Under consideration is John McArthur’s sermons on Genesis 6:1-4 which is titled, Demonic Invasion (my full review of which you can find here).
He begins by noting that “There are a number of interpretations of this particular passage and people pile up under all varying interpretations to try to sort through the voluminous journal articles, commentaries, and treatments of this passage as no small task.” He notes that he “started the sorting process before I ever went to seminary many, many years ago…studying the book of Genesis. Later on in preaching through 1 Peter, 2 Peter, the book of Jude, and other portions of Scripture which in some way connect with this” which means that he went in the right direction and finally, that “it still took a rather extensive effort at reading quite a massive amount of literature to sort through all of the issues and come to what I think is an appropriate understanding of these four verses.”
Here is the text he focused upon:
Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land and the daughters were born that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they took wives for themselves whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever because he also is flesh, nevertheless his days shall be 120 years.’ Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
McArthur’s initial observation is obviously, “what does it mean?” and that “It seems somewhat disjointed and somewhat oblique and obscure.” Also, since he is sermonizing he notes the “more compelling question once we discern what it means and that is so what? Now that we know what it means, why is it here? How does it inform us necessarily?”
I would say that his overall sermon, as in application of the text, is good and useful however, he jumps to various conclusions due to presuppositions and so ends up asserting various points.
I would summarize the obscure points of the text as being when is it that “men began to multiply on the face of the land and the daughters were born,” who are “the sons of God” and “the daughters of men,” to what does “his days shall be 120 years” refer, who were the “Nephilim,” when were “those days” and when was “afterward’? And so you see why this short text is peppered with points to ponder.
The view he takes is readily discernable from the sermon title which comes from the sermon itself as he tells us of the “sons of God, coming down taking wives of the daughters of men and that is the first description of a mass invasion, demonic invasion. In fact, you might even title these four verses ‘Demonic Invasion.’”
However, this is where we encounter a primary presupposition and/or assertion. In referring to the “sons of God” he states, “I am convinced that these are demons. These are demons.” John MacArthur notes, “The oldest interpretation of this passage, by the way, the oldest one, the traditional Jewish one, the view of the rabbis and modern Jewish commentators like [Rabbi] Umberto Cassuto, the view of the church fathers is that the sons of God refers to demons, fallen angels”—for evidence of this see Early commentaries on Genesis 6: Angels or not? – interactive chart.
ANGELS AND DEMONS
Now we see that by “Demonic Invasion” he is referring to an invasion by fallen angels whom he identifies as demons. Now, generally people identify fallen angles as demons based on the supposedly rhetorical question, “What else could they be?” The two main options are that demons are either fallen angels or they are not. If not, speculation identified them as the spirits of dead Nephilim: a view which is based on the apocryphal Book of Enoch specifically 1 Enoch aka Ethiopic Enoch 15: 8-12. Personally, I do not think they are the spirits of dead Nephilim yet, also not exactly that they are fallen angels: I will elucidate my own view within an upcoming book.
In any case, MacArthur states, “We believe the sons of God were angels, fallen angels, demons…these demons, these angels, fallen angels…Demons are sons of God in the sense that they were directly created by God…these demons, it says, are motivated because they saw that the daughters of men were beautiful…The demons have some desire for these women and so they took wives for themselves…the first four verses tell us that the wickedness of man had reached such proportion that they had engaged themselves in demonic relationships…they pursued demons….an engagement with the very powers of hell, the very demons themselves willful…This would be a demon-dominated union, and a demon-dominated family.”
He further notes, “every time you have an Old Testament reference to sons of God, it refers to angels…sons of God is a term to designate angels…sons of the mighty in Psalm 29:1, that’s another term for angels…The sons of God is a phrase used to describe angelic beings…they are sons of God, they are the direct creation of God which is what angels are.”
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