Expanding Corruption and Sovereign Grace
Genesis 6:1-8
Romans 5:20 (ESV) Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
Audience: Remember, Moses is instructing a people about to inherit a land filled with cult prostitution in which fathers would dedicate their daughters to the priests of these demonic religions in the belief that the priests and other god-like men would procreate with them producing demi-gods and ensuring their familial fertility as well as good crops.
This demonic activity had its source before the flood in the demonic assault on what is good in effort to destroy it and God’s kingdom.
Moses wants his people to know the source and the consequences.
Our purpose is not different. We need to see the source of our conflict and it’s intended destruction and consequences and lean heavy on God’s sovereign grace to rescue and heal.
Exposition: What does it say? What does it mean?
Marriages and their children are demonized in lusty passion rather than godliness 6:1-3
NOTE:If we believe that God the Creator “could unite himself to human nature in the virgin’s womb will not find this story intrinsically beyond belief.”[1]
- Who are the “sons of God”?
Options for Interpretation:
- Sons of Seth married the Daughters of Cain
- Angels
- Human judges or rulers
Others have taken a combination of the angel and human views in which the human despots are demoniacs possessed (demonized is a more biblical concept)[2]by fallen angels.[3]
- Fallen angels / demons are sexless and do not marry Luke 20:34-36
- Fallen angels / demons have a craving for human bodies Mark 5:11-13; Luke 8:31-33; Luke 11:24-26
- Fallen angels / demons seek to destroy the work of God Mark 9:18; Luke 9:39
- Demonized men who have fully given in to the Satanic counter kingdom and are agents of Satan to destroy goodness and holiness in mankind and the hinder the creation mandate. “Sons of God” – Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Job 38:6-7; Daniel 3:25 all refer to angelic beings.
Notice the parallel between Eve in Genesis 3:6 and the actions of the “sons of God”.
- Saw…Delight to the eyes/Attractive…Took
- This is the work of Satan to destroy the marriage union God himself created.
Violence is idolized. 6:4
- Note the crass nature of the demonized unions: “sons of God came into the daughters of men”.
- This demonic reduction of marriage to sexual exploits has lasting consequences.
- The children of these demonic unions are called “Nephilim” or fallen ones. “Giants” is a translation of the Greek translation of the OT in connection to Numbers 13:33.
What the fearful spies are doing in Numbers 13:33 is using Moses’ language applied to the descendants of Anak as justification for their refusal to go in and take the land.
- The Nephilim are children who are “mighty men of renown” and described in 6:11-13 as them filling the earth with violence.
- This violence is what makes them the heroes of the day. They revel in their brutality.
God is going to put an end to rebellion, but God will be patient. 6:3
God is just, and God is graciously good.
God is setting the table for the Cross! God is going to punish my sin in Christ Jesus, and be patient to send the message to all nations, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14).
He is going to punish sin, but he is going to make a way for salvation through patience.
“…Some interpret the 120 years as a period of grace before the flood, a kind of “lull before the storm.” Jewish tradition understood the 120 years as opportunity for repentance (cf. Tg. Onq.;Pirke Aboth5:2; cf. 1 Pet 3:20). [4]
- God is being patient and kind in giving 120 years for people to repent.
- God will send a prophet and preacher, Noah to tell the world about God’s favor to
rescue from coming judgment.
- Jesus Christ himself was preaching through Noah.
1 Peter 3:18-20 (ESV) 8 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 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.
- Mankind can never stand before God and say he was not patient or they didn’t know.
Sin has fully ruined image bearers, and God is grieved over mankind’s corruption. 6:5-7
Notice the distinction in God seeing and mankind seeing.
- Man “sees” and lusts for sin.
- God “sees” and is grieved over sin.
THINGS SOUND BAD, BUT NOTE: History has never been better and it has never been worse.It’s the same rebellion.
The world and mankind have been broken since the fall.
By God’s common and restraining grace, he has kept humanity from going fully off the rails unitl he brings final judgment on the last day.
We only get news of terrible things faster these days. It’s not worse. We just hear about it instantly.
2 Timothy 3:1-9 is not describing a worse time, but the nature of the difficulty of the time as the kingdom of darkness fights against the kingdom of light. In fact, Paul draws on the example of Jannes and Jambres opposing Moses to illustrate what it will continue to be like for us. Like then like now.
Sovereign grace is a light in the darkness. 6:8
God will invade the dark kingdom with the light of sovereign grace.
God gives us a glimpse in Noah of what he is going to do for us.
Noah’s favor with God is not based on his righteousness. Noah’s righteousness comes in verse 9.
- Noah is first the object of God’s grace before there is any righteous behavior.
- Noah is part of the crew in verses 5-7.
- Ephesians 2:8-9
What do we do?
- Recognize the demonic schemes to pervert through off the chain sexuality what God has given as good in marriage.
- Recognize the source of the perversion of sexual attraction and lusty sexual appetites as demonic and fueling much of what is shoved into our view.
- Recognize the continual onslaught of violence and brutality and mankind’s lust for it as demonic in nature.
- Recognize that man is captive to the curse apart from the gospel and naturally follows the way of his evil heart.
- Revel in and preach sovereign grace as God’s solution to the evil heart.
What God is going to do in the Ark to judge sin and rescue his people is what Jesus is going to accomplish on the cross.
- As redeemed followers of Jesus, push back graciously yet aggressively against what spoils God’s order from the solid foundation of sovereign grace.
- Worship!
[1]Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 141.
[2]Parenthesis mine.
[3]K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 325.
Tg. Onq.Targum Onkelos, ed. B. Grossfield
[4]K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 335.
Theology in the Dirt 