FigLeafe

From across this grey land...

(Dead but dreaming)

Notes on the Nephilim: The Giants of Old  - Part 3

THE SPIRITS IN PRISON

However, there are reasons for rejecting this interpretation in favour of the angelic or supernatural view, and it these we now come. The first reason is linguistic. That is, so far as the biblical use of the phrase "the sons of God" is concerned, there is every reason to it as referring to angels.

This has been denied by the side, of course. Keil and Delitzsch maintain that the angel view is "not warranted by the usages of the language" and is "altogether unscriptural." (3) But what is the evidence? The phrase "sons of God" (bene elohim) is used only three other times in the Testament, as indicated earlier-in Job 1:6; 2:1; and 38:7. In each case it clearly means spirit beings, twice those fallen spirits who accompanied Satan in his periodic appearances before the Lord in heaven. This is so clear that the translators of the New International Version drop the longer phrase entirely and simply substitute the word angels: "One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came with them." (Job 1:6; cf. also 2:1). A similar form of this phrase (bar elohim used in Daniel 3:25 of the fourth figure Nebuchadnezzar saw when he looked into the burning furnace into which Daniel's three friends had been thrown. In this case it probably refers to a fallen angel or even a theophany, but the actual identity of the being involved is not given. Nebuchadnezzar merely says, "The fourth looks like a son of the gods."

An objection to this view says that the phrase "sons of God" is used in the New Testament of all believers, hence men and women, as opposed to angels or demons, and that it appears in Luke 3:38 specifically of Adam. But this actually proves the point. For what is it that distinguishes Adam (but not Eve), believers in the New Testament period (but not necessarily believers in the Old Testament period) and angels from all other beings in the universe? The answer is that each is directly created by God. Adam clearly was. So were the angels. Believers are termed "sons of God" because they are born of God directly by His Spirit (cf. John 3:3-8).

The second reason why the angel view of Genesis 6 should be preferred is that this was the view of the translators of the Septuagint, who rendered "sons of God" as "angels," and of other Jewish writers prior to the time of Christ. The key book is 1 Enoch. It is available to us through an Ethiopic text of which only three manuscripts survive. Yet in spite of this paucity of manuscripts it was probably "the most important pseudepigraph [a work written in the name of someone other than the actual author] of the first two centuries B.C.--the judgment of R. H. Charles. (4)

Enoch writes, "And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.'They were in all two hundred[They] took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments.... And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells.... And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways" (chs. 6-8). The book continues by showing the judgment of God against the fallen angels, in which they are bound up in prison in "the uttermost depths" of the earth.

First Enoch is not a biblical book, of course. Its interpretation of Genesis 6 is not inspired. It could be wrong in many places and undoubtedly is. Nevertheless, it is significant for our interpretation of the text because it was apparently known by Peter and Jude who, in their oblique references to the same subject, seem to put their stamp of approval on it, at least in this matter.

Several studies ago, when we looked at Enoch and his preaching to the ungodly of his age, we quoted Jude 14, 15: "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: 'See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him."' We did not mention it at the time because it was not pertinent then, but these words are actually from 1 Enoch. The phrase "seventh from Adam" is found in 1 Enoch 60:8. The prophecy itself, containing the fourfold repetition of the word "ungodly," is found in 1:9. Since Jude clearly has Enoch in view in verses 14 and 15, how can he not also have Enoch in view in verse 6, just eight and nine verses earlier, when he says that "the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home" have been judged and "kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day"

When we carry our inquiry to 2 Peter we find the same situation. To begin with, 2 Peter and Jude are closely related in that most of 2 Peter 2 is paralleled in Jude, and there are parallels in the other two chapters. This causes us to think that Peter, like Jude, was probably also aware of the angel interpretation. Again, Peter uses language similar to Jude's in referring to the angels who sinned. He speaks of God's judging the angels by "putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for [final] judgment" and of God's judging the people by flood.

We are moving in the same realm in 1 Peter, where Peter writes, "Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built" (1 Peter 3:18-20). This text adds the idea of a special ministry of Christ to these fallen angels during His descent to hell between the times of His death and resurrection. It does not mean that He offered the gospel to them; that would suggest that after death there is a "second chance" for salvation--a doctrine repudiated elsewhere (Heb. 9:27; 2 Cor. 6:2). It is rather that Christ proclaimed His victory over sin and the devil to the demons. Peter refers to this event to encourage believers in their witness before this world's magistrates. (5)