Joel Osteen, Michael Roundtree, and Joshua Lewis debate the Nephilim's identity, arguing an 80% probability they were offspring of fallen angels and human women based on Genesis 6:1–4, Jude 1:6–7, and 2 Peter 2:4. While addressing theological divides between continuationism and Calvinism regarding total depravity, the hosts conclude these unholy unions corrupted humanity, necessitating the Flood, though alternative views suggest giants like Goliath may represent a separate lineage or that the spies in Numbers 13 misidentified normal soldiers. Ultimately, this analysis frames the Nephilim as a pivotal catalyst for divine judgment rather than mere mythical giants. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Theology Applied with Remnant Radio00:02:23
Hi, I'm Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to Theology Applied.
In this episode, I was privileged to have two special guests, Joshua Lewis and Michael Roundtree, the co host of Remnant Radio.
Now, this was a two part conversation between the co host of Remnant Radio on the Nephilim, the sons of God, and the application for Christians today.
In part one, which is what you're listening to now, we deal with who are the Nephilim and who are the sons of God.
In part two, we deal with the relevancy of the Nephilim and the sons of God for Christians today.
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right, so today's episode, I am privileged to have as a special guest two individuals, Michael Roundtree and Joshua Lewis.
They are co hosts of a show called Remnant Radio.
And Remnant Radio is a really great show where they talk about all sorts of theological topics, and they have people from all over the map.
So there's guys that we would disagree with, and there's guys that we would agree with, and they have, of course, their own theological system, their own theological convictions, and they intentionally do that because one of their concerns is that there are sometimes echo chambers in the body of Christ, theologically, where we just hear from the same people again and again who already believe all the things that we believe, and so they want to disrupt echo chambers.
I appreciate their ministry.
I've learned a lot from watching their show.
And so I'm pleased to have them as guests.
Josh and Michael, do you want to take a moment and introduce yourselves?
You want to go first?
I'll let you go.
Okay.
Thank you for letting me.
I appreciate that.
So my name is Michael Roundtree, and I'm a lead pastor at a church called Wellspring Church.
And it's in North Fort Worth, one of the suburbs of Fort Worth.
And I've been the pastor there since 2012.
And I'm also a co host on Remnant Radio, theology podcast that Jill just talked about.
Josh started the podcast about four years ago, and then I hopped on a year and a half or so ago.
And yeah, I have a wife of 17 years and four kids Anna, Hudson, Will, and Molly.
Yeah, today was the first day of school for my kids.
Defining Our Charismatic Roots00:05:41
So seven, five, and four.
Josie is my wife.
We've been married for eight, nine years now.
Come on, man.
Come on.
And yeah, started Remnant Radio back in July of.
20, was it 27?
Not 2017, it's too late.
2019?
No.
2021 minus 4.
2017.
It was 2017.
Okay.
So, 2017.
I'm a math guy.
Yeah.
And then, to Joel's point, we are charismatic, but we interview people all over the world.
I prefer the term continuationist.
We're continuationist because, yeah, the word charismatic, you think of Benny Hinn slapping people with coats, and then you say Pentecostal, and you think second blessing in tongues.
So, we just say, hey, we believe in the gifts.
So, we're trying to get into a space where, like, hey, let's help charismatics think critically and think well about a robust Robust Christian faith.
So, we interview pastors and teachers from all over the place, from different churches and denominations.
We prefer if they have a PhD in front of their name.
We like to have those kinds of heady conversations from a kind of a charismatic slant, I would say.
Today, we're talking about Nephilim.
And I suppose because we're charismatic, we talk about angels.
But this isn't like our bread and butter.
But we know some guys.
We've done a couple of shows on Nephilim and Elohim and those kinds of things.
And to be fair.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks for coming on.
To be fair, I was going to say I'm the guy who picked the topic.
So I picked the fallen angels and the Nephilim and the relevancy for Christians today.
And it is worth saying that Michael and I actually have been friends for, I guess, I think like 12, 13 years now.
I think I met you, Michael, so probably 12 years.
I think it was like one year after you got married.
And so, or maybe two years after you got married, but it was back in 2007.
So you're the math guy.
Can you do that real quick?
I turned you into a Calvinist, man.
Yeah, Michael turned me into a Calvinist, and then he abandoned.
You know, it's kind of.
And then he has returned.
And then he has returned, yeah.
I never.
I would never say I abandoned.
I would say.
I spent a year calling myself soteriologically homeless.
So maybe you call that abandonment.
He pitched his tent just south of Sodom.
He wasn't quite in it.
He was just south of it.
Oh, no.
You know, my mentor, Jack Deere, one of the things that he taught me was never allow your system to force you into an interpretation that seems to violate just the flow of the text.
Specific text.
Yeah.
Specific text.
And so.
Right.
And honestly, go ahead.
Sorry.
Yeah.
So.
To be frank, there are some texts that sound non Calvinist and even as though they would go against Calvinism.
But, you know, I spent that year really searching and just at the end of it, I came back to this place of like, you know, there are some texts that seem to go both ways, but I'm just kind of going with like the broader picture and scope of scripture.
So that's what I went with.
That's not what we're talking about.
So, no, no, that's good.
And I remember you said that one of the points that was just kind of irrefutable was election.
It's hard to get away from election.
That's so, yes, it is.
That's a big one.
So, anyways, for those who don't know, I, you know, me and Michael, we go way back, and I was actually a part of Wellspring.
So, his church, he was the youth pastor at the time.
I was a part of the church, and then I left when I finished my undergrad at Dallas Baptist University, I think, would be the right one.
I abandoned Michael.
I held on to Calvinism.
I held on to John Calvin, and I let go of Michael Roundtree.
And I moved to California, planted a church there, was there for 11 years, and then came back.
And in regards to the continuationist thing, so Jack Deere, he already mentioned.
He was the pastor of the church when I was there.
Michael was his youth pastor.
And so, just for those of you who are maybe not super familiar with the continuation, there's just a wide spectrum.
You know, you've got false teachers that are crazy charismatics with the $70 million jet planes and all that.
But then you also have the reasonable continuationists.
That would be guys like John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Sam Storms.
And you guys, correct me if I'm wrong, but is it fair to put you in kind of a Sam Storms continuationist camp?
Yeah, that would be fair.
Yeah, no, we'll call it a careful continuationist.
Guys like Keener, Grudenstorms, Jack Deere.
Yeah.
They've all been on the show a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, anyway, so Michael made me a Calvinist.
Michael also gave me training in prophecy.
And Michael abandoned Calvinism, and I abandoned prophecy.
So, I ended up becoming a cessationist and still am a proud cessationist.
And Michael left Calvinism, but he came back, and I have not yet come back.
And I'm sure that you're praying for me to follow the pattern.
Follow the pattern.
You said it's a prophetic word to come back.
So, anyway, so I need scripture, and I know you guys have plenty of it.
So, anyway, so all that being said, I say that to be fair because both Josh and Michael love the scripture.
And honestly, the last thing I'll say before we hop into our topic is Michael was one of the first people I met who strived more than anyone I knew at the time to memorize the Bible.
And so, for every ounce of effort that he put towards getting prophetic words, I saw him put 10 times as much energy in memorizing the scripture, applying the scripture.
Preaching the scripture, expositional preaching.
And he did that when I knew him and was mentored by him and has done that for the last 13 years and still does that faithfully.
So, all that being said, I'm really grateful for both of you guys and especially you, Michael, just because of our prior relationship and you've meant a lot to me.
So, thank you for that.
Sons of God and Seth's Lineage00:09:32
All right.
So, let's go ahead and, yeah, you're welcome.
So, let's go ahead and hop in.
So, this is the text that I want us to work from.
I know that there are a few that deal with fallen angels, the sons of God, the Nephilim.
And what we're going to try to do towards the end of this episode is make it relevant.
Right, so that we don't just have you know, uh, bringing all the wacko boys to the yard with uh, Nephilim talks on YouTube, uh, but that you know, but that it actually is applicable and relevant.
You know, what does this idea of the Nephilim have to do with Christians today?
What can we learn from this?
Uh, how can we apply this in our daily lives?
So, we're going to do that towards the end of the episode, but let's start by just getting a framework.
And so, there's a lot of text, but the text that I want to work from is this Genesis chapter 6, verses 1 through 8.
So, this is kind of our foundational text.
It says, This when men 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.
The Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.
His days shall be one hundred and twenty years.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.
These were the mighty men who were of old, or renowned, some translations say.
The men of renown, 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.
And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
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.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
So I've written a few notes here.
In Matthew chapter 24, verses 37 through 39, Jesus says, For the coming of the Son of Man.
That's speaking of himself, will be just like the days of Noah.
For as in those days which were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away.
So shall the coming of the Son of Man be.
Also, 1 Peter 3, verse 20 says, Because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
So according to both Jesus and Peter, The people of Noah's day chose to ignore God's warnings of judgment until eventually it was too late.
In today's text, we see the progression in this text, Genesis chapter 6, the progression of sin as it relates not just to individuals.
One of the things I find helpful about the Genesis 6 passage is it shows a progression of sin as it relates to societies and cultures and even nations.
Sin begins with compromise, it moves to corruption, and ultimately it ends in God's just judgment.
So in verses 1 and 2, Of Genesis chapter 6, it says, Now, the debate over this text, who are the sons of God?
That's the first question we got to get to.
This is a century, centuries and centuries old debate.
There are three main views that I'm familiar with.
The first is that the sons of God were powerful rulers, princes, likely possessed by demons, demon possessed, who were striving for fame and glory.
Through the means of mass fertility, that they had many wives and they were trying to have many, many, many, many sons, many offsprings to basically cause their name to be essentially immortal.
Occasionally in the Bible, the Hebrew word Elohim, or Josh, before we got started, he insisted that we say Elohim to be accurate.
But it's a name for God.
And so in the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew word Elohim.
Is used for men in positions of authority.
That would be like Exodus chapter 21, verse 6, or Psalm chapter 82, verse 1 and verse 6.
In this view, the daughters of men would refer to all daughters.
So, all the women who were on the earth at this time, they were being taken as wives by these powerful rulers or princes, sons of rulers, possessed by demons, trying to have many offspring to further their line and make themselves immortal.
That's the first view of the sons of God.
All right.
The second view is that the sons of God refer to the godly descendants of Seth who called upon the name of the Lord.
Which we see in Genesis chapter 4, verse 26, and chapter 5, we see the genealogy, Genesis chapter 5, the genealogy of Seth.
In this view, the daughters of men would refer to the ungodly women, most likely from the line of Cain, who went out from the presence of the Lord.
That's what the Bible says about Cain and his offspring in Genesis chapter 4, verse 16 through 24.
Now, Luke, in the New Testament, he traces the line of Christ back through Seth all the way to Adam, and he calls Adam.
The Son of God.
That's Luke chapter 3, verse 38.
Thus, Adam's descendants through Seth are the sons of God, according to this view, who became corrupt through sinful compromise in marriage.
They chose to marry on the basis of sexual attraction rather than on the basis of godly character and a godly lineage.
The result was the compromise of godly standards, which led to the corruption and ultimately condemnation of the entire human race.
The third view of the sons of God is that the sons of God refer to fallen angels or demons.
Who came to earth in human form and cohabitated with women, human women, resulting in a superhuman race called the Nephilim.
Genesis chapter 6, verse 4.
Proponents of this view argue that Satan was attempting, and I like this, he was attempting to use these fallen angels to thwart God's promise to bring a deliverer through the seed of the woman by corrupting the line of Adam.
So that's the first kind of expression of the gospel that we see in Genesis chapter 3 when God's dealing out the curses to.
To Adam and to the woman, Eve, and to the serpent, we see that even in God's judgment, there's this I like to call it an Easter egg and a Reformed Baptist covenantal theology of the gospel, the proto evangelium.
How do you say that, guys?
Can you help me with that?
That's right.
Proto.
I always called it the proto evangelium, but evangelium probably.
Yeah.
It's one of those.
Proto means before, evangelion, the message, the gospel, the good news, right?
Yeah.
Right.
And so in that, what we see is God says, He promises the woman that.
That hurt, there's going to be.
Well, at first, it doesn't really sound like a blessing or a promise.
It sounds like part of the curse, and it is.
He says there's going to be this seemingly unending enmity between your offspring and the offspring of the serpent.
So he basically, the first promise that God gives is there's going to be an endless war, right?
There's just going to be this endless war.
But what he ultimately promises is that the serpent is going to strike the heel of one of the woman's offspring, the seed of the woman, but that he will have the final victory blow in crushing.
The serpent's head.
So, Adam and Eve were saved as all Christians are saved before or after the cross, which is by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
They knew Christ as the serpent crusher, and they put faith in Jesus, and they were saved by grace through faith in Christ's work, which would come later.
They looked forward to the Messiah and knew him as the serpent crusher.
And so, in all of that, the point is that multiple times throughout the Old Testament, one of the things that we see is we see the line, this lineage of the woman that's eventually going to bring the serpent crusher.
The promised seed, the promised offspring that's going to crush the head of the serpent.
We see multiple attempts of Satan influencing or downright possessing wicked men on earth in order to try to end the line.
And so, for instance, Herod trying to wipe out all the children in Bethlehem, or Pharaoh, same kind of thing with the Hebrew boys, or according to this view, the sons of God, fallen angels.
Trying to dilute and pervert the biological line of human women so that there would not be a pure seed of the serpent crusher, the promised seed, the offspring, that fallen angels stepping out of heaven, taking on human form, marrying human women, and trying to pervert that messianic line.
So, the strongest argument for this view is that every other time the term son of God or sons of God is used in the Bible, it Always refers to angels, which is pretty compelling.
Job chapter 1, Job chapter 2, Job chapter 38, Daniel chapter 3, Psalm chapter 29, and Psalm chapter 89.
So, in this view, the daughters of men would not just refer to the daughters of Cain, but the daughters of both Cain and Seth, all human women, and the sons of God refer to not human men, but rather fallen angels.
And so, last thing I want to say, just setting the stage, verse 4 of our text, it mentions the Nephilim, those who hold to the view that the sons of God refer to fallen angels.
Angels, Sex, and Divine Councils00:15:13
Say that the Nephilim were an ancient race of giants originated from the union of fallen angels and the daughters of men.
The word Nephilim only appears one other time in Scripture.
That's Numbers 13, verse 33.
There, the Israelite spies reported that they had seen the Nephilim and that they felt small in comparison to them, like grasshoppers.
The word comes from a root word meaning to fall upon.
It points to men of great violence, physical violence, who had a reputation of falling upon their enemies without mercy.
These men may or may not have been physical giants who descended from fallen angels.
The point is that they were vicious men with an insatiable bloodlust who would slaughter others just for sport.
Therefore, we are meant to assume that the generation at the time of the flood was notorious for a host of sins, but especially the sin of violence.
Genesis chapter 6, verse 13.
This explanation of the Nephilim is further confirmed by God's evaluation of that generation found in verse 5 of Genesis 6.
That says, Verse 5 is God's description of the extreme corruption of that generation.
Due to God's common grace, sin does not always reach the outward manifestations that it did in the days of Noah.
However, I've got to say this as somebody who believes in total depravity.
However, at the level of the heart, the unbeliever in our day is no less wicked.
Than the unbelievers at the time of the flood.
So, I believe that Genesis chapter 6, verse 5 is an accurate description of the unbeliever in the heart, the sinfulness of their heart, even today.
However, the difference is in Noah's day that it wasn't just every thought and every intention of their heart, only evil continually.
But for me, I take that to mean that in the days of Noah, that it wasn't just this is the level of depravity inwardly in the heart, but that God's common grace had lifted.
In such a way that the intentions of the heart were being outwardly manifest, especially in sinful acts of violence and murder.
And so God, He wiped everyone out except for Noah and His wife, sons, and their wives.
So that's my foundation.
Josh, you obviously are chomping at the end.
I just want to ask you a clarifying question.
So go for it.
No, I just want a clarifying question.
When you said that they're just as depraved as we are today, and in a Calvinistic perspective of total depravity, which I would actually affirm that.
The total depravity means that our entire being is as corrupted as it is.
Like every part of our being has been affected by sin.
We're total, the totality of us has been affected.
Not that we are as sinful as we'll ever be.
Utter depravity.
So, making that distinction.
So, would you say that they were utterly depraved in a way that maybe we're not?
I just want to clarify.
Yeah, no, that's a great question.
So, total depravity, exactly what you said, it means that every part of humanity is marred by sin.
And just for the record, in the Calvinistic perspective, we do not believe that Christians are totally depraved.
And that's a mistake that I made in my early Calvinist days.
And I still hear people in the Reformed camp that, you know, they're new and they're super excited about the tulip.
They're leaving tulips at John Wesley's, you know, gravesite, you know, the caged Calvinists.
And they talk, you were totally depraved.
But then they talk about themselves in that light.
And it's like, no, if you're born again, you're not totally depraved.
You're not.
You are a new creation.
In your inner being, you delight in.
In the law of God, something has actually changed.
So, I don't believe the Christian is even totally depraved.
And the unbeliever, I don't believe, is utterly depraved.
And I personally don't believe that there's ever been a man on earth that has been utterly depraved in the fullest extent.
But I do, to answer your question, Josh, I do think that that generation in the days of Noah, that the unbeliever, which would have been all of them except for Noah and his family, that the unbeliever in those days was further down the path of utter depravity.
Than generations today.
However, I don't think that it's unique to Noah in the sense, his day, in the sense that that could never happen again or that that hasn't happened, at least in part.
So I would look at the Third Reich and I would look at Adolf Hitler and Mussolini and Joseph Stalin and I would say this is what happens in societies when God's law is ultimately abandoned in the three uses of God's law.
The second use is that the law of God has a common grace function that works even for the unbeliever as a shield that holds.
Outward expressions, outward manifestations of that inward total depravity at bay, right?
That there are people who are unbelievers, they're totally depraved in their hearts, so every intention of their heart is only evil continually.
And yet, because of the law of God adopted and executed through societies and legislation and governing civil authorities, there are people who would want to murder, but are restrained in actually carrying that act out due to fear.
Not love of God, but fear of the civil magistrate.
And so I do think that there have been societies since the days of Noah, and that we can track through human history where I would say, yeah, they looked a lot like Noah.
They were savage, they were barbaric, they were violent.
They were physically violent.
I would say Nineveh.
So, Nineveh, you know, they used to fillet their victims alive, is what most historians say, and they would hang the skins of the people that they filleted on the walls of Nineveh.
And when the king of Nineveh repents and calls the whole kingdom, the whole nation to repentance at the preaching of Jonah, that's specifically what's mentioned in the book of Jonah, is that he says, We must repent of our violence.
And so, violence, physical violence, is always seems to be emphasized as a further progression toward that utter depravity.
It seems to be the case in the days of Noah, and it seems to be the case in the days of Nineveh when Jonah went and preached repentance to them.
It seems to be the case in the days of World War I and II and certain nations.
And so, I do think that totally depraved, unbelievers are totally depraved.
That means inwardly.
All they want to do is rebel against God.
But that's different than utter depravity because somebody can rebel against God by being nice, but they're still ultimately rebelling against God.
It's that classic Augustinian position a sinner cannot do good, a saint can choose not to do bad and can choose to do good, and a glorified believer cannot do bad, right?
Exactly.
So it's that classic Augustinian historic Protestant faith.
Yep.
So, I just wanted to make that clear that Genesis 6 5, I think, is an accurate description of the human heart, not merely in the days of Noah, but in all ages.
But it's an accurate description of the human heart for the unredeemed, for the unbeliever.
I do not believe that Christians are totally depraved.
And what's unique about the days of Noah, although I do think there have been other time periods and other cultures that have been similar to those people in the days of Noah, is that it's not just total depravity.
Intentions and thoughts of the heart, but because that second use of God's law has been lifted, His common grace has been lifted, God handing people over Romans 1 handing them over to their evil, the total depravity intentions in the heart begin to manifest in actions outwardly.
And I think the chief action being violence.
And so I think that the people in the days of Noah were uniquely violent.
However, I do think there have been cultures and nations and time periods where at least close to that level of violence has also been.
Achieved.
And God, maybe not through a worldwide flood, but through other means, God has wiped people out.
He has corrected that in His mercy.
So, anyways, that's it.
So, what do you guys think?
Who are the sons of God?
Which view would you guys take?
Who are the Nephilim?
Go ahead and take it.
Okay.
So, you put out there three options for who the Nephilim is.
And I would say they are ruling.
Okay.
Actually, to back up, you gave three options for who the sons of God are.
To answer who the Nephilim are, we have to talk about who the sons of God are.
Because the two are related, and you gave three potential options for who the sons of God in Genesis chapter six might be the sons of princes or the sons of Seth and ruling angels.
And of these three, yes, those are the three that have historically been put out there, but the first one, no modern commentary.
I haven't read any modern commentaries that believe that.
They all seem to think that was a dying position.
It's a dying position.
Sons of Seth and ruling angels.
And even before I say what I'm about to say, I think I would say this.
In my opinion, the only reason to reject that the sons of God are ruling angels, part of this divine council of God, is not for exegetical reasons, but because it's really weird that angels would have sex with human women.
Like, that's just weird.
And, but the reality is, Nephilim are weird, right?
Which is the, Product of that, like that's already weird, and there's just some weird stuff in the Bible.
Um, but I don't think we can outright reject something just because it's weird, and especially when there's really strong exegetical evidence the other way.
So, uh, I think that what really nails it for this is something you said, Joel.
That every other instance in the Bible where sons of God is used, it's speaking of these angelic beings, it's not talking about uh sons of Seth, it's talking about these angelic beings.
So, we need to have Overwhelming evidence to overturn the way sons of God is used every other single time in the Bible.
And we don't have that overwhelming evidence.
In fact, we seem to have evidence going in the opposite direction.
Take, for instance, the let me just reread verses one and two.
You guys just pay attention to the usage of the phrase daughter, daughters, or word daughters.
Okay.
So it's going to appear in verses one and in two.
And if you believe in the sons of Seth theory, this idea that, like, well, you have the two lines, you have the unbelieving, wicked line of Cain.
And the believing blessed line of Seth.
And the position states that the sons of Seth, they mixed the line by sleeping with Cain's daughters, right?
The Cainite women.
So the believers and the unbelievers got married and it polluted the line.
Now, on the surface, this might seem feasible.
Again, we're going against the fact that sons of God is never used to speak of sons of Seth.
But notice this word daughters, verses one and two.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land, And daughters were born to them.
Does it say Cainite daughters?
Unbelieving, wicked, evil daughters?
It just says daughters.
Everyone agrees that daughters in verse one is general, not restricted to Cainite daughters.
Now, verse two.
And the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took the wives of any they chose.
Doesn't it make sense that if daughters is general in verse one, that it's also general in verse two?
Speaking of just daughters.
Of women.
But if you hold to the sons of Seth theory, you have to say, well, in verse one, it is general.
But in verse two, it's a specific kind of daughter of man.
It's Cainite daughters.
But that's even doubly hard because not only does it violate the context of verse one that is general, he actually generalizes it with an adjective, a descriptor where he calls them daughters of man, doesn't say daughters of Cain.
And so to me, when you put the direct context of Genesis 6 1 to 2, That you're asking me to restrict the meaning of daughters to mean only Cain's unbelieving wicked daughters.
That's the first part.
And then, two, to ignore that sons of God always in the scripture means some kind of angelic celestial being.
That's just too much.
So I've chosen to accept the fact that something really weird happened, and that is that some kind of angelic being slept with human women.
And I would be willing to say, and me and Michael differ on many of our positions, I would be willing to say that the Ben Elohim in Genesis chapter six are, in fact, some kind of supernatural divine being.
When I say divine, I don't mean in the sense of God, but in the sense of angelic spiritual being.
And I think that we can actually prove that in like Jude verses five through seven.
But as the guys kind of are saying something, I disagree with because I think I agree with this.
I was going to say, when it comes to the Nephilim particularly, I am not willing to live on the same level of confidence.
That the Nephilim are in fact angel human hybrids, as confidently as I am to say the Ben Elohim are angels.
So here's the reference in Jude, and then we'll back up to the Nephilim thing.
But in June, verses 6 and 7 says, And the angels who do not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he kept in eternal change under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah in the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued.
Unnatural desires serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
So, here in this example, he's contrasting angels who left their natural and rightful dwelling and practiced in sexual immorality.
And he contrasts the men of Sodom who practiced a sexual immorality that was unnatural to the angels who practiced something that was unnatural.
Now, there's a common objection that typically gets brought up in a passage like this, where the Sadducees were sad because they didn't believe in the resurrection, you see.
According to Raven, they were Sadducee.
That's why they were Sadducee.
Anyway, so the Sadducees approach Jesus and they're like, hey, this lady gets married, her husband dies.
According to law, she has to marry the next guy down in the family bloodline.
And she marries all seven of the brothers all the way down.
Whose wife is she in the resurrection?
And Jesus responds, hey, you foolish guys, like, don't you know that in the resurrection, there's neither giving marriage or giving in marriage will be like the angels?
So the argumentation in response to Jude and James or Jude in Genesis is that, hey, Jesus said there's no sexual intercourse.
That's not what it said, though.
It says that there's no marriage.
There's no kind of union like there is marriage here.
Wrestling with 1 Enoch Texts00:14:34
Now, I would suggest that Jesus is male.
Jesus is in heaven and he is male.
And it would be unnatural for Jesus to practice an act such as this, though he is still male in heaven.
And when we go to heaven, we will represent God, both male and female.
We're going to possess all of our natural organs, yet it would be unnatural for us to practice in such actions.
So I'd make the case that angels could at least potentially have.
Male anatomy.
I completely agree.
Let me add something to that real quick.
A couple things.
So, one, I'm glad you brought up the Jude text.
If you didn't, I was definitely wanted us to get there.
But one thing that's interesting is he's comparing in Jude chapter and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling place.
So, the first thing I would say with that, liking it to Jesus when they try to stump him with the woman who had seven husbands.
One, when Jesus says that people are neither given a marriage or in the state of marriage, covenant marriage in heaven.
Jesus, he's talking about in heaven.
That's right.
Where these angels left their proper dwelling place.
So they left heaven.
So that doesn't conflict with Jesus at all because what Jesus is doing, he's saying, this is the state of, what's obviously implied is Jesus is saying, this is the state of citizens in heaven who are submitted to the righteous rule of God.
That has no bearing on rebel angels who have left their proper dwelling place.
And then also, you know, Jude compares it just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which one thing that happened in Sodom and Gomorrah is that angels came and visited Lot, and the people of Sodom wanted to have sex with them.
That's right.
You know, which is kind of an uncanny coincidence, you know.
So, anyway.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And it says in Jude 7 that they likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desires.
So, Whenever he mentions fallen angels in verse six, and then he uses the word likewise, he's suggesting that fallen angels did commit sexual immorality.
In fact, I would say he's not suggesting it, he's saying it clearly.
And so, as weird as it is to us that apparently some kind of an angelic being can engage in intercourse with a human being, that actually is what the text directly says.
And it's what Genesis six also teaches if we can agree on what sons of God are.
That those are in fact angels.
So now that I think that we can do away with it, it's really weird and it can't happen.
Let me just speak to like practically how I think it could potentially happen.
I think, Joel, this is kind of what you're going for.
The very fact that Genesis 18 or 19, I can't remember which, but in the Sodom and Gomorrah story, that the men, if they actually carried through with their desire, you know, the angels end up blinding them and they, you know, they aren't able to have sex with the angels.
But they intend to.
And the suggestion of the text is that they would have.
And so, my point is, we have a scenario where sex with angels becomes a possibility.
And so it shouldn't stretch the mind too crazy.
And when you read the text itself, the angels look and act like human beings.
They're humanoid for sure.
Right.
So they're like angels that have taken on some kind of human body.
So, in my imagination of it, not that I imagine about it too much, but anyway.
In my estimation, we'll put it that way.
I'll use a different word.
In Genesis chapter six, these angels somehow inhabit, use the word humanoid, inhabit human bodies and sleep with human women.
But it mixes a seed, and then we'll see if that gets to Nephilim.
Well, see, I think there's a mediated position with Peter Gentry.
Peter Gentry would say, when he comes to this text, and we mentioned this in a show that we did recently, kind of preparing for this.
It says, and two for their wives.
Yeah.
And then in verse four, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward.
Now, he looked up the phrase and also afterward.
And every single time it was used in scripture, it means that it happened before and afterward.
So he was using this text to suggest that the Nephilim were a place marker, that those who lived in that day in Moses' time had a lot of mythology surrounding the Nephilim.
And hey, there's Nephilim down here.
In the days where they're about to inhabit Israel, where are these Nephilim coming from?
And he's saying, hey, look, these guys existed before the angels and afterward, is the way that Peter Gentry would argue.
Now, there are other scholars, such as Dr. Michael Heiser, who we've had on the show multiple times, and many others, who would go to extra biblical literature, such as the book of Enoch and other texts, to say, what would Jewish people have thought about Nephilim?
And in those texts, it seems as if the Nephilim are directly attributed to being.
Angel human hybrids.
Now, I don't know that I can say with the level of confidence that I can say the sons of God are angels.
But would you say they probably are?
I could say potentially.
I would say possibly.
I want to speak with a level of confidence.
I think the scripture does.
Yeah, I would go with probably.
I would agree with you that I don't think we can say definitively, based on Peter Gentry's argument, that hey, this comment, like the fact that it mentions sons of God, angelic beings sleeping with human daughters, that doesn't necessarily mean that the next verse about the Nephilim is trying to communicate that these are offspring of them.
It could just be communicating this is a time marker.
He has one other argument, and that's that this sentence doesn't start with and.
And that when that almost every sentence in the Hebrew Bible starts with and, and because this doesn't start with and, it must mean that he is writing a footnote to the head thought.
So those are his two thoughts suggesting that this is right.
So basically, he thinks the Nephilim are mighty warriors who were tall.
Yep.
Now, we can all agree that Nephilim were mighty warriors who were tall.
Yep.
Numbers tell us that, right?
Yeah.
In fact, the word Nephilim is used twice in the Bible, once in Genesis 6.
And I think you might have mentioned this verse, Jewel.
Numbers 13, 13.
Yeah.
And on those two occasions, the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint actually translates it as giants.
And so the reason I feel comfortable saying probably that the Nephilim probably were the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men is it seems as though the flow of the text is trying to drive us to the wickedness of man and the flood.
And it seems as though the flow of the text is you have this unholy union, you have the product of that unholy union, giants and Nephilim, and look at all the violence and craziness on the earth.
And you look at that throughout the scripture, and it looks really bad.
So that would be one argument for it.
I think the other argument, Second Temple literature, specifically 1st Enoch, is not canonical.
It is not entirely, it is not the word of God for us today, but it does inform us upon the worldview.
Just like I quoted and mentioned the Septuagint earlier, the fact that it was a translation into the Greek, it helps us that they translated it as giants.
It helps you know, okay, Jewish people thought of these as giants when they're trying to figure out what this word is.
That's their argument, for sure.
In the same way, when you quoted from Jude 5 through 8 or whatever it was, and it talked about these final fallen angels and held in gloomy dungeons for the day of judgment, that's exactly what the book of 1st Enoch says.
It says that these angels, Are being stored for the day of judgment.
It's my belief that Revelation 9 actually talks about their release and leading up to the judgment.
That's a whole other story.
But point being that if this helps us crawl into their worldview, that this is the way they interpreted it, this is the way the people who wrote scripture interpreted it.
And I think it makes a case for it.
So putting all of that together, I feel like we could say probably, but I still wouldn't say definitively.
Would you go 80%?
Yeah, 80%.
Joel, I don't want to interrupt you though, because I think you're right.
Let me hop in.
Yeah.
No, no, all that's really good.
So, one thing that I would say is I appreciate what you're saying, Michael, and I would be right there with you because this, I taught through Genesis about two or three years, two and a half years ago, I think, when I was still in California, and I taught this text.
And at the time, I held to the position that it was sons of God were the sons of Seth.
And as of now, I would hold.
To the position of the sons of God being fallen angels.
Is it because of what we just said?
It's because.
What's your opinion on here?
Well, no, no, I mean, like, just now, just now, did you change?
No, I came into this recording already with my mind changed.
But my point in saying that is because what you mentioned multiple times, Michael, that I think is just really good, just as almost like a pastoral moment, real quick, for our listeners, is yeah, there's weird stuff in the Bible.
And the reason why I held to the sons of Seth position two and a half years ago, I'm convinced, knowing my heart, is because it just sounded a lot more sane.
It sounded more.
Intelligent and credible.
And at the end of the day, I just, I want to believe what's true.
I want to believe what the Bible says.
It doesn't matter how it sounds.
And God, you know, and so I think this is a good position.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah, exactly.
We have talking donkeys.
Yeah.
So, like, so if I was talking with an unbeliever, they're going to think I'm crazy.
But you know what?
They think everything I believe is crazy.
We worship a crucified savior that we believe bodily rose from the dead, you know, and so that just can't be an inhibitor.
That can't be the guiding force for what Christians believe.
So the idea of fallen angels.
Now, if that contradicts scripture, then let's reject it wholeheartedly.
But we shouldn't reject anything because it sounds dumb.
That's just that motive in the heart of man that is the fear of man.
That's approval.
We want the approval of man.
And we need to recognize that as being sinful.
So, for any of our listeners right now who, you know, your view, even as you're listening to this, if your view in any way is being guided by what sounds not most possible, that's different than what sounds most acceptable.
In the minds of other people.
If that's your guiding, that's a hermeneutic, and that is an unbiblical, heretical hermeneutic.
That is a wrong way of reading Scripture.
That's reading Scripture in submission to man rather than reading Scripture in submission to God.
And so we want to fear God, not fear man.
So I just wanted to make that pastoral point, and then back to the conversation at hand.
So 2 Peter, because we use the Jude text, 2 Peter 2, verses 4 through 6, very similar, says, For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, But cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.
All right, and I'm going to pause right there, go back to Jude, Jude chapter, well, chapter one, the only chapter in Jude, but verse five and six says, I want to remind you, although we once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those who did not believe.
Verse six, here we are, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he is kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
So, verse, So, verse 6 of Jude and 2 Peter 2, verses 4 through 6, both of them talk about these gloomy dungeons and chains and these fallen angels, rebellious angels, being held prisoners until the day of judgment.
And so, my question is this if God cast these angels out of heaven into gloomy dungeons, it seems like there's got to be some kind of step in between.
How did they have sex with human women?
Because you know what I mean?
Both Jude and 2 Peter 2 talk about they were in heaven, they left their proper dwelling place, and they're being held prisoner.
Did they get out of prison, or did they fall from heaven and they were on earth?
God allowed them to be on the earth for a time until he locked them in gloomy dungeons.
What are you guys' thoughts on that?
Am I making sense?
Yeah, I think so.
So I've always understood it that they departed, they did their wicked deed.
And when you look at the book of Jude and it connects sexual immorality with their actual fall, so they left, they committed this wicked form of immorality, and as a result of that, God judged them.
I feel like it's been a while since I've read 1st Enoch.
I feel as though that is actually the sequence that it talks through it, but I can't quite remember.
Well, I think that's the sequence in the prior text we were just in.
You know, when we look at Jude.
Oh, you're going to go back to the Bible, huh?
Yeah, I mean, you know.
We could talk about Enoch all day if you want to.
Now, but see, like in Jude 5 and 5 through 7, see, I read 6 through 7, but if we back up, now I wanted to remind you that although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe, right?
So it's contrasting.
He saves these people out who had right faith, and then it destroyed these people who had wrong faith.
And then he tells these two other stories in addition to that of people who were.
Did not have faith and thus, because they did not have faith, were disobedient.
We angels left the right place, Sodom and Gomorrah, right?
These are both, this is a byproduct, and God is bringing judgment for what?
Fallen Angels and Heavenly Chains00:03:17
Sinful actions.
So again, this passage seems to imply that it's sinful actions that brings the judgment.
It's the sinful actions that places them in chains.
Why?
What caused them to leave their heavenly abode?
Well, they left their heavenly abode for these sexual actions.
That's how I always understood that.
That was unnatural.
And thus, after that, they were placed in chains.
So, Josh, you're saying, if I understand you right, you're saying that just like Israel.
There's a 40 year gap between their deliverance from bondage and slavery, and then their destruction of that original generation of Israelites who were delivered out of Egypt 40 years later because of their unbelief, their evil actions, and grumbling and complaining against God and against his prophet Moses.
They were ultimately caused to die out in the wilderness.
And yet, there's 40 years in between that they're wandering in the wilderness and they're able to commit those sinful acts.
And so, we would say these angels did commit the sinful act of.
Rebelling against God and whatever that looked like, and therefore were removed from heaven.
But perhaps the text, perhaps both Jude and 2 Peter 2, is saying that there's almost like two steps of sinful actions.
One step that gets them booted from heaven, and now they're on earth, just like the Israelites for 40 years out of Egypt, but not yet into Canaan.
They're in the wilderness wandering.
And so, too, these fallen angels perhaps they rebelled against God, booted from heaven, but then began.
To rebel against God further by trying to dilute the messianic line.
And God said, Oh, okay, not only are you kicked out of heaven, to you know, like, like where I think it's Revelation says, but woe to you, O earth, for the devil has come down to you.
And so, like, it's like the first progression is you rebel against God, you're out of heaven on the earth, and then you rebel against God further on the earth.
And so now it's almost like God saying, You're too dangerous.
I'm going to lock you in gloomy dungeons.
And there could have been this time period post heaven.
I'm curious if they're one in the same gloomy dungeons.
That could be the right answer, but I think it could also be one in the same.
Like, why did they leave heaven?
Would they leave heaven out of rebellion with Satan in Genesis 1?
Maybe.
Or maybe they have left progressively.
Maybe they have been progressively falling and rebelling.
There's no chronological order in which all of the angels had to all leave at the same time.
It could have been progressive.
You could have an angel in heaven who looks down and goes, That's a beautiful woman, and then was in a rightful place and then left his abode to commit that same sexual act.
Right.
Well, so like I'm thinking of like, I mean, to use a human example, David and Bathsheba starts.
He's up on top of his building, that place of pride, which is what it's the false teachers that Jude is trying to condemn here.
He's talking about pride and authority issues.
But David, in this place of pride, is up on top of the building, sees this woman.
So he has her taken, and then he sleeps with her.
Like, in a sense, that's all like part of the same rebellious fall that you could.
And then you want to put Uriah into that, too.
It's like this, it's kind of like a golf swing.
How do you break it down?
It's like the whole thing's a golf swing.
It's like you got a back swing, you got the ball strike.
I don't know.
I see it as all one that he's trying because his Sodom and Gomorrah connection seems to.
To strongly connect sexual immorality with abandoning authority.
The 120 Year Countdown to Flood00:15:01
So I would say that they were probably placed under chains when the earth was flooded.
Like it makes sense to me where it's like, hey, the women who practiced in these relationships with angels, they also committed sin.
When did God bring judgment?
When he flooded the earth.
It makes sense that when the human peoples were judged, that the angelic peoples were judged alongside them around the same time.
So that's just kind of the way I break it down.
But that's just, I mean, that's definitely possible.
One thing that I've read is, um, That they were put in chains in the ministry of Jesus.
That, you know, Jesus tells the parable of plundering the house, you must first go and bind the strong man.
And so that, you know, and kind of part of this goes into the post mill position that I would personally hold.
But the idea that, you know, that you're binding the strong man, Satan no longer able to deceive the nations, and that in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, that the strong man has been bound, that Satan is no longer able to deceive the nations.
At the same degree, in the same manner that he previously was able to do so.
And so, you know, I've heard some guys make the argument that they were roaming freely on the earth until ultimately were locked in gloomy dungeons by Jesus who bound the strong man.
But so, with that, so that gets to another question that we really need to get to, which is just if the Nephilim, how, so were the Nephilim in numbers?
Chapter 13, verses 32 through 33.
How did they survive a flood?
How did they survive a flood?
So, basically, the question is if only eight persons, we believe the scripture, we know eight persons made it through that flood Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives.
Now, we know that one of Noah's sons was cursed, but he wasn't a fallen angel.
He wasn't a son of God.
He was the literal biological son of Noah.
And so he was a bad man, but he wasn't a bad angel.
And And we're trusting that Noah, that God preserved his lineage, he and his wife, to where Noah was not a hybrid human fallen angel.
And neither was Noah's wife.
And therefore, neither were their three sons.
And we're believing the same for the three wives of the sons.
So, how did the Nephilim make it past the flood?
And maybe that gets to what you're saying, Josh this progression of angels.
Did angels fall again, perhaps, after the flood, rebel again?
And I kind of lean towards this were the spies in the days of Joshua and Caleb being the two good spies out of the 12, the other 10 Israelite spies who brought a bad report, were they just cowards?
Were they just, you know, modern evangelical Christians in America?
You know, like, were they, you know, like, did we, we saw, we saw the Nephilim, but they're really just like, you know, they were like 5'10 and just kind of got together.
Yeah, exactly.
Like they were maybe meatheads, you know, bodybuilding, you know, soldiers, but, but they weren't.
The Nephilim, and they just used that bringing a bad report because they were cowardly.
I kind of lean towards that.
So, number one, in Numbers chapter 13, verses 32 through 33, do we know whether or not the Israelite spies actually saw Nephilim?
Is there any certainty with that?
And then what that gets to with the larger question is did the Nephilim survive the flood?
And we know the giants did.
We know that David fought a giant.
That's right.
Goliath had a brother.
At the end of David's life, there were guys who killed giants with six fingers and snowy pigs.
Right, exactly.
So, yeah, but Anak and his lineage, and Goliath, I believe, is a part of that.
And Anak had four brothers.
Uh huh.
So it could be, you're right, it could.
It could be in Numbers 13 that these 10 spies who come back are cowards and that technically they didn't see Nephilim.
They saw dudes who were five foot 10 and standing on a platform and they didn't get a good look at something.
Platform shoes on.
Yeah.
So that could be.
I would probably lean against that.
But either way, I don't think it matters that much because, like we're saying, there were giants nonetheless.
Yeah.
Nonetheless.
So I think two theories that people throw out there.
And one of them you mentioned, Joel, and that is that angels have continued to fall.
And at various times, and maybe not all the time, maybe just like once again since the flood or twice, who knows?
But that basically it happened again.
Okay, so that's one theory, maybe the most popular.
Another one, certainly less common amongst evangelical scholars, conservative scholars, but some conservative scholars will still say this that the flood was more localized and the way they get around, like the whole, it was only eight people, or that.
Two things.
When it says, like, the whole world was flooded, they'll say, well, whole world's kind of a relative term to them.
You know, Paul says in Colossians 1, the gospel's been preached throughout the whole world.
He doesn't mean that literally the gospel's been preached in Mongolia, but it's kind of just like a general superlative term.
And then they'll say, well, and the Nephilim weren't humans.
So there were eight people that made it into the ark, but the Nephilim, Might have somehow survived.
They were standing on top.
It says the mountains were covered, but the Nephilim were on there too.
They were just on the top of the mountains.
And their platform shoes.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure the Babylonian flood myths or whatever talk about their giants surviving the flood.
Go ahead.
So, yeah, so I totally understand that.
I would lean against that view just because God promises never to flood the earth again, and we have floods all the time.
And so, one of the ways that we understand that God hasn't broken his covenant.
Is that it's not a global flood.
And so if it was a territorial flood, now it totally makes sense.
I understand what you're saying.
But if it's not my view, I would.
No, I know it's not yours.
You're just saying that is what some people believe.
And so I'm just stating for our listeners that would not be my view.
Not because, I mean, in terms of the word world, I'm a Calvinist.
So I'm totally down for interpreting the word world.
The world meaning every tribe, tongue, and language.
Without necessarily meaning each and every individual or the known world.
So, I don't have problems with those interpretations.
The problem that I would have is less of understanding the world in that context because the word world is used in multiple different ways.
I mean, just John in Johannine texts, he uses the word world in at least four different ways to describe the evil system under Satan's domain in order to talk about the cosmos, the physical creation, in order to talk about worldly people.
So, there's just all worldliness.
And so, I'm totally down for that.
But the biggest thing is.
We all three of us, we definitely believe that God doesn't break his promises.
And so, for me, I'm not an expert on flood history, but from the little bit that I've gathered, there have been some massive floods, you know, of massive areas.
And so, then it's like whatever God said he wasn't going to do, it seems like he's done again.
One real cool thing, though, with God hanging his bow in the sky, Revelation says that eventually he's going to take that bow back down, that it's a weapon.
So, God flooded the earth, destroyed everyone, and hung his bow, that it's weaponry.
It's.
It's war.
Yeah, it's war language.
And that God, you know, that Christ, when he returns, is going to take the bow back down and ride on that white horse.
And so I love that.
So it's like God has, in his common grace for a time, is bearing with long suffering, great patience, sin, but he's going to take that bow back down.
So, anyways, the last thing I was going to say with that is it also just seems to defeat the purpose because it seems like the main thing that God is doing in the flood is wiping out the Nephilim.
You know, so the idea that, you know what I mean?
So it just seems kind of, so even though I don't have.
A clear text to describe a progression of you know angels falling on Monday and then some more following later on Tuesday.
I, I, I that is easier for me to swallow because that doesn't seem to blatantly contradict anything in scripture, right?
Whereas the other view, um, I'd rather take an implicit view of this progressive fall of angels than take what seems to be an explicitly contradicting view of God didn't actually flood the whole world and and and the whole purpose of judging the world, he actually failed in because.
Some Nephilim were able to escape.
Basically, God was impotent in his attempt to judge.
And there's an additional option.
God judges, he gets it done.
There's one additional option to those as well is that the Nephilim in Genesis 6 are just a time marker, like Peter Gentry said.
So if it is, hey, these just happen to be giants who live on the earth, right?
Then you get around all the texts.
It's real easy.
Like, yeah, David fought a giant.
Donkey talk, too.
There's some weird stuff.
There's a real tall, mighty man of valor that kind of.
His theory doesn't explain.
Where giants came from, no, but he's just kind of cool with that.
He's like, Yeah, there were some giants, yeah.
I mean, we got some tall people walking around today that have got like some specific, yeah, yeah, That's if you assume that definition, right?
The Nephilim show up in Genesis 6, and clearly Moses, who's writing Genesis 6, knows who the Nephilim are and is writing commentary on the Nephilim, right?
But he doesn't give us a definition because we have extra biblical texts, we clearly know who the sons of God are.
The scriptures clearly identify them in the Old Testament.
We have commentary in the New Testament from apostolic writings, so we have confidence in who the Elohim are.
But the Nephilim, I think that there can be some wiggle room.
I think that we get to speak on them.
With the level of clarity that the scripture does, and saying, hey, they existed for sure, but we don't know how, where, or why.
Let me, I think, Josh, honestly, like, so we were joking earlier about like my view, you know, changing right now.
I actually think it is changing right now because I think you're making a really compelling argument.
So just reading, plain reading of the text, when man began to multiply, Genesis 6, man began to multiply on the face of the earth, face of the land, and daughters were born to them.
The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive.
All three of us are agreeing, sons of God means angels, it's fallen angels.
So, but I think maybe we just in our Western minds are just saying that these things, they have to correlate when maybe they don't.
So, like the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose.
So, we could say fallen angels, everything we've said, still holding, trying to pervert, stop the messianic line by deluding the seed of the woman.
That's verses one and two.
Then, verse three.
So, the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.
His days shall be 120 years.
Real quick, my view on that is not.
Well, Moses lived to be 120 years, and that's what this is talking about.
And Kenneth Copeland, he's going to be 120.
I don't believe that.
He makes that claim.
But what I do believe about verse 3 is that basically, my view is that these sons of God, fallen angels, came to the earth approximately 120 years before God sent the flood.
So that's my view.
And that lines up with other texts in Genesis.
For instance, it took about 100 years, we know from scripture, for Noah just even to build the ark.
And so it was a 120 year period of Noah, and Noah was a heralder, Noah was a preacher, right?
So he was a herald of righteousness.
And there's a sense in which Christ preached.
So that's now instead of 2 Peter 2, that's 1 Peter.
Christ preached to spirits in dungeons.
And so I don't believe in a descent to hell, but a descent when Jesus died to Hades, to Sheol, to the grave.
And so I don't believe that Christ himself, but I believe the spirit of Christ through Noah.
Was preaching for approximately 120 years, 100 of that during the building of the ark, to the wicked hybrid generation of fallen angels, sons of God, and women, preaching repentance.
They did not listen.
And so, verse 3 Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever.
So, because fallen angels were polluting the messianic line where the seed, the serpent crusher, was going to come, God said, All right, that's enough of that.
This is not going to go on forever.
120 years, not Each individual man's going to live for 120 years, or 120 years is going to be the cap of man's lifespan, but rather 120 years until I destroy everyone through the flood.
And then verse four, it says it almost seems like it's like changing subjects.
You know, it's like, all right, verse one through three, got that.
Now verse four, oh, also, by the way, the Nephilim were on the earth during those days, and also afterwards when the sons of God came into.
And so it could be like the Nephilim were on the earth in those days because they came from the sons of God.
Having sex with daughters of men and bore children to them.
And so we're just reading in verse four, we're reading, Nephilim are those children born by the daughters of man and sons of God.
Whereas it could very well be saying the Nephilim happened to be there too.
And so the Nephilim.
You're familiar with that passage in Genesis where he says the garden which was east of Eden.
So some people have postulated, okay, well then that means there was a city in Eden, that God made an entire city.
And then east of that, he built Adam and Eve.
So Adam and Eve aren't the father of all.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, settle down.
What if Moses was just saying, This is a geographical place that my readers are familiar with, and it was east of this place that my readers are familiar with.
Not that God had literally created a city and then created a temple with people in it.
What if he's just using this as a time marker or a space marker to inform his specific audience?
That's what Peter said.
I think for me, I just think that contextually, if this is all driving toward the flood and wickedness, like, why would he mention this random thing?
It just seems like a pointless footnote.
It doesn't do anything.
Whereas, if you start with in verse 2, the sons of God, they took the daughters of women as wives.
Two Reasons for the Great Deluge00:04:39
So they went into them.
So there's sexual intercourse in verse two.
And then in verse four, it's not only intercourse, but the bearing of children.
It seems to be a continuous flow of thought driving down to them bearing of children.
And so with the Nephilim listed right in the middle of that, it seems that the Nephilim would be those children.
Again, I'm not saying definitively, I'm just saying it seems.
Well, I'm with you, Michael.
I definitely think that makes sense.
And I probably, I feel like right now I'm kind of just torn like in the middle.
I think I can totally see that being it.
But I don't think the alternative view means that verse 4 would be random.
I see it as like verse 4 still has a ton of significance because it's saying all the more reason for the flood.
There are two reasons for the flood.
Whereas you're saying there's one reason, sons of God being fallen angels had sex with the daughters of men and produced the Nephilim, and we got to wipe that out.
Whereas you could say verse 4 is still significant with the other view saying there's two reasons there's the sons of God trying to disrupt the messianic line, the fallen angels, and there's The Nephilim, who are not necessarily the hybrid offspring of fallen angels and man, but they are men of renown.
They are giants, like Goliath and Anak.
And in this state where fallen angels are influencing people, giants, that much physical prowess and capacity with unchecked depravity, right?
That like heading towards from total depravity, heading outward manifestations towards utter depravity.
I would imagine giants could do a lot of damage, even more violence if you're 10 feet tall than someone who's 5'10.
Especially because, like, if you consider that they were all right, all right, there's a union between sons of God.
You can't tell his sarcasm voice.
I couldn't imagine that.
As soon as he said the word, yeah, I've known Michael for 13 years.
As soon as he said, yeah, I was like, okay, he's going to make fun of me on my show.
It took Josh like three or four months to figure it out.
And he's like, Like, what are you saying?
And then once he got it, now he can't unget it.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
All right.
Well, guys, that was awesome.
Let's go ahead and end this episode.
I expected you to talk trash back.
You were just like, no, no, no.
It's good.
Well, talking trash takes time because if I talk trash, then you're going to talk trash.
And then we're going to be here for 30 more minutes and everyone's going to be bored.
So, let's go ahead and land the plane.
I'm going to be the bigger man who doesn't talk trash, which ironically is me talking trash.
So, this is how I want to end it.
You guys, let our listeners know.
How they can follow you and how they can, you know, how can they keep up with you and what's some of the stuff you guys got in the pipeline?
And then our listeners, make sure every time you listen to Remnant Radio, come back and listen to me two times just to make sure that they're not screwing with your mind, getting some weird guests on that show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, guys, check us out, Remnant Radio, the Remnant Radio on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
YouTube's our biggest.
But yeah, check it all out.
YouTube is the place.
We're on podcasting platforms and everything else.
Like Joel said earlier, man, there are going to be people.
On our show, that you're going to disagree with because we interview everyone from across the spectrum Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals.
We disagree with.
Yeah.
Many of them we disagree with.
They're guys, probably one or two guys we've interviewed that we didn't even know were Orthodox.
And the reason we did the interview was to ask those kinds of essential Orthodox kinds of questions Jesus, the Son of God?
Is he divine?
Those kinds of things.
Man, I think it's a great place to kind of maybe break outside of the normal things you've been listening to and find out what other traditions have to say about a matter.
I mean, heck, I think the Lutheran tradition has a lot to add to the Christian faith.
And they've kind of been in their own corner of Protestantism for a very long time.
And I think that we could glean a lot from them.
Yeah.
And if you name like one of the well known Bible scholars or pastors, theologians from around the world, we have probably interviewed them.
And so we do interviews on Wednesday.
We do do a show on the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
And that's less interview, more just right now we're talking through various revivals.
You did an episode, we did an episode on the Brownsville revival.
And so, but we do it in a way that we're thinking critically.
I mean, you just heard us for whatever hour and a half or whatever this was.
We think biblically, theologically, exegetically, all the things.
And so we do have a Wednesday show on that.
We're starting a new one on church history, a new episode coming up soon.
But basically, it gives the spirit church history and then theology across the spectrum.
Cultivating Critical Biblical Discernment00:03:01
We'll do episodes on the atonement.
We'll do an atonement theory.
We'll do episodes on the new perspective of Paul and.
And then the biblical version of the old perspective of Paul.
There you go.
Right.
But so.
But we'll talk about all of it.
We'll talk about all of it.
And then.
And so it's just a helpful, like you said at the beginning of the show, Joel, it.
Uh, busts out of your theological echo chamber, helps you think in some new ways, uh, in a safe space that is orthodox.
Safe space, Joel loves that word.
Yeah, well, no, I appreciate what you guys have done.
Like, one of the things that Remnant Radio blessed me with was, um, apart from just Michael's you know long term friendship, but uh, you guys connected me.
Well, you didn't even mean to do this, he just kind of picked up on it, but through you guys, you connected me with Leighton Flowers, and oh, yeah, it was good not because I uh changed my view, um.
But it was good because I just, I remember talking to you, Michael, about it.
You know, like, Leighton picked up on an episode I did with you guys with Calvinism and he started critiquing it because, you know, he can only, you know, he's, you can only critique James White so many times, you know, and so Leighton needed to find someone else, you know, the show must go on, you know.
So anyway, so he found my episode that I did with you guys and started critiquing me, and then you guys let me do a response to him, and then that culminated in a debate.
And my point is just to say that I remember talking to you about it, Michael, you know, after the debate and debriefing with you, and You know, it was like I didn't change my views, but um, but I just realized man, it had been like five, six, seven years since I had really gotten in the ring and sparred with someone over total depravity, yeah.
Because, because I like the further you go, exactly the further you go in in in your life, in anything spiritual, theological, in anything your your career path, the further you go, the more you get toward people who are like you, specialized, exactly.
And the less you interact with, you know, so like I, you know, like there are just certain things that used to be regular.
I was always having these conversations because I was first coming into a view, which means all the relationships in my life, my family, my friends, everybody were still in my old view.
And I'm coming out of that view into a new view, like Calvinism.
And I'm having to defend this change in me to all of my friends.
And so I'm being, but what about this?
And what about this?
And the problem of evil?
And, you know, what about free will?
And, and, and I remember when that was just like every day, I was living and breathing those kinds of.
Conversations.
It was an argument every single day about free will and an argument every single day.
And it wasn't just because I was a cage Calvinist and arrogant.
Part of it is just the practical relational context of coming out of one view where you've been surrounded with all those friends into another view.
But then the point is, you come into this new view, and if you stick with it and you go down that path, yes, you're growing, yes, you're learning.
But one thing that you're losing is opposition.
Growing in Faith Through Opposition00:01:21
And so it is helpful, I think, ministries like yours.
I think people need discernment.
And I think you guys help as kind of You know, like bowling with bumpers, you know, keeping people from falling into like just straight up heretical gutter.
But so you guys help in the way that you host your show, protecting your listeners from just completely unorthodox views.
But I think the listener still needs to exercise a lot of biblical discernment.
But one of the benefits is that there could be some confusion.
Yeah, there could be some confusion.
You know for sure what orthodoxy is.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah.
But one of the benefits, my point is to say, one of the benefits is that a lot of times we don't spar and we get flabby and we get soft.
And that's been helpful for me.
So.
Anyways, thanks you guys for coming on the show.
I appreciate it.
Hey, man, it's always an honor.
I enjoyed being on, man.
Yeah, thank you for your ministry.
We appreciate what you're doing.
As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.
To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.comslash offer.
We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?
If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource.
As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.comslash offer.