The Book of Genesis

Honest Note on a Debated Passage

Who are "the sons of God"? Faithful believers have long held different views on this difficult passage, and we believe it is best to state them honestly.

One view, commonly held among Apostolic Pentecostal teachers, understands the phrase in the flow of Genesis 4 and 5. According to this view, the "sons of God" are the godly line of Seth, the people who began to "call upon the name of the LORD" (Genesis 4:26), while the "daughters of men" represent the ungodly line. As the godly line abandoned spiritual separation and chose wives based only on outward beauty, "of all which they chose," the distinction between the godly and the ungodly became increasingly blurred, contributing to the widespread corruption that soon filled the earth.

Another ancient interpretation, found in some Second Temple Jewish writings and adopted by many early Christian writers, understands the "sons of God" to be angelic beings (as the phrase is used in Job 1:6) who rebelled against God and took human wives. Those who reject this interpretation point to Jesus' statement that the angels in heaven "neither marry, nor are given in marriage" (Matthew 22:30), arguing that such unions are inconsistent with the nature of angels.

The Hebrew word Nephilim, traditionally translated "giants" in the KJV, has been understood in different ways throughout history, and its precise meaning remains debated. Genesis associates them with the "mighty men which were of old, men of renown" (Genesis 6:4), emphasizing the extraordinary and violent character of that generation.

Whichever interpretation one adopts concerning the identity of the "sons of God," the central message of the passage is clear: humanity abandoned God's order, wickedness spread throughout the earth, violence filled society, and God's righteous judgment followed.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Verse 3 records God's response: "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." God's Spirit had been striving with humanity, contending, warning, and calling people to repentance. The flood did not come upon a world God had left without witness.

Many interpreters understand the "hundred and twenty years" as the period of God's patience before the flood, during which Noah built the ark and, as Peter later calls him, "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5). Others understand it as a limitation God placed on human lifespan after the flood. Either way, the point is unmistakable: God's patience has an appointed limit. He delays judgment to extend mercy, but His warnings will not continue forever.

Gospel Focus

Two abiding lessons stand out. First, God's people lose their distinctiveness when they abandon God's order and compromise with the world. If the Sethite interpretation is correct, the godly line that had called upon the name of the LORD forsook spiritual separation by choosing wives according to outward appearance rather than godly character. Even if one holds another interpretation, the chapter unmistakably shows that the boundary between righteousness and wickedness collapsed, corruption spread throughout society, and violence filled the earth. Scripture therefore consistently calls God's people to spiritual separation and instructs believers to marry "only in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:39; 2 Corinthians 6:14).

Second, the Spirit's striving has a limit. God is longsuffering, "not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9), yet the day of grace is not endless. "To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 3:15). Noah's generation received years of warning before judgment came. God's patience is great, but it should never be mistaken for indifference. His mercy invites repentance, yet His judgment will come upon all who refuse His call.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Verse 5 is the deepest diagnosis of sin in the Old Testament. The wickedness was "great in the earth," outward and visible, but God saw further: "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Every imagination; only evil; continually. Sin is not a surface stain but a spring polluted at the source, the heart. Verses 6 and 7 give heaven's response: grief, and a sentence of destruction on man and the creatures of his world. Then verse 8, one of the great "buts" of the Bible: "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." The flood narrative does not begin with Noah's goodness; it begins with God's grace.

Gospel Focus

Genesis 6:5 is why the gospel must be more than moral advice. If every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is evil, then what man needs is not improvement but a new heart, exactly what God promised, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" (Ezekiel 36:26), and what the new birth of water and Spirit accomplishes (John 3:5; Titus 3:5). And the order of verse 8 is the order of all salvation: grace found Noah before Noah built anything. "By grace are ye saved through faith... not of works" (Ephesians 2:8-9). The man who found grace then worked for a hundred years, but the work flowed from the grace, never the grace from the work. So it remains: God's favor comes first, and obedient faith answers it.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Verses 9 and 10 introduce the new toledot, the account of Noah, with a three-fold portrait: just before God, blameless before men, and walking with God daily. Verse 11 and 12 paint the backdrop twice over: "corrupt... corrupt... corrupted," and "filled with violence." When God "looked upon the earth," He found all flesh had ruined its own way. One family's lamp burned in that darkness. Righteousness in Scripture is never proved by easy surroundings; Noah was blameless "in his generations," precisely where blamelessness cost the most.

Gospel Focus

Hebrews tells us the spring of Noah's righteousness: "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house," and so "became heir of the righteousness which is by faith" (Hebrews 11:7). His righteousness was of faith, evidenced by obedience, the only kind of righteousness the Bible knows. And his life answers a question every believer asks: can anyone live godly in a wholly ungodly age? Noah did, and Peter says God is still able to "deliver the godly out of temptations" while reserving the unjust for judgment (2 Peter 2:9). What was possible for Noah in his generation is possible in every generation: by walking with God, a believer can live in the midst of a corrupt world and not be carried along by it.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Verse 13 states the sentence plainly to Noah; God does not hide His purposes from the man who walks with Him (compare Amos 3:7). Verses 14 through 16 give the plan. The ark, Hebrew tevah, is a chest or box, a vessel built not to sail anywhere but to float and preserve. Its dimensions are shipyard-practical: three hundred cubits by fifty by thirty, roughly 450 feet long, 75 wide, and 45 high with an eighteen-inch cubit, proportions remarkably like those of modern cargo vessels, with a window course near the roof, three stories (decks), rooms ("nests") within, and pitch sealing it inside and out. This is not mythology's magic boat; it is a real design for a real rescue. And note one detail with a long shadow: "the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof," one door, and only one, into safety.

Gospel Focus

The ark is the Bible's first great picture of salvation in Christ. One vessel, prepared by God's own design, carried through judgment all who entered; everything outside it perished. One door stood in its side, and Jesus says, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved" (John 10:9). The pitch (kopher) that sealed it shares its root with the great word for atonement covering, kaphar; the vessel of rescue was covered within and without. Peter completes the picture for the church: in the ark "eight souls were saved by water," and "the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us" (1 Peter 3:20-21); a "like figure" is the old way of saying a matching picture, a counterpart. The waters that judged the old world floated the ark and carried God's people into a new one, as baptism buries the old life and raises us to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). God still saves the way He saved then: by grace, through faith, in the one vessel He Himself has provided.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Verse 17 declares the means of judgment, and God takes personal responsibility: "I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth." The flood is no accident of nature but the act of the Judge of all the earth. Verse 18 sets the "but" of covenant grace against it: Noah and his household, eight persons, will go into the ark. Verses 19 through 21 widen the rescue to the creatures: two of every sort, male and female, with fowls, cattle, and creeping things "after their kind" coming to Noah, and food stored for all. God's mercy in judgment reaches even the animals He made. Then verse 22, one of the finest obituaries of faith in the Bible: "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he." No editing of the plan, no partial obedience, no delay. For roughly a century, against all appearances, in the face of a mocking world, Noah simply did all that God said.

Gospel Focus

Grace found Noah; the covenant secured him; and obedience carried him into the ark. Scripture holds these together without embarrassment, and so must we. Peter calls Noah "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5); for a hundred and twenty years the half-built ark itself was a sermon, and "the longsuffering of God waited" (1 Peter 3:20) while he preached. Jesus made those days a mirror of the last: "as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew 24:37-39), people eating, drinking, and marrying, unaware until the flood came. The application writes itself: God has again announced judgment, again provided one vessel of safety, and again stretched out a season of longsuffering. The wise answer is Noah's answer: according to all that God has commanded, so do, and enter in before the door is shut.