of matter, energy, space and time. Man is the pinnacle of the creation. The Fall– Creation is followed by corruption. Man gets separated from God then gets separated from man. Despite the curse of the Fall, God promised hope of redemption through the seed of the woman (Chapter 3, verse 15). The Flood– As man multiplied, sin multiplied until God had enough and was compelled to destroy humanity with exception of Noah and his family. The Nations– the unity of the human race, we are all children of Adam through Noah. Because of the rebellion at the tower of Babel, God fragments the original culture and language of post flood and scatters people over the face of the earth. In a future segment, I will cover the second half which is, “The Four Great People”.

Ok, on to the beginning. As I was reading the book of Genesis I connected with several things I hadn’t before. The presence of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, reproduction of its own kind, the unknown population and the amount of grief the Lord experienced. Each time you study a part of the Bible the Lord will allow you some more meat to digest. So He opened my eyes on these.

I won’t go verse by verse through the first seven days of creation because you can read that for yourself. I will note however that in verse 4 of the first chapter God said the first, “it was good”. In verse 10 when the waters were separate from the land called earth he said the second, “it was good”. I want to mention that God made the stars to light the earth at night and he separated the light from darkness because we were meant to be in the light. Good goes to light and evil goes to darkness. See verse 16. I would also like to point out from verse 11 that He made the grasses and the herbs and the plants and fruit, “Whose seed is in itself.” In other words, it will always be the same. You can’t see wheat growing into a corn stalk or rice becoming apples because it is whose seed is in itself. How awesome is that. In verse 12 He said, “it is good” once again and again in verse 18 He said it. Then in verse 21 we see that God saw that it was good. God then made man and women in His own image. He formed Adam form the dust of the ground. No rain had occurred yet, nor had the ground been tilled.

Before we get too far into chapter 2 of Genesis I have a question for you. Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus was there during the creation? That is an incredible thing to get our arms around as human beings. He was there. He always was, even at the beginning we can see the mystery of Jesus Christ. The very first verse speaks of the plurality in the Godhead. It is indicating the Trinity. God is the Hebrew word Elohim. El is a singular term for God and the im ending makes it plural so we have, “In the beginning Gods…” There are other signs and types throughout Genesis which I will visit later, but for now we can already see Jesus the Christ at work in the creation. In Colossians 1:16 it claims it was by Him (Jesus) that all things were created. In 1 Corinthians 8:6 it says all things came from God, but they came through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:2, 10-12 says that through Jesus the universe was made and Psalm 102:24-27 refers to Elohim as the One who’s hands made the universe. We must understand that Jesus was speaking the truth when He said He was one with the Father. Let us look at Genesis 1:26, Who is the us? It’s the Father, the son and the Holy Ghost. Jesus was there and was an instrument of the creation. In Genesis 3:8 who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden? God the father is a spirit. (John 4:24) Only Jesus Christ takes on a form. (Hebrews 10:5) We will re-visit this later with the introduction of Melchizedek but there already is plenty of evidence Jesus Christ was there before the world was ever created and is still with us today. The same today as yesterday. Amen! When I think of this I can only say wow! And remain totally amazed and in awe.

Next time I will address the Fall in Chapter 2 and the evil overcoming mankind before the flood that brought that grieving to the Lord. For now, please read Genesis and be encouraged by it. The evil and darkness that is in the world can seem bleak but God has a plan. We have hope. You are in His plan and salvation is available.

To jump to part 2 click here.

God bless you,

The Tubthumper

And for that matter… who were the ‘Daughters of Men?”

That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. (Genesis 6:2)

This verse and subject has always fascinated me. In the past I kind of thought the “Sons of God” were mighty men that truly pleased God in magnificent ways and because of that were graced with some super-human aspects. Over the last couple years, however, because of my study I have come to more sound decision as to who they were. I have consulted many different commentaries on the subject of which I will put a few here. Those commentaries listed here represent a small sample of all I consulted. It has been interesting to see the views from ancient times until now which have not changed all that much.

The first commentary I will mention is the Matthew Henry Commentary. Matthew Henry says we see here a full account of degeneracy, apostasy and rebellion against God. Men began multiplying on the face of the earth as an effect of the blessing but they abused the blessing and perverted it which caused the blessing to turn into a curse. Through the mercy of God sometimes sin becomes exceedingly sinful. The more sinners, the more sin; the offenders continue to multiply. Mr. Henry says the “Sons of God” are those that professed religion and were those that were called into the kingdom on the name of the Lord. So they were all the believers and God’s chosen. There were mixed marriages because the ‘Sons of God” married the “Daughters of Men”. Mr. Henry says the “Daughters of Men” are those women that were profane; they were strangers to God and were un-Godly. These “Sons of Men” began in the line of Seth and they did not remain pure as they should have. They intermingled and mixed with the excommunicated race of Cain: They liked what they saw and they took it. They chose by the eye and only what they looked at and they followed corrupt affections (lust) without taking any advice. They became unequally yoked which was forbidden.[1]

Now look at the second commentary which is David Guzik:: Study Guide for Genesis 6. There were days of rapid population expansion (there were long life spans in the pre-flood world) and it led to problems of intermarriage. He says it is more accurate to see the “Sons of God” as either demons (angels in rebellion against God) or they were uniquely demon-possessed men. He looks at the “Daughters of Men” as human women. He references the “Sons of God” being used in the other three times in the Old Testament as “angels.” In the other references it clearly referred to angelic beings and not humans from the line of Seth. He would not speculate as to the nature of the union. He says that is not revealed, however we understand there is the occult which is filled with sexual associations with the demonic, and today there are those that pursue these associations. In his answer to the objection of Matthew 22: 30, he says, “God never said angels were sexless and He was speaking of faithful angels and not rebellious ones.” His position is that Satan tried to pollute the genetic “pool” of mankind and make the human race unfit to bring forth the “Seed of the woman- the Messiah. He says, “Satan almost succeeded.” God had to start over with Noah and his sons.[2]

Lastly I will leave you with another view from The Popular Commentary of the Bible, Old Testament Volume 1, by Paul E. Kretzman. This source indicates the Cainites had long since forsaken the Lord and would not worship Him. They lived according to the lusts of their mind. During the course of time as population was growing their corruption spread over to the families of the pious. The corruption reached the “Sons of God”. It got to the believers by a beginning with a laxity of morals. Over the fifteen centuries there was a remarkable increase of the human family. It became ever increasingly difficult to maintain the discipline the Lord desired. The men belonging to the tribe of Seth permitted carnal thoughts and lust to guide them when choosing wives. The “Daughters of Men” were the women that lived only for the world and had only concerns for enjoyment. Their goal was to get all that the world could offer therefore they made the development of their beauty the aim of their being. Their beauty became the snare that captured the “Sons of God” who were the men from the generation of believers. They took wives for the mere gratification of their sensual desires and not for helpmates in marriage and honor. The corruption of the Cainites was brought into the Church of God before the Flood.[3]

Wow, when I read about the “Daughters of Men making their beauty the snare to capture the “Sons of Men” it sounds like what goes on around us today. Have you ever taken a look at the “Young and the Restless” soap opera?

So my view on this subject is this: I find that the answer to who was the “Sons of God” to be absolutely impossible to determine. One thought I have is that if God wanted us all to know exactly who they were He would have made it absolutely clear. There are as many scholars indicating the “Sons of God” were beings other than human, angels or spirits as there are scholars indicating they were of the line of Seth. I have consulted many more than three sources and have bridged this discussion in the past. I consulted Chuck Smith’s Commentary in the C2000 Series on Genesis and he takes the position they are angels. In the “A Commentary on the Holy Bible” by J. R. Dummelow from 1908 I found he took the stance that they were deities (angels) that mated with the women of earth. I referenced J. Vernon McGee and R.C. Sproul who both believe it cannot possibly mean angels and speaks of the reprobate and apostate mankind. Many years ago I read the passage and pondered it for months. It was troubling to me and I wanted to find the answer. The answer I came to was similar to some here. I looked at the “Sons of God” as being the favored men of the Church of God. I looked at it in way that said, “These men that God looked at as His champions had become corrupt and broken His heart. I came to the conclusion that God had showered these Sons with blessings and longevity only to have them become corrupt. I could feel the pain in my heart as I studied that small section of scripture over and over.” Like J. Vernon McGee I came to the conclusion that these men were the outstanding individuals in the lineage of God from Adam to Seth. I don’t think I can agree completely that they were all men from the line of Seth but I do think they were men very favored in the eyes of the LORD. I never looked at the “Daughters of Men” being descendants of Cain because I was consumed with the thought of these men being held in high regard in God’s kingdom and becoming the biggest disappointment of his creation. Each time this subject comes up we can come to no conclusive result and must continue in faith while accepting it for what it is. For the record I will stand in the camp with Matthew Henry, R.C. Sproul and Paul Kretzman knowing that there are some very intelligent scholars out there who will disagree with us all.

God bless your day,

The Tubthumper

[1] Matthew Henry, Text Commentaries: Matthew Henry (Blue Letter Bible: Genesis), http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Gen/Gen_006.cfm (accessed February 2, 2014).

[2] David Guzik, Text Commentaries: David Guzik (Blue Letter Bible: Genesis), http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide_Gen/gen_6.cfm (accessed February 2, 2014).

[3] Paul E. Kretzmann, The Popular Commentary of the Bible, Old Testament Volume 1 (St. Paul, Minnesota: Concordia Publishing House, 1919).

Tag: rebellion

It Grieved Him at His Heart, Part 1

WHO WERE “THE SONS OF GOD?”