Post by Michael James Stone on Jun 8, 2012 7:11:20 GMT -8
Today’s Featured Article
Add Not – Nor Diminish Ought - - Ron Graham - twotug@embarqmail.com
“The languages are the sheath in which the sword of the Spirit is contained.” -Martin Luther. In regards to the importance of understanding Greek and Hebrew when studying the Scriptures, Martin Luther said it perfectly. An essential component in understanding God’s Word is first and foremost to realize that it was His choice to have His word originally written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament).
In many cases our English translations of the original languages do a disservice to God’s inerrant word. Understanding Hebrew and Greek is neither impossible nor difficult, but crucial when it comes to digging deeper into God’s word. Simply reading someone else’s explanation of what the Bible says, or the various English translations of the scriptures, is insufficient. When we find verses that seem confusing, most of the time a simple search of the Hebrew or the Greek dispels our confusion.
Many of my brethren are confused by the description of events of Genesis chapter 6. Some fall for any explanation of this chapter other than what God had made clear when read in the Hebrew. Many change the word of God so that the “sons of God” are seen as sons of Seth, and the “daughters of Adam” are changed to read as the daughters of Cain. This view is commonly referred to as the Sethite view. This erroneous interpretation is not only a corruption of the original Hebrew language but also a huge distortion of the truth, and cannot be supported even when using the English translated Scriptures.
“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it…” Deuteronomy 4:2a. Words must be added to the text to come away with the Sethite view. What does God tell us will happen to those who add to His inerrant Word? “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” Proverbs 30:5-6. Another word for reprove is judge. Those who blatantly change God’s word to fit their own “warm fuzzy” feelings, or to adhere to their own likes and dislikes, will be judged for their actions. God makes it clear that adding to or taking away from his word is a huge mistake.
Malevolent fallen angels are capable of mischief far beyond what the human mind can conjure up, and this is the only scripturally supported definition of the “sons of God” in context. Just because we can’t understand how something can happen or how it did happen in the past is no reason to reject the truth. Who, in this big world of human intelligence, can actually grasp how God created the universe? “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. It’s interesting that this verse stands firm in the minds of many Christians as true. It is impossible for mere humans to comprehend the depth of what God said He did. Yet, they will completely change what God had Moses write just six chapters later, simply because the truth doesn’t fit with their preconceived notions of what is plausible and what is myth.
In the Hebrew, the phrase “sons of God” is “Ben Elohiym”. The Hebrew word “Ben” means son and everyone seems to be fine with that particular Hebrew word. But the Hebrew word “Elohiym”, which is a plural masculine noun, is emphatic, and speaks of our Triune God. It’s the same Hebrew word which is used to refer to God in the very first verse of Genesis. Those who attempt to translate “Ben Elohiym” into “sons of Seth” in effect are stating that Seth is a Triune God, which is a complete corruption of the Hebrew word Elohiym. God does not share His Throne with Seth.
Men are not gods. Nor are men the sons of God. We are all descendents (sons) of Adam who was the only human directly created by God. The only place in the Bible where we humans are ever considered sons of God (children of God) is when we become born again, born from above, from God by accepting His free gift of salvation, which is Jesus His Son. But God did create each individual angel; and there are no references to female angels in God’s word. They are all “sons of God”.
“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” Jude 1:6. As those who reject the truth of Genesis 6 venture into the book of Jude, another question that should arise is why did God place the angels that sinned into everlasting chains? Then He transported them to a place far removed from humanity and left them there for a future judgment? What was the crime/sin that these angels participated in that would raise God’s ire to such a point that He would condemn them for all eternity? Why would God place in His word a very significant event concerning some of His angels who had sinned (an apparent great sin) then exclude the explanation of what that sin consisted of? He didn’t. He gave us a plain explanation back in Genesis chapter 6.
The book of Jude describes a particular group of angels who didn’t keep their first estate, who left their own habitation. There are two Greek words that are extremely important to understanding what these angels had done. The first Greek word “archē” is translated into English as “first estate”. The word actually means origin, or beginning. So we see that the angels did not keep their place of origin, which was Heaven. Then the next important Greek word we must examine is “habitation” from the Greek “oikētērion”. To get an idea of what this word refers to we must take a look at something Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians. “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:” 2 Corinthians 5:2. Paul uses the same Greek word “oikētērion” when he mentions “house”. We, the children of God, earnestly desire to be clothed with our new bodies (house). The fallen angels disrobed from the bodies (oikētērion) that God had originally provided them, but why?
These angels left the natural habitation that God had given them and permanently transformed themselves into something else, something very different than that which God had intended. We know from the scriptures that God gave angels great power and intellect, including the ability to change from angelic form into human form. When the godly angels referred to in our Bibles appear to men, they always resemble men. Why did some of the angels, when they joined Satan in rebellion, leave their first estate (archē/place of origin) then cast off their habitation “oikētērion” (the original bodies God gave them)? There is only one place in scripture to seek that answer; the book of Genesis chapter 6.
Peter also speaks of the punishment of these angels. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;” 2 Peter 2:4. This seemingly harsh course which our God took concerning the angels that sinned must be confusing to those who don’t believe angels are capable of doing what God says they did in Genesis chapter 6. When we so blatantly refuse to believe God’s word, or change His word into something more desirable, in essence we are calling our Creator and Saviour a liar.
When Satan rebelled against God one third of the angels of God also rebelled. Was this a sin? Yes, but it was not the sin that put this particular group of fallen angels into Hell. If it was, Satan (the epitome of evil) would also be in Hell. But as the Bible teaches Satan is not bound in Hell until the end when Jesus comes back and puts an end to the war of Armageddon. To this day Satan is still roaming earth, devouring souls.
God gave the angels a free will just as He did mankind. The angels that rebelled made their choice just as humans make their choice to stand with or against their Creator. These angels were no longer permitted to experience the Heavenly realm of God, but their end is not destined to come until the end of the millennial reign of our King Jesus. So why did God “cast them down to hell” (the word Hell used here is from the Greek word “Tartarus” which means the deepest abyss of Hell)? They must have been responsible for some great evil, so great and horrible that God judged them with an everlasting judgment. The Bible gives us no other description of their sins other than what the “sons of God” (angels) did in the pre-flood days of Noah.
“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:4. The Hebrew word for daughters is “bat”; the Hebrew word for men is “Adam”. Trying to build a case for the “daughters of Cain” from that verse is foolishness, as those who seek to do so must first substitute “Cain” for the Hebrew word “Adam”. Thus they’ve just rewritten God’s Holy word, which is prohibited.
In order to procreate with human women these angels had to become men. That change of habitation (oikētērion) did not diminish their power as angels; it only gave them the means to procreate. They had only one purpose – to destroy the seed of man forever. To accomplish this they had to corrupt the genome of man so it was no longer fully human. By doing so there could be no redeemer, no Messiah could come from such a corruption. To become our Kinsmen Redeemer Jesus had to be a perfect man, which means He could have no DNA corruption in His family tree.
If you believe the Sethite view of Genesis 6 then answer me this, how did your “sons of Seth” (normal human men) and your “daughters of Cain” (normal human women) produce a breed of fierce giants aka Nephilim? The Hebrew is clear that this unholy union produced giants. Skeletons of immense size have been unearthed in every country on earth, many measure over 20 feet tall. The Hebrew words used in Genesis chapter 6 plainly describe huge powerful beings (giants). These mighty men are referred to in the Hebrew as “gibbowr”, which doesn’t just mean they were mighty men but that they were the mightiest, the strongest the world had ever known, and that they were giants. Then according to the Hebrew word translated into English as “renown” they were not simply renowned as we understand the word today; the word implies they had an unholy reputation which brought fear to all men the land over.
Our loving Father in Heaven was so incensed at what He saw occurring on earth that He judged the world. According to Genesis 6:3 that judgment was delayed for 120 years to allow for a change of mind (repentance) by the human population. That change of mind never materialized. Except for Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives God saw no redeemable qualities in the remainder of earth’s population. How is that? Was it simply because the sons of Seth married the daughters of Cain? At which point God’s judgment became swift and final? Was it the sin of marrying outside of the family that provoked His ire? Or was it something that had become so horribly bizarre and contrary to God’s creation that He was left with no alternative but to destroy them all?
Since we know from the scriptures that there was no prohibition for marrying between the various families at that particular time we can rule out any contrived sin associated with such an occurrence. We then must broach the question: why would God destroy a few billion people for doing exactly what we read He told them to do just a few chapters earlier? “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:” Genesis 1:28. There must have been something far more sinister going on than simply marrying outside one’s family.
Whenever God’s people, Israel, (and even Gentile nations) were steeped in sin God always gave them opportunity to change their minds and come out of the sins they were engulfed in. He never simply judges without a warning. No matter where we read in our Bibles, before God’s mighty hand of judgment falls people are given a choice to follow Him or to follow Satan. There is never any other choice. God was as patient with the antediluvian world as He is with us today. There is coming a time when God will run out of patience. The hammer of His perfect justice will come down on a world that is living as if there is no God. Mankind will be going about their lives ignoring God’s signs of a coming judgment, oblivious to anything but their own continued existence.
“But as the days of Noe [Noah] were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matthew 24:37-39. The simple fact of the matter is there was not just an ignorance of what was going on in those days, but that world had become fully desensitized to all the supernatural wickedness. What became the norm to that antediluvian world is similarly and presently occurring today. What was once considered grotesque and filthy is commonplace in today’s society. The desensitization of our current civilization is almost complete.
The pervasive wickedness became so bad in Noah’s day that God had to destroy everything…humans and animals. Why? If it was because Seth’s sons were marrying Cain’s daughters, why did the animals also need to be destroyed? What did the animals have to do with Seth’s sons marrying Cain’s daughters? “And the LORD said I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.” Genesis 6:7.
Noah and his family did not have mixed up genes, and when they entered the Ark they were saved from that evil. They were still fully human and not crossed with angels or animals. God’s protection from the flood gave them a security blanket for a while. Today this same mixing of the genes is happening. Scientists are crossing human and animal cells and growing ungodly creatures in Petri dishes.
There are herds of sheep in Nevada that have human organs that will be used for transplanting lungs, livers, etc. There are cows that give human milk. A herd of goats in Wyoming has been mixed with spider DNA and the spider silk in the goat’s milk is so strong that they are making bulletproof vests and artificial skin with it. If you so desire, a Google search will reveal these abominations, and many more.
So, is anybody upset about this? Most Christians are as ignorant of all these human genome experiments as the next guy. Christians too are going about their lives eating, drinking, and marrying, while ignoring the truth of the Bible, even though the signs are glaringly obvious. Today we are witnessing the prelude to the return of the very same monsters and perversions that permeated the earth during Noah’s day.
Is God simply turning a blind eye to the tampering and outright corruption being performed to create human/animal hybrids? If He didn’t approve of the horrible beasts created by the procreation of angels with human women in Noah’s day and showed His disapproval by destroying them all with a flood, why do we think these abominations will go unnoticed by God today? Believe God’s word, Genesis chapter 6 speaks of the most horrible invasion the earth has ever seen. The very same kind of invasion is coming again, some of it is already here “as in the days of Noah so shall also the coming of the Son of man be”.
God bless you all,
Ron Graham
All original scripture is “theopneustos” God breathed
