Sunday, October 1, 2017

MEN OR ANGELS?


By Gilbert Lillo


Sometimes verses can be found in Holy writ which may admit 2 and even 3 interpretations, but only one is true. Knowing which one is the good one requires a spirit of revelation that we ought to ask to God before opening our Bibles. I have had for years this peculiar problem concerning one passage and that is Gn. VI: 1, 2 which says: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose”.
The first time I came through this passage I conclude straight forward that these sons of God were angels because verse 4 points out that those women’s offspring were giants, mighty men; men of renown from ancient times. (In Hebrew they call them: Nephilim). As a matter of fact, the half gods of Greek and Roman mythology came to my mind at once, and I remembered all the fables about heroes like Hercules who were the seed of such strange love affairs between the gods and some women. Actually there is sometimes a little bit of truth in mythology; for instance, Vulcan was for the Romans the god of forge, and his name comes from Lamech’ son: Tubal-Cain who was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron (Gn. IV: 22) ... Therefore my first reaction was to consider that the sons of God in Gn. VI: 2 were angels as it may be interpreted in the light of Job I: 6 et II: 1. This interpretation was not something very original because it was a classical rabbinical interpretation in past times. Moreover it has become classical again in some Protestant fundamentalist circles. Nevertheless 20 years later I came to the knowledge of the other interpretation that can be also defended linguistically. Actually this the most common interpretation which holds that the sons of God in Gn. VI: 2 are men from the seed of Seth. Those men took women from the seed of Cain. Of course herein is the problem that nothing in the context points to Cainite women. Thus according to this interpretation, believers became unequally yoked together with unbelievers (2Co. VI: 14). I have even learnt recently a finer interpretation of this sort, proposed by rabbis of the second century, which says that the sons of God would be a royal seed from Lamech who gathered harems. This last interpretation best explains the phrase “of all which they chose”. Let us also point out that in that time kings were judges as well, and they were called gods and children of the Most High in Ps. 82: 6... Anyhow both interpretations agree that the sons of God were men, whether it be classical in traditional Protestantism, or rabbinical during the second century, whether it be the seed of Seth, or the seed of Lamech!
The fact is that I forsook my first interpretation, and henceforth I held that the sons of God in Gn. VI: 2 were mere human beings. Of course this interpretation is more acceptable, more reasonable than the other because our Lord told us that angels do not marry, they do not have sexual intercourse in heaven as Muslims and Mormons do believe… We are all aware that marriage between angels and women is something unnatural. Wherefore I held firmly for 20 years the belief that the sons of God were men, not angels. It is actually a comfortable stance which does not imply neither mystery nor going after strange flesh on the behalf of angels. Nevertheless I changed my mind 2 weeks ago, and came back to my first assumption! I was told once that only idiots never change their minds, and as a defence for my case I may point out that even a great Bible commentator: our brother A.W. Pink changed his mind twice on a more important issue; an eschatological issue. As a matter of fact, he started his ministry as a good Premillennialist teacher, then he became an Amillennialist, and few months before going to heaven in 1952, he was on the way back to Premillennialism. We can take it for granted that the rebirth of the nation of Israel in 1948 was the turning point for such a surprising change of mind in so brilliant a Bible teacher…
As for me, the turning point was not neither an amazing event, nor the appearance of any angel, but a passage in Holy Writ that worked as a detonator for another passage which in continuance blew up my former assurance about men being sons of God in Gn. VI:2! “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 P. I: 20), we have to follow the Holy Spirit comparing spiritual things with spiritual (1 Co. II:13), i.e. Scripture with Scripture. The main passage confirming my first stance is Jud. 6 and 7. There we read:

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; just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which LIKEWISE indulged in sexual immorality and pursued UNNATURAL desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire”. (English Standard Version).

Now we must repeat what we have said already in order to drive the matter home: it seems obvious to all of us that it is utterly unnatural that angels would have sexual intercourse with women, for the simple fact that they do not have sex; they do not procreate in their original estate. Such a strange desire goes against their own nature which is spiritual, and moreover would require a physical, a flesh and blood body, to fulfil it. But actually this exactly what Jude said: they did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling! Bear in mind also that fallen angels are engaged in a relentless and furious rebellion against God. The only satisfaction that remains for them is to gainsay whatever God declared; the goal their commander (Satan) sets before them is to destroy the divine order in creation so as to establish his reign of darkness and confusion. Now someone will ask: Is it possible for an angel to take upon him a human nature? Does not Gn. I repeat 10 times that every living thing must bring forth “after his kind?” Of course we freely admit devilish possessions, that demons can enter into people, but this is not the case we are dealing with; we are talking about angels’ incarnations, not demons’ possessions.
The answer about this strange fact is in the Bible, and it is crystal clear; yea the angels can incarnate as human beings for a while. Take for instance Gn. XVIII: 2 where we see Abraham receiving 3 men. Yet these 3 men are not common men for one is Jehovah himself; theologians call this kind of divine incarnation a theophany… As for the 2 other men; these are angels, and there is no word in angelology for this phenomenon… We must point out that Abraham did not have a vision of 3 men but a real meeting with 3 men; men of flesh and bones who drank water, washed their feet, sat under the tree, and took a meal that Sarah cooked for them (v4 and 5). Afterward the 2 angels went to Sodom where they spent the whole night at Lot’s where “he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat” again (Gn. XIX: 3)! At dawn they grabbed Lot, his wife and their 2 daughters by the hands and compelled them to leave hurriedly that wicked city. Thus there is no doubt that these angels had taken upon them the nature of men because they ate, they drank, they grabbed, they walked, they sat and nobody saw them as angels but as common men. Yet we must press upon our reader that all angels are by nature “ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Hb. I: 14) and that our Lord Jesus when he rose from the dead ate before the disciples in order to ascertain them that he was not a spirit, i.e. an angel: Lk. XXIV: 37 to 43. Moreover this is not the only passage in the Bible where we see incarnated angels. Jacob fought all night long with a man, and we are told after that he was the Angel of Jehovah (Gn. XXXII: 22 to 30). Joshua too met a man « when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand”, and this man was actually the Angel of Jehovah (Josh. VI: 2)! We could also quote Gideon, Manoah, but let us go to the NT, and herein are found 3 women who “entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted” (Mk. XVI: 5). But that young man turned out to be an angel according to Luke’s and John’s gospels!
Holy Writ does not give us much information about angels, but we know that they are spirits who can appear in divers manners such as celestial beings with wings, and even as men, but never as women. In the sight of Gn. XVIII and XIX we can assume that they can abide in a human body for 15 or 18 hours, because when the 2 angels appeared to Abraham it was about midday (XVIII: 1), and when they disappeared it was the next day at dawn (XIX: 15). When they take upon them the body of men, they can eat, drink, fight and do whatever a man can do, therefore it is not a great thing if they can also copulate, and thereby loose their own position of authority, and their proper dwelling as Jude tells us!
Man on the earth dwells in an earthy tabernacle; his soul and spirit abide in flesh and bones body. Angels in heaven have spiritual tabernacles, and their spirits dwell in bodies of light. Even the wicked scientists of the CERN in France have recently discovered with their collider that there is a kind of particle made of sheer light which could be the origin of matter… But we have a much better testimony which is infallible, so we read in 1 Co. XV: 40 : “There are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another”. Therefore it is obvious that when an angel takes upon him for few hours the body of a man and copulates with a woman, he becomes one flesh with her, and thereby loses his dignity of celestial creature.  He left his proper dwelling in an infamous way going after strange flesh. Those angels who committed such abomination (before the flood) received a swift condemnation, and henceforth were kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day, i.e. they were cast into hell. Mark well reader that it is written: “He has kept them” not “He will keep them”. (I have consulted various good translations in 4 different languages and they always use a past tense). Now we all know that Satan and his demons walk freely on the earth (Job II: 7) seeking someone to devour. As said John “we know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1Jn. V: 19, ESV). Thanks be to God that Satan has limits he cannot pass, but the fact is that he usually has his minions in all the keys positions in the earthy governments; he is the ruler of this world. Wherefore it is obvious that God has not kept him yet in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. It shall happen during the Millennium, and not before (Rev. XX: 1, 2, 3)! Till now he is busy keeping his dominion upon earth and in the air wherefore he is also called the prince of the power of the air. So we can assume that Jude 6 deals with a peculiar sort of angels who are already kept in hell until judgment day. These fallen angels must needs be the sons of God of Gn. VI: 2. The evidence whereof is that today there is no offspring of theirs; we see no Nephilim around, neither do we hear about Hercules ‘heroic deeds on the front page of the newspapers! We just hear about some Hercules aircraft carriers on mission in certain countries… And we still use the adjective “herculean”, but that is all that remains from that era of the half gods. As a matter of fact, the whole human race pure and genetically transformed by angels perished at the days of the great flood. Only 8 persons, (Noah and his family) survived, and they were all 100% human offspring. Hence we are all the seed of those 8 persons. But someone will say: “Seeing that angels can take a real human form, why would demons not commit this abomination again? Why do they not take women today?” The answer is easy: they are afraid to do this again because they know that God certainly would cast them into hell at once, and they would be kept in eternal chains until Judgment day.
Now we can compare the incarnation of angels to scuba diving. Man since the 20th century can enjoy sea life like a fish. He can seek pearls, harpoon fishes, or just go for a dive to see the beauties of coral reefs. Nevertheless he must return to the surface as soon as his oxygen tanks are empty. Man is not made for living under water, and although he can spend one or 2 hours with the fishes of the sea, his dwelling place is on the earth because he is an earthy creature. Angels likewise can enjoy for a while the reality of earthy life in a human body, but their nature is celestial wherefore they must return to their dwelling place which is heaven, and at least the first heaven, i.e. the atmosphere, for the fallen angels… But let us now linger on verse 7 for it is the confirmation of all our explanation.
There the Spirit says: “… just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which LIKEWISE indulged in sexual immorality and pursued UNNATURAL desire…” Herein is the proof that the sin committed by the angels who are right now kept under gloomy darkness is perfectly similar to the sin of the Sodomites; it is a sin against nature, it is going after strange flesh! Homosexuality implies demonic possession as Ro. I points out clearly, repeating three times that the men who changed the glory of the incorruptible God were delivered unto uncleanness (v. 24), unto vile affections (v. 26), and unto a reprobate mind (v. 28). Actually all unnatural sins are wrought directly by demons like divination (Ac. XVI: 16) or homosexuality. Nobody is born as a Sodomite, but God has given over to homosexuality lots of people today because of their arrogance toward their Creator. It is not a matter of free will but of divine chastisement through demons. Bear in mind reader that Satan was the first creature to sin, not man, and his fallen angels were the first ones too “to go after strange flesh”! They started the sin against nature taking wives amidst the daughters of men. Afterward they induced men and women through possession to commit the sins of homosexuality and bestiality.
Angels and men have many things in common, therefore both are called the sons of God. Both have a sin which brings an instant and eternal condemnation. Angels who copulated with women were cast into hell before time, meanwhile men who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit have their eternal perdition sealed at once (Mk. III: 29). Hence it seems obvious that all the angels who sinned against nature having intercourse with women are right now “kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day”; they are in hell and they do not roam around in the light of the day, with Satan their chief, looking for someone to devour… The devil and all his legions are well aware of this swift and scathing indictment concerning that sin. They know that whoever among them commits this sin against nature will be sent into hell before time, and therefore they keep away from that sin, because hell is not pleasant neither for men nor for demons.
Many a believer thinks that demons are the ruler in hell, and that they just spend their time aching poor souls who fell in that abyss. Now this is pure tale: hell is a temporary prison for men as well as for angels. Did not Jesus say: “everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt. XXV: 41)? Satan knows well that the everlasting fire will not be a place of dominion for him but of humiliation and suffering, and maybe he knew beforehand that every angel who would take a woman would be cast at once in hell. But he is the father of all lies and he has love for nobody; he just rules over his legions, and as long as he can wreak havoc in humanity he does not care if some fall into the hands of the living God before time. Human race genetically modified by his fallen angels could have been a good deal for him in order to hinder the plan of salvation that God promised from Genesis… However this is over now, because all the demons know the swift consequence of so infamous a transgression, and they avoid it because they do not want to go to hell before time! Even Satan cannot convince them any longer; they know he is not trustworthy! This is actually the reason for the strange encounter between Jesus and a legion of demons in the country of the Gergesenes (Mt. VIII: 28).
As I said before; this passage in the country of the Gergesenes was the detonator which sparkled the truth hidden in Jude 6 and made explode the covering whereof. The legion of evil spirits knew Jesus as the Son of God and feared him because they were well aware that he is Jehovah the Son, and that 3000 years ago he cast their fellow angels who took wives among the daughters of men into hell for this unnatural sin. They knew also that one day they too will go to hell for a 1000 years before ending in the lake of fire. But the time for the Millennium was not come yet at that moment; Jesus was made in the likeness of earthy men, in form of a servant, and did not come to them as the King of kings in a glorified body on a white horse with all the holy angels. Therefore this legion is puzzled; they are afraid and cannot understand why Jesus came to this Gentile country, (remember Jews do not have herds of swine), as he said that he was sent to the house of Israel (Mt. X: 5). It is so strange a situation that contrariwise to all the encounters with demons; this time they go on ahead and as soon as Jesus was come out of the ship they immediately met him (Mk. V: 2). Take note that usually people brought them that were possessed with devils (Mk. I: 32, Mt. IV: 23); they never came to him willingly as we see in this case. Moreover they start to talk with him; now bear in mind that Jesus did not use to do that because it is written: “He suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him” (Mk. I: 34). And they say unto him: “What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us BEFORE TIME?” (Mt. VIII: 29). They even ask him not to send them away out of the country (Mk. V: 10), i.e. « they beg him not to command them to depart into the abyss » (Lk. VIII: 31, ESV) which means hell. They plead their cause earnestly and successfully because they know that they did not commit the unnatural sin, and that there is still time left before the kingdom of Christ come with the power of His might unhindered by a terrestrial human nature. Surely they knew Es. XXIV: 21 to 23 which says: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that Jehovah shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when Jehovah of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem. And before his ancients gloriously”. So they knew that none of those things had happened yet and therefore they plead their cause showing that it was not fair to send them already into hell. Their argument was solid and Jesus allowed them to stay in the country of the Gergesenes (or Gadarenes) and even to possess the herd of pigs that was nearby. Mark well reader that it is the only time that Jesus talks with demons and grant them their desire! Now I do not know all the reasons why our Lord went to that country, but one thing I know: it enables us to understand Jude 6. Scripture indeed is interpreted by Scripture, but we need more than a good concordance to divide rightly the Word of God! That is why Jesus said: “I thank Thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Lk. X: 21).
I am well aware that for many a brother this interpretation will appear as fanciful, but we must press upon our reader that for us (radical Protestants), reason must be submitted to Scripture and not the opposite, as modern and liberal Protestants are wont to do. A God who can be explained by a finite mind is not the true God. How can the finite comprehend the Infinite? It would be like an illiterate Chinese giving a lecture on English literature at Oxford University… We worship a holy Trinity who says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. LV: 8, 9). Does it not sound erroneous to many a believer that the sun, the moon and the stars were created three days after the tiny earth? And what about light shining upon earth since the first without sun? Bear in mind reader that our earth is like a grain of sand on a beach if you compare the dimension of cosmos with it. Why is it so? Without Holy Writ we could not understand these things, but if we read Gn. I: 14 in the light of Ps XIX: 1, then we receive light as it is written: “In Thy light shall we see light”! There are even Unitarian heretics who aver that heliocentric theory is fake. The verse they use thereto is Josh. X: 12. But they use also scientific evidence like the way astronomers calculate the launching of rockets into the outer space, for they do it on a geocentric basis. Bear in mind that according to heliocentric theory the earth evolves around the sun thirty times faster than a bullet! Germans when they shot their shells with their Berta super field gun upon Paris during WW 1, based their calculations on a geocentric assumption! If the earth revolved then the shells would have fallen at 30 kilometers westward from Paris… Anyway I do not want to take my stance in this scientific issue since it does not raise any confusion in our understanding of the great truths which Holy Writ expounds before our eyes. Not so with the issue of the sons of God in Gn. VI: 2, because if you hold the wrong interpretation you will not be able to comprehend neither Jude 6, nor the passage of the encounter of the legion of the Gadarenes with our Lord Jesus! Returning to that old rabbinical interpretation that assumes that the sons of God were actually angels, is a must if you are ever to understand these 2 passages, in case you follow a historical and grammatical interpretation as we do…
Now few more words and I have finished. I want to warn my brothers about a fantasy unto which are driven some who hold our interpretation. Many a brother follows his imagination and forgets that during the flood in the days of Noah the whole offspring of angels and women perished with the rest of all the living, and that those angels since that day remain prisoners in the bottomless pit of hell. The rest of fallen angels dare not now commit the same unnatural sin, as James II: 19 states: “the devils also believe and tremble”. Nonetheless some brothers think that certain fallen angels have continued to have intercourse with women, and that there is still a hybrid human race on the earth! My, this is like a fairy tale, or rather like a Hollywood science fiction picture! There is no verse to sustain such a fantasy. The only fallen angels who try to alter genetically the human race are the wicked scientists who are earnestly endeavouring to create a hybrid human race using animal cells, or trying to connect our brains to computers by electronic implants. The US military has revealed $65 millions of funding for a program to develop a 'brain chip' allowing humans to simply plug into a computer. They say the system could give soldiers super senses and even help treat people with blindness, paralysis and speech disorders. The goal is 'developing an implantable system able to provide precision communication between the brain and the digital world,' DARPA officials said... Albeit they will never achieve their purpose since the time is running out and Christ will soon rule the nations with a rod of iron. The only thing they will be able to do is to improve the electronic implant under the skin of their followers ‘right hands and foreheads, because this is clearly prophesied in Rev. XIII: 16, 17 and XIV: 19!
Our Lord Jehovah-Jesus has total control of the present situation, wherefore bionic men, mutants and Hercules are nothing else than series on TV. God put a limit to human’s wickedness as well as fallen angels’. The worst thing devils can do is to possess whoever willingly opens the door of his inner man. This is precisely what the eschatological Antichrist will do since it is written: “whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Ts. II: 9). He will not be the first to do that since Hitler who himself was his own type did it, and got from it a powerful charisma wrought by Satan who dwelt in his spirit. May our Lord keep us in his grace that we may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of God!

Maranatha.