Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The Angelic Conflict. Part 14. Satan's attack that nearly destroyed and corrupted the human race.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Point 4. Two Categories of Fallen Angels.
1. The non-operational angels.
a. The angels of Gen 6 who were involved in the angelic attack to infiltrate the human race who are now incarcerated underneath the ground in a place called Tartarus.
G.H. Pember - Earth’s Earliest Ages, p. 135 - “And hence, there sprang up a thick crop of frauds and assignations of open quarrels and violence, till the whole earth was filled with corruption and bloodshed. And yet all this existed side by side with luxury, a refined culture, and a love of art and music.”
Niphal reflexive - nacham - “to be sorry” = to have a change of mind - the exact equivalent of the Greek metanoeo.
This is an anthropopathism, which ascribes to God human feelings, passions, and thoughts which God does not actually possess; e.g., hatred, anger, scorn, benevolence, compassion, longsuffering, and repentance.
Many times in history God has had to judge segments of the human race, and so He changes His policy of grace to a policy of judgment, therefore the Bible says that He repents.
A second anthropopathism is that God was “grieved” when in reality nothing can make God grieve since His omniscience knew all things billions and billions of years before they ever happened.
God’s heart or “right lobe” is an anthropomorphism which ascribes to God a part of human anatomy which God does not possess, in order to express a divine function.
Even though this seems to be almost a victory for Satan, his tactics do not change because he is not overly creative (and unfortunately doesn’t need to be since his tactics prove to be effective time and again, since humans continually fall for the same bait).
Given this lack of creative ability, it is likely that the pre-Adamic times were very similar to those seen in the post-Adamic age.
Following the expulsion of mankind from the Garden of Eden, there was a population explosion that led to a wide range of discoveries and settlement of large areas of land.
When mankind was in its Golden Age, Satan chose to mount an attack that very nearly destroyed the human race, corrupting it so that any chance of salvation from the coming Messiah would be lost.
From a human standpoint, the battle can only be viewed as the proverbial “close call.”
There is also a theory that the sons of God are the male descendants of Seth, while the daughters of men are the female descendants of Cain.
The good sons of God (offspring of Seth) married evil wives (the offspring of Cain).
If both groups were simply human beings with different religious beliefs, how would their offspring be anything other than human beings?
If Moses had aimed to indicate these were the sons of Seth, it would have made a lot more sense for him to have simply written “sons of Seth” instead of “sons of God.”
The rage expressed by God would be excessive if the sins being committed were anything other than extraordinary.
As creations of God, these creatures (like mankind) bear a family relationship in that they were created by God and, therefore, can be viewed in a sense as being his sons.