This chapter is full of interesting data.
The first question that arises is: Who were the giants mentioned in v.4? Then follows some other logical questions:
1. Why did the appearance of those giants precipitate the judgment of God an dmake it necessary for God to destroy man?
2. Who were the “sons of God”?
3. Who were the “daughters of men”?
The first seven verses give the impression that the immediate occasion which precipitated the flood was the union of the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men.”
The result of this union was the birth of a race of giants with supernatural wisdom and power, and of exceedingly great wickedness.
There are two schools of thought as to who they were:
1. Some held that the “sons of God” were the godly line of Seth, and the “daughters of men” were the ungodly offspring of Cain. The adherents to this line of thinking show this to be the breakdown of separation between the godly line of Seth and the godless line of Cain. How this social and spiritual breakdown would produce a line of giants I will never know.
2. The second school of thought believes that this was a supernatural union. This union seems to have been between fallen angels and the daughters of men. The result of the union was the birth of monstrosities called giants who were half human and half demon. In support of this theory, it is interesting to note that fallen angels retained this title “sons of God”—Job 1:6; 2:1. Some object to this interpretation because, they say, angels are sexless and do not marry, thus were unable to fulfill the role suggested in the passage. Nowhere in Scripture does it say angels are sexless, it always refers to them as masculine. With regard to what Jesus said in Matthew 22:29-30, believers in heaven “neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” This has to do with the angels of God in heaven, not the fallen angels of Genesis 6.
The apostle Peter adds his testimony concerning the sin of these “sons of God” and identifies these as fallen angels that sinned—this sin was so wicked that God shut them up in hell so that they could not continue their evil.
Peter tells us that the “longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, in which eight souls were saved.”
The antidelluvians were not ignorant of God’s requirements.
They had ample light.
Two lines spanned the interval between the fall and the flood: Adam and Methuselah.
There was Adam’s testimony for 930 years:
1. He testified to the promise of a coming redeemer.
2. He testified to the fact of the fall and taught the correct way to approach God.
3. Then there was the mark placed upon Cain.
When Adam died Enoch took up testimony. He preached for 300 years of coming judgment.
Then after Enoch’s translation Noah preached righteousness.
Then there was also another great force at work, striving with men and women, the Holy Spirit.
But all to no avail.
The antidelluvians were not ignorant of God’s plans, they knowingly and willfully rejected the Divine revelation and deliberately persisted in their wickedness.
God’s patience and longsuffering ran out. V.7—“I will destroy man,” etc.
v.3—“My spirit shall not always strive with man.”
This truth is illustrated also in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Felix is another example of this.
Paul reasoned with him in the power of the Spirit of “righteousness, self-control and judgment to come.”
Felix trembled, and answered, “Go your way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for you.”
Daniel 5—Belshazzar.
Story of the dying young man who in earlier years had told the Spirit “to go His way.” Now, he said, the Spirit is saying to me “Go your way.”
v.8—“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”
The only man worthy of the favor of God.
v.9—“A just man”—“upright in his generation”—one who “walked with God.”
v.10—The reference here “perfect in his generation” seems to point not only to Noah but also to his family.
This man and his family was preserved from the illicit contamination of the unholy union of demons and women.
What a bleak picture, only one man and his family I the whole culture were uncontaminated with the evil, wickedness, corruption, violence, sex, abuse of the antidelluvian culture.