Demonic Invasion
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2019 · 17 March 2019
This is a brief passage but there are a number of interpretations of this particular passage. Genesis 6:1-4, “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.” Now we're talking about a period of time in Genesis before the Flood. We have witnessed the progress of human civilization in Genesis 4 and 5.
So why does God inspire Moses, the writer of the five books of Moses, to record this? What is the significance of this? Now as we read this text there is a phrase that appears in verse 2, “the sons of God.” And it is mentioned again in verse 4. So who are the sons of God? I am convinced that these are demons and I will show you later the proof in the New Testament.
We know that according to Revelation 12 when Satan fell, he took with him a third of the holy angels. Satan’s rebellion is described in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. And we read about the serpent in the Garden in Genesis 3. We're not surprised that demons show up in human society. We are the inhabitants of the material world. Angels, both holy and fallen, are the inhabitants of the spiritual world.
These supernatural creations of God were made to serve and worship God. And they were present when God made the universe as described in Job 38:7. At some time soon after that initial creation there was a devastating rebellion among the angels and it resulted in a third of them being thrown out of heaven. The leader of the rebellion was the worship leader of heaven, Lucifer.
He was likely the highest angel, the worship leader of heaven itself. And he is cast out of heaven along with the other demons. He comes down to earth and shows up in the garden in the form of a serpent. Apparently he could come in to an animal form and in that form he tempts Eve. Eve falls and then Adam and the whole human race also falls, and is now subject to corruption and death.
The Old Testament and the New Testament indicate the role of demons as they show their deceptions and lies, primarily through false religions. We also know from the Bible that Satan is active in the world in human society at all levels. The activity of Satan and his demons are seen both in the Old Testament and New Testament texts. In Judges 9, 1 Samuel 16, 18, 19 they are described as unclean spirits.
When you come to the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and Jesus Christ arrives, demons increased their activity such that there is an explosion of demonic activity that takes place during the life of Christ. Jesus is consistently, continuously confronted with demon powers. When we get into the epistles of the New Testament, the operation of demons in the world is explained to us.
Here in this particular text is the first demon invasion recorded for us into human life. Here are the sons of God, coming down taking wives of the daughters of men and that is the first description of a mass demonic invasion. This text is designed to demonstrate how wicked man has become. It has become so bad that they are no longer redeemable in the eyes of God.
And this caused God's judgment in the universal Flood by which God drowned the entire world with the exception of eight people, Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives, as Scripture tells us. So what we are learning in the first seven verses of Genesis 6 is why God drowned the world after 1656 years of civilization. Here comes the judgment of God and only eight people survived.
Now what causes God to destroy all humanity? Mankind had become so sinful that they had engaged themselves in demonic relationships. Not only did they not seek God, but they pursued demons. And that is what we find in these opening four verses in Genesis 6. At first we see is divine blessing in verses 1-2, “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.” Marriage is the best gift that God can give. It is the most satisfying, the most fulfilling and the most productive. But even though mankind can procreate by God's grace and goodness, it does not guarantee a future, because all of them drowned in the Flood.
So in this time we also see demonic corruption. Verse 2 says, "The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they took wives for themselves whomever they chose.” And here is one of the wicked ways in which they corrupted that early society. Whatever this is, it's not a marriage. We see the contrast between creatures of God (sons of God) and creatures of men (daughters of men).
Sons of God can't be sons of men. Nor can sons of God refer to righteous men or to some righteous line of men since there is no such thing as a righteous line of men. And never are men in the Old Testament ever designated as sons of God. The oldest interpretation of this passage, the traditional Jewish one, the view of the church fathers is that the sons of God refers to demons, fallen angels.
Why do they say that? Because every time you have an Old Testament reference to sons of God, it refers to angels. Job 1: 6 says, "There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came among them." So that's Satan in the midst of the demons coming before the throne of God. Job 2:1, "There was a day when the sons of God, came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan was among them.”
In Job 38:7, the holy angels are also called sons of God. And that means that they are the direct creation of God. And so in the Old Testament that term, sons of God, is reserved for those who are not the product of a human union, but are the creation of God. They are called also “mighty ones” in Psalm 29:1. In Psalm 89:6 you have a similar indication, “sons of the mighty”, describing angelic beings.
But what is unusual here is that these sons of God, these fallen angels who exist in their own realm saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they took wives for themselves whomever they chose. Now you have the perversity here of these spiritual demons overstepping the boundaries of their realm. They defy God by leaving their spirit world and crossing over into the human realm.
We have seen them do that where Satan entered the realm of animals and showed up in a snake in the Garden. Now these demons are motivated because they saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. Wicked spirits attracted to female creatures, wicked perverted demons able even to appreciate the beauty that God has placed in women in some perverse and twisted way.
This refers not to rape because the word in the Hebrew "to take a wife" describes a marital transaction. There are at least six, maybe seven times in Genesis when this word is used to refer to the actual transaction of marriage. The question then comes, how can this be? How can a spiritual being, a demon marry a woman? How can they chose a wife and have a legal ceremony?
Only one way, they have to take on the body of a man. In Genesis 18 and 19 you will find that angels appear to Abraham. And they appear as men. And later on you will find Jacob wrestling with an angel in a physical form of a man and the effort is so great that he gets permanently wounded by it. And in Hebrews 13 we are reminded that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Because for us to see an angel, they always appear in a male form according to Matthew 22:30. There's no way to explain how that is. But we know that holy angels occasionally appeared in human form specifically when Jesus arose from the dead. We also know that demons can enter human bodies that have not been filled with the Holy Spirit. That civilization has gotten so corrupt that demons did indeed do that.
Notice verse 3, "The Lord said, My Spirit will not always strive with man because he is indeed flesh," and verse 4, "The sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore to them and they were mighty men and they were men of renown." Everything indicates that these children born of this union were human. So here are children born of these unions and the children are in fact just ordinary persons.
This would be a demon-dominated union and a demon-dominated family. And in verse 3 when the Lord says, "My Spirit shall not always strive with men," God says, "I am not going to continue to allow men to do this." The wickedness of society in the pre-Flood era is so great that you have people actually soliciting demon control and demons will eagerly comply. Their goal is to make mankind most evil.
Now the question is, why did they want to do this? Do you remember what Satan said, if you do what I tell you, you won't die and you will be like God. This is the original satanic lie. Now by the time you get into these 1600 or so years, the sentence of death is well known because Adam is still alive. And it's not any different today. Join the Mormon Church and they tell you that you will become a god.
In Genesis 6, along comes the enemy and says, "Hey, do not trust God. In fact, not only will Satan give you eternal life, but he will make you like God." So people embraced the demon lies. Satan never sells his system by saying this is a straight line to damnation. It's always the promise of eternal life of being something greater than you are. If you follow the spirits you are able to circumvent judgment, death and become like God.
This judgment is really delineated in Genesis because as soon as the Flood comes, everybody drowns, except Noah and his family. Pretty soon the world population grows again, right? You come to Genesis 11, and guess what? Have you heard of the Tower of Babel? What is that? Mankind is trying to build a tower to heaven. So here comes the first form of false religion to literally build your own way to heaven.
God steps in and this time He doesn't drown them all, He scatters them all, and changes all their languages. From the Babylonian mystery religions that come out of the Tower of Babel and gets spread around the world, to include the fertility rites of paganism to the celestial sex. But let me now give you proof from the New Testament that the sons of God were really fallen angels.
1 Peter 3:18-20, “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.”
So the picture here is Christ after He died. Notice verse 18 says, "He was put to death in the flesh." He was dead physically, but He was alive in the Spirit. Because He is that eternal Spirit who is God eternal. Verse 19, "In which He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.” These are the disobedient spirits who exceeded the limits God had set for them in the days of Noah in Genesis 6.
Again in 2 Peter 2:4-5, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” And He says in verse 1, "Swift destruction is going to come on them."
So 2 Peter 2:4-5 connects the judgment of angels sent to pits of darkness to Noah. One other verse, Jude 1:6, “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.” So again there are these angels who are judged by being put in eternal chains awaiting the judgment.
So we have a demonic invasion. Verse 3 is divine response, “Then the Lord said, My Spirit shall not abide in man forever.” This is the judgment of God, He has been waiting over 1500 years, since there are only 120 years left, and His patience reached His limit. And Noah, the New Testament says, was a preacher of righteousness. For 120 years Noah built a boat and preached to men. And for 120 years God was kept waiting.
Then finally, there isn't any patience anymore and judgment comes. Sadly Noah didn't have any converts, just his kids. Then verse 4, described depraved humanity, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” They were all just humans.
Satan can't change you into anything other than what you are. Satan can't give you immortal blessings. Satan cannot deliver you from the penalty of death. All you are is flesh. And all that is flesh is mortal and God's judgment will fall on all. So the sad saga of human life after the Fall is that the whole human race was corrupt. And God then grieves that He ever made man. Let us pray.