Loved ones, we arrive now at one of the most mysterious and debated passages in all of Holy Scripture. The opening verses of Genesis 6 read like the introduction to a fantasy epic: “sons of God,” “daughters of man,” and the dreaded “Nephilim”—giants and mighty men of renown. For centuries, imaginations have run wild here. Ancient Jewish apocryphal books and many modern sensationalists have interpreted this as a cosmic horror story where fallen angels descended to have sexual relations with human women, spawning a race of mutant demigods.
But as we have committed to doing throughout this series, we must resist the urge to read the Bible as mythology. We must read it as theology. We must let the context of the preceding chapters guide us. When we anchor ourselves in the text we have just walked through—the “Tale of Two Cities” in chapters 4 and 5—we discover that the tragedy of Genesis 6 is not about angels acting like men, but about the people of God acting like the world. It is the story of the collapse of the spiritual wall between the church and the culture, leading to the near-total corruption of the human race.
Genesis 6:1-8 details the catastrophic moral decline of humanity resulting from the intermarriage of the godly line of Seth and the worldly line of Cain, demonstrating that spiritual compromise inevitably leads to total depravity and necessitates the severe mercy of divine judgment.
Verses 1-4
The Compromise of the Covenant Line
6:1 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.
Who are these “sons of God”? While the book of Job uses this phrase to refer to angels, the immediate context of Genesis forces you to look closer to home. You have just spent two chapters tracing two distinct lineages: the line of Cain (the “daughters of man,” defined by worldly beauty, polygamy, and violence) and the line of Seth (the “sons of God,” defined by calling on the name of the Lord).
Here, the principle of context is your greatest hermeneutical tool. Moses, the author, is not introducing a new cast of supernatural characters out of nowhere. He is showing you the collision of the two lines he just meticulously traced. The “sons of God” are the Sethites—the visible church of the antediluvian world. The “daughters of man” are the Cainites.
The tragedy, then, is one of unequal yoking. The godly line “saw” that the women of the world were “attractive” (a superficial judgment based on sight, not faith) and “took as their wives any they chose.” This mirrors the sin of Eve, who “saw” the fruit was good and took it. It mirrors the polygamy of the Cainite Lamech (“wives,” plural). The distinction between the holy and the profane collapsed. The church married the world, and in doing so, became the world.
The Nephilim: Tyrants, Not Demigods
This union produced the “Nephilim.” The word comes from the Hebrew verb naphal, meaning “to fall” or “to fall upon.” These were not half-angelic monsters; they were “fallen ones,” or perhaps more accurately, “those who fall upon others”—tyrants, bullies, and warriors. They were “mighty men… men of renown.”
Remember the values of the Cainite city: power, weaponry, and the “Song of the Sword.” When the sons of Seth intermarried with this culture, they didn’t lift the Cainites up to godliness; they were dragged down into Cainite violence. They adopted the cultural values of the world. They raised sons who were not humble worshippers like Seth, but famous warriors like Lamech. They sought “renown” (literally “a name”) for themselves, rejecting the God whose name they were supposed to call upon.
Verses 5-7
The Depth of Human Depravity
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. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So 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.”
The result of this compromise was total moral rot. Verse 5 is perhaps the most devastating diagnosis of the human condition in all of Scripture. It asserts the doctrine of Total Depravity in absolute terms. Look at the comprehensive language: every intention, of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil, continually. The intermarriage of the godly and ungodly did not produce a middle ground; it produced a hell on earth. The restraining influence of the Spirit was lifted, and humanity plummeted into the abyss.
God’s response is described in deeply emotional terms: He “regretted” making man and was “grieved to his heart.” This is not a theological contradiction regarding God’s unchangeableness. It is anthropopathism—Scripture speaking of God’s feelings in human terms so we can understand the depth of His offense. God is not stoic; He hates sin. He is personally offended by the ruin of His image-bearers. The judgment He pronounces is severe: a “blotting out,” a de-creation. The water that was separated in Genesis 1 will be allowed to crash back together, washing away the stain of human violence.
Verse 8
But Noah…
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
The passage ends with one of the greatest adversative conjunctions in the Bible: “But…” Against the dark backdrop of universal wickedness and impending judgment, one light flickers. Noah found “favor” (Hebrew chen, meaning grace) in the eyes of the Lord.
Do not misread this. It does not say “Noah was so righteous that he earned God’s favor.” That would contradict the diagnosis of verse 5. Rather, Noah found grace. He was a recipient of God’s unmerited favor. In a world where the line of Seth had almost entirely capitulated to the line of Cain, God preserved a remnant. He kept one man and his family from being swallowed by the spirit of the age.
Conclusion
Genesis 6 is a sober warning to the church in every age. The greatest danger we face is not persecution from the world, but seduction by it. When the “sons of God” begin to crave the “daughters of man”—when the church covets the power, the aesthetics, and the approval of the culture—we do not save the culture; we lose ourselves. We produce “Nephilim”—impressive ministries and men of renown that are devoid of the Spirit of God.
Yet, even here, God’s purpose stands. He will not let the line of promise fail. He draws a line in the sand, or rather, in the rising waters. He preserves Noah, not because Noah is the savior, but because Noah carries the seed of the Savior. Judgment is coming, yes, but in the favor shown to Noah, we see the first timbers of an ark that points us to Jesus Christ, the only refuge from the wrath to come.
Key Terms & Concepts
- The Sethite View: The interpretation of Genesis 6 that identifies the “sons of God” as the godly lineage of Seth and the “daughters of man” as the ungodly lineage of Cain. This view emphasizes the danger of spiritual compromise and unequal yoking over against supernatural or angelic interpretations.
- Total Depravity: The doctrine that the Fall has affected every part of human nature—mind, will, and emotions. As Genesis 6:5 illustrates (“every intention… only evil continually”), man is unable to save himself or please God apart from divine grace.
- Nephilim: From the Hebrew naphal (“to fall” or “fall upon”). In this context, they are best understood not as mythical demigods, but as the “mighty men” and tyrants produced by the union of the godly and ungodly lines—men who sought glory and power through violence rather than submission to God.
- Anthropopathism: A literary device where human emotions (like regret, grief, or repentance) are ascribed to God to communicate His relational posture toward human events, without denying His essential immutability (unchangeableness) or perfection.
- Grace (Chen): The unmerited favor of God. Noah is the first person in the Bible explicitly said to have found “grace.” This establishes that salvation, from the very beginning, has always been a gift of God, not a reward for human perfection.
The word of the almighty God, how I love it so. His word is the Truth that always was and shall be, that points us to Jesus Christ Lord and Savior.