Divine Rebellions

This is another great sermon by Dr. Michael Heiser, on the Unseen Realms.  Read with enjoyment.

If you ask the average Christian, ‘Why is the world so depraved?’  They’ll say, ‘It was the Fall in Genesis 3.’ But if you asked the first century Jews the same question, you would get ‘There are three reasons.  The first was the Fall, because the sin of Adam and Eve was the entrance of rebellion into God’s good Creation, which broke mankind from close fellowship with God; and death for all of us arose because of it (Romans 5:12).  The second was the rebellion in Genesis 6:1-4 with the sons of God; and the third reason was what happened at Babel.’  Our question for study is, How did these other two sources of depravity factor in, and why did their consideration disappear in current theology? 

The first source of depravity was the Fall.  Dr. Heiser’s sermon portion on that issue will not be summarized here.  By excluding it, I am definitely not saying it is a lesser cause for depravity.  The reason for my exclusion is, he talks about the serpent, about the Garden of Eden, and many others, as metaphors.  A bit of Origen here, for the astute.  He’s saying that it might not have been a snake, it might not have been Eden.  Those terms have mystical, broader meanings instead.  My problem with this is, you’re moving away from a strict interpretation of Scripture, which I don’t want to see happen.  Keep in mind, we don’t know the appearance of the snake before it was cursed, and for all we know a snake could talk (elsewhere in Scripture a donkey talked, so anything’s possible in our supernatural world).  And, we don’t know the appearance of the Garden. I am certainly not suggesting Dr. Heiser is spreading lies; I am not demeaning his Christian spirit.  He is extremely knowledgeable on Scripture and he opened up new ways to look at verses that cleared up their meanings; and what he says makes sense.  My blog last week proves that. 

So let’s move on to his second reason for the causes of depravity in the world. We’ll start with Genesis 6:1-5, per ESV:

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. ³ Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” ⁴ 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. ⁵ 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.

This was a supernatural event.  Unfortunately the real explanation of these verses is ignored or demythologized today.  Most churches will never preach a sermon on what really happened.  Even the commentaries usually fail us, typically explaining that it’s not supernatural. The sons of God, or they would say, godly sons of Seth, cohabited with pagan daughters of men, thus compromising the witness of God.  But there is no Scriptural proof for any of that.  (How is it that the women are all pagan?  And, why would humans bring forth aberrant children who grew up giants (Nephilim) who became ‘renowned’?)

In reality, this Genesis 6 episode, in its real meaning, is of huge importance. For one thing, its story is continued in New Testament writing.  For another, it explains much of why depravity proliferates just before the Flood, as verse 5 above imply. 

What really happened was, ‘sons of God’ were fallen angels (see last week’s blog), who crossed the forbidden boundary of heaven and earth, and cohabited with women on earth. This merger of immortal fallen angels, and mortal women, produced aberrant children called Nephilim—they were tall, huge, and powerful; so they were rock gods of the age.  But coming from fallen angels, they were wicked and violent. They were brilliant, but they taught the men and women of the time how we can destroy ourselves, as we shall prove—and mankind took to it gleefully, and evil behavior spread much faster and farther than before. (I have another blog on ‘altered DNA’ on this subject too).

For those who don’t believe this strange story, it gets confirmed in II Peter 2:4-6a:

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; ⁵ and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; ⁶ and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes…

Note the chronology of extremely gross sin here:  first, angels who sinned, then people are so evil that God wipes them out with Noah and the flood, then the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah.  It so happens that the sons of God are early in Genesis 6, Noah is in chapters 6-9a, and Sodom and Gomorrah are in chapter 19.  The same chronological order, as you can see in the ascending chapter numbers.  But if you acknowledge my assertion that they speak of the same events, you have to accept that the ‘sons of God’ are the same as the ‘angels who sinned.’

Jude 6-7 confirms this idea again:

 And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; ⁷ as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

With the double reference of ‘chains under darkness,’ these Jude verses cover the same event as II Peter.  And notice the great sin of the fallen angels—they did not keep their proper domain (heaven), but ‘left their own abode’—i.e., came to earth.  Sodom and Gomorrah is mentioned again, to emphasize the sexual problem of ‘going after strange flesh’ (in their case, homosexuality).  The fallen angels also went after strange flesh (human women). Keep in mind that angels become men several times elsewhere in Scripture, so the concept that fallen angels would do this is not impossible. 

The wicked Nephilim helped to proliferate sin in man by teaching men (1) skills and technologies for warfare—how to make swords and knives and spears; (2) about plants and herbs to intoxicate themselves—drugs, in other words, to produce altered states; (3) about astrology (not astronomy), which in effect made them turn into idolatry—worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, trying to control their future; and (4) arts of seduction which led to sexual immorality.  The result of all this was broken homes, bloodshed, worship of demons, some of that through altered consciousness.  These were all horrors, all accelerating men’s skill in destroying themselves as individuals and as society. This was the proliferation of sin that left God frustrated enough to declare an end to mankind in Genesis 6:5. 

The third major reason for man’s depravity was the tower of Babel. Genesis 11:1-9:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. ² And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. ³ And they said to one another…“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” ⁵ And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. ⁶ And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” ⁸ So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. ⁹ Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth

To understand the significance of this, it’s necessary to get a backstory. It starts with Deuteronomy 32:1b, 4b-6, 8-9, ESV:

…hear, O earth, the words of my mouth…

4…A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.
⁵ They have dealt corruptly with him;
    they are no longer his children because they are blemished;
    they are a crooked and twisted generation. ⁶ Do you thus repay the Lord,
    you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you…
    ⁸ When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
    when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples, according to the number of the sons of God ⁹ But the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

Note:  In case your version translates v. 8 differently, keep this in mind:  the Dead Sea Scrolls proves that the correct phrase in v. 8 is “sons of God;” it even uses the word Elohim (see last week’s blog).  It’s not sons of Israel (which wasn’t even a nation yet!), nor sons of Adam, as other translations say.

What happened was, after the flood, God urged these 8 survivors (Noah’s family) to multiply over the face of the earth, as He had said to Adam and Eve at Eden (Genesis 1:28: 'And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over... )  After the flood, they again multiplied, as Genesis 10 shows; but instead of dispersing over the earth, as God wanted, they rebelled, refused to disperse, congregated in Babel (Genesis 11:4) and decided to build a tower to make themselves a great name. God probably thought, “This is the opposite of what I commanded.  I want a human family, I want the Edenic mandate to be fulfilled. I love you, I want the best for your lives, so please obey my commands, and you’ll get your best life. And your response?  ‘No, we’d like to build a tower.’  Unacceptable.”  (The reader needs to know that the tower was a ziggurat, built to offer sacrifice and barter with God. It was tall so they could bring their god to them to fulfill their desires. Unacceptable again, since our God did not work that way.)  So God probably thought, ‘You refuse to be loyal to me, so you want another god; so I will give you what you really want:  a divorce’ (Deuteronomy 32:5).  I will disinherit you. I’m still going to disperse you, divide you up (Deut. 32:8), and assign to each of your nations one of the sons of God (Deut. 32:8). These fallen angels, these demons who wish to be worshipped as gods, can be your new rulers.  You can be under their corrupt command, since you want to worship other gods. Let’s put you under their thumb.’ This is the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 1:18-25, wherein God “gave (humankind) over” to their persistent rebellion.  God thought, ‘Hopefully you will change your mind about Me leading you. I’m hoping you will flee to Me.’

But God still wanted a loyal, witness nation, a society who loves Him, to show what His leadership could do to bless a loyal nation.  He had His eyes on one man of great faith and godliness, Abram, and his wife Sarai (their grandson was Jacob, in Deut.32:9).  They became renamed Abraham and Sarah, but they couldn’t have kids, they were too old--so they were perfect to start a godly nation with.  You say, how is that?  Because God wanted them to see His power and love when He performs a miracle and they have a child together. Then they will teach of His power and love to their children. God then hoped they would continue a loyal family descending from that.  And every nation around them will hear of this power of God, too.  Besides the Biblical proof I’ve bolded and alluded to in Deuteronomy, why do I think this was the order of God’s thinking?  Because right after God’s language curse, Babel began dispersing people (as God wanted in the first place) in Genesis 11, and immediately God covenants with Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 to form a nation!  Here it is:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country (Note: Ur) and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

“All the families” meant God was thinking of the lineage of Abram eventually going through David, then eventually to Jesus, Christ the Redeemer. (Galatians 3:16).

The chosen nation Israel was supposed to finally be Yahweh’s family, starting from the godly Abraham.  They’re even called a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6).  Since a priest is a mediator between God and men, Israel was, through its godliness and witness, supposed to be a mediator between Yahweh and all the nations.  A witness having a testimony.

The sons of God that were to rule over the other nations, of course, failed God’s command to be just—they were corrupt (Psalm 82:2-7—from last week).  Their people were blind about our God; so now they were lost in the ugly power of sin in their lives.

There was a solution, beautifully hinted in Psalm 82:8, where God gives hope through all our failures—through His Son, Jesus:

Arise, O God, judge the earth;
    for you shall inherit all the nations!

The word for ‘arise’ is the same as the word for ‘resurrection.’  Sin’s death cannot defeat us, if we turn in faith to Jesus, who showed us that resurrection will defeat sin and have a new life in heaven when we die. 

I hope you’ve appreciated these nuggets from Scripture from Dr. Heiser, as much as I have.