The Nephilim A sermon delivered by Finlay MacIver on May 4, 2003 at Holderness Reformed Church 704 Marfleet Lane Hull, United Kingdom HU9 4TL 01482 376178 http://holderness.sermonaudio.com finlay@maciver.karoo.co.uk The text this morning is taken from Genesis chapter six, verses one to four. When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years." The Nephilim 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. 1 I can imagine that as I have read these verses you will be thinking to yourself, What is the preacher going to make of them? Yet, for they have been of a great controversy all the way down the ages in the Christian Church. One, I shall not deal with all of the interpretations. I shall simply deal with, well, three. The first interpretation is that these sons of God were actually angels and, as the text says, they: saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose 2 And result was of these illegal unions the Nephilim. I shall go into, well, who were the Nephilim? The Nephilim are well, the writer should seem to think that we should know who the Nephilim are. He describes them as: 1 Genesis 6:1 4 (All Scripture references are from the English Standard Version of the Bible unless indicated otherwise). 2 Genesis 6:2
mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. 3 That is one interpretation. I do not share it. Then there is the interpretation of the reformed people. In reformed circles it is generally taken that the sons of God are the godly and that they then see the ordinary persons outside the godly line the descendants of Cain and they then marry outside the line and from these marriages there develops Nephilim. One has to ask the question: Where do the Nephilim come from? For if they simply came from Cain, the line of Cain, then it is very difficult to see how the Nephilim who are described as great and mighty warriors the picture that is given to us later in the Word of God. Is there a picture? Well, there are references some commentators think. In that when the children of Israel desired to go into the Promised Land, they went forward and they saw these very tall people and they were so afraid that they returned and would not go forward only Joshua and another would say, N o, these people can be conquered. Some of the commentators think they were these people. There is also a reference to King Og of Bashan and his bedstead. I don t know if you ve ever heard of King Og and his bedstead, but there he is and his bedstead is so large that he must have been ten foot tall or something like that. And he is supposed to have been, according to some commentators, one of the Nephilim. Be that as it may, how we actually see this is not ultimately of fantastic importance because the spiritual emphasis is very clear as I shall show. But nevertheless it is of very great interest. Now, I have in my possession I have been lent, I think, a conservative commentary on the Old Testament concerning the introduction to the Old Testament. It was by the Tyndale Press the author of which is R.K. Harrison. So I was surprised to see that R.K. Harrison had somewhat to say on it. And R.K. Harrison says that these are very interesting references, that scholars could dip into Christian scholars could dip into as far as previous races were concerned. You know how I have shown as far as Cain s wi fe is concerned and perhaps also Seth s indeed that the world they go out into, the world that Adam goes out in to when he is driven out of the Garden is a populous world, that it is a world of the old man, a world that the anthropologist describes in terms of the Old Stone Age. And I have taken it showing that Adam was the new man, that farming and that is describing Adam as being a farmer and then Abel being a pastoralist, Cain being also a farmer that the whole picture is one of the new, of the New Stone Age. Well, here Harrison is suggesting that these Nephilim were in the outer regions, that they were some people who the anthropologists would call of the Old Stone Age. These were the people to whom Cain moves out into showing them the way that they should go so that he is developing civilization in his own line and he also has a mission to develop civilization among all these people. Who were they? Well, I have tried to show at some length that they have been subjected and are in and behind them lay satanic forces. Outside the Garden of Eden the world is under the dominion of Satan. And so when we look here at this story, we see behind the Nephilim Satan himself, the dominion that he has been given evil. In our Bible studies on Thursday evening we saw that we could not fully comprehend the high priestly 3 Genesis 6:4
prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ unless we put this prayer and the Lord himself moving to the cross into the background of conflict with the evil one. So, behind this text there is another world of demonic forces. And these Nephilim, men of renown, the product of the marriage of the godly line of Adam, that we ve previously been looking particularly in regard to Enoch in the previous chapter suddenly in the movement forward they start to marry into these races and they come a cropper as we say. They took as their wives any they chose. Then you get the result of this. God says, I will limit their lives. They will be only one hundred and twenty years. And then comes a description. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, people of renown, people of power. And when the sons of God came into the daughters of man the Nephilim they bore children to them and there is a whole world full of great heroes who were cruel tyrants exactly in the same line as is described in Psalm 52. We have recently seen direct tyrants, men who desire to dominate, cruel men. The last century has been full of them. Saddam Hussein is simply the latest of a long line. And this long line of tyrants and dictators goes back to this old age. Although it is an older period of time before the flood, yet it is very similar to our own. And from it there develops a theme that moves throughout the whole of the Word of God. That is, the dilution of the people of God, their movement into worldliness, their movement into their environment so that there is no longer any demarcation line between the Church and the world. And this dilution of the Church, this bringing down of the boundaries of God s people, is particularly evident in marriage. That s why I read to you from Ezra. For one of the things that the Israelites did when they came into the land, they were told to destroy the people of the land for they would lead them into idolatry. Instead they married into them. And when you look at the book of Ezra and you look at chapter ten and then you move on to see exactly what was done, you say, H ow could they be so cruel? Why is it so important? It is important because the marriage into those who are not of the people of God is marrying people who were idolaters like I said. What is the importance of that? Why is idolatry so terrible? It is terrible because the idols are representatives and not merely representatives, of the old gods who were really incarnations of satanic beings. Behind idolatry is the god of this world. That s why I said to you earlier on that you have to put this chapter here into this context of evil, this context of the satanic. The context of these people who were ruled and in the kingdom of the enemy. Now, you will observe that this section here comes before the flood. And not only so, it comes before this next verse which we will deal with the next Lord s Day, the Lord willing: The 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. 4 So, this whole question of the sons of God marrying the daughters of men and that the Nephilim is not put there to give us some lesson in anthropology. It s not put there to gratify our curiosity as far as these ancient peoples were concerned, who they were and what they did. Far from it. There is a mention of this the writer and the readers were probably more acquainted with all this than we ever will be. But all we can do and all the anthropologists can do is dig up old bones and try to deduce from them. 4 Genesis 6:5
I v e shown to you that although something can be learned from old bones, yet how these people were, who they worshipped cannot be deduced from bones or even pictures in caves, but rather the Word of God instructs us that they lived in evil, that they were subject to demonic powers. But what s that? What s the idea of all this? Why is it here? Why does the writer put it here? He has put it before verse five: The 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. 5 So he s t rying to show to us a certain principle. And it is a principle that operates throughout the Word of God. This is what the preacher has to do, take the particular, the particular historical and show to us the lesson that is needed for us and for our day. That this section here is still relevant. To show that it is relevant we have to move through the Word of God. For it is showing us that at the very beginning the dilution, the breaking down of the boundary between the people of God and the world leads to terrible darkness and wickedness without end. When you see that you then begin to comprehend what has happened in Israel. For Israel as a nation were to be a separate Paul says as he quotes from the Old Testament. I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. 6 You must be separate and holy unto the Lord and be a separate people because you are my people. But did Israel do this? Answer: No. They got into the land and they got mixed up with the peoples of the land. They did not destroy them as they were told to destroy them. They married into them and they worshipped their gods. What Ezra is saying is, this has got to stop. This has been one of our chief sins as a nation so that we have to put aside all of these foreign wives as representative of idolatry in which we became entangled because behind this idolatry is the kingdom of the enemy. And because it is a battle, and because it is a severe battle, because of the enemy it is costly and it seems to be so cruel from the point of view of the ordinary to put aside all these wives and all these children. But it has to be done because of the spiritual dimension. And that has not changed not changed in the principle, but the outworking of it might be slightly different. And this is what Paul is referring to here in 2 Corinthians. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? 7 Why is it so important that a believer marries in the Lord at least someone who professes to be a Christian. We cannot know the heart and minds, obviously, completely. It is because as I have so 5 Ibid. 6 2 Corinthians 6:16 18 7 2 Corinthians 6:14,15
often told you again and again and again anyone who is not a believer is under the dominion of the evil one. There is a spiritual component. And where one marries another who is an unbeliever the spiritual battle will not only be so much harder, but it s lost before it starts. This is what Paul is saying, B ecause you are a separate people, you must marry in the Lord. And this still stands. I remember once visiting a minister in South Wales. And he was in a very distressed condition because his daughter was marrying an unbeliever. Now, he knew the consequences and he was so agitated about whether he was going to marry them? He did not go to the wedding, right. Because he was saying the ordinary person would say, H ow come? How could a minister do that? How can he be so uncaring as far as his daughter is concerned? So the same question arises in the mind as far as Ezra is concerned. The answer with Paul and with all of the rest of the Bible and the answer here in Genesis is clear. There is a demonic dimension that is behind this reference to the Nephilim. As I have shown, these ancient peoples were outside the Garden. They were necessarily under the dominion of Satan and therefore any alliance with them would prove destructive. And this is the background to the flood. This is why the Lord sends destruction upon that civilization. He has to send it because it has been polluted. Ah, the people of God have brought down and destroyed the boundaries between the Church and the world. For behind the question of marriage there is a larger question that is the question of the relationship between the Church and the world and the destruction of the boundary that must necessarily exist between the Church and the world. This is what it is all about. These people here in Genesis chapter six they no longer regarded this boundary as of being any importance. Ask yourselves, what is the greatest sin of the Christian church now in this generation with us? It is the destruction of the boundary between the Church and the world. I am going to look at this again this evening, the Lord willing. For what has been the great agenda what is still the great agenda of the liberal theologian, liberal modernistic theology which we all have had to live with throughout this last century, the twentieth century? If you examine it, it is all about humanistic philosophy coming into the heart of the Christian faith and coming into the Church; coming into the interpretation of the Word of God; coming into the preaching and coming into the practice of what were previously evangelical denominations. The mainline churches are full of people who do not recognize or who put onto the back burner any idea that there is a distinction between the Church and the world. And this is why Church discipline is so important. Ask yourselves: Have you ever seen any Church discipline? Well, I haven t. It is virtually unknown in our generation. And Church discipline is all about the distinction between the Church and the world and its preservation the preservation of a holy people. Go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; 8 That is essentially what Church discipline is all about and essentially what the words that should be read out before the Lord s Table are about. For if the Lord s Table is given to all then there is no distinction. And if there is no distinction there is idolatry. And if there is idolatry the demonic flows in. And then there is darkness spiritual darkness of a grievous kind. 8 2 Corinthians 6:17
So we may say that the decline in this nation in which we live, its decline from any previous spiritual standards, its decline into humanism is a direct spin off from this taking down of the boundary between the Church and the world. Where there is no light the darkness and the kingdom of Satan has all reign. And this is what has happened among us. The reality of the humanism of our day is not something simply that s begun outside the Church. It is something that has begun within the Church. And it s all been to do with the destruction of this boundary between the Church and the world. And it has arisen for certain reasons. Now, this evening the Lord willing I shall be pursuing this subject from another angle as we look into 2 Peter. But for our purposes today, this morning, we have to see that these verses here, what they are talking about, the reality of what they are talking about, the background that we see here is of such great importance. It is showing to us clearly the origins of spiritual darkness and depravity that led to God himself sending the flood. And so you may say that the destruction of the boundary between the Church and the world in our day leads to evil without end. Spiritual darkness upon the people and the judgment that comes upon us, the judgment of the taking away of the Word of God and which ultimately leads eventually to God s complete judgment at the last day. It is a premonition of it as indeed is the flood as we shall see. So there is a spiritual movement, a spiritual movement from light to dark. And this movement from light to dark is here fully performed in the marriage of the sons of God the godly line into these strange peoples who were around them dominated by Satan. As they did this there is a destruction of their boundaries the boundaries of the Word of God in the godly line. A destruction of these boundaries leads eventually to this great depravity and darkness without end. So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, 9 Amen. 9 Genesis 6:7