Herein I continue reviewing an article that was posted to the Answers in Genesis site by Bodie Hodge who holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The article is titled, “Who Were the Nephilim? Genesis 6 and Numbers 13—a fresh look,” July 9, 2008 AD. He makes it clear that “As a ministry, Answers in Genesis does not officially take a specific stand regarding” this issue. You can find all segments here.
A word on the issue of Angels as spirits: Hermeneutically it is inappropriate to base a doctrine on one verse and in this case we have just and only that. Psalm 104 (reiterated in Hebrews 1) states that God, “maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire.” 1) By nature Psalms are poetic in nature and so we must keep in mind that this is the genre.
2) In both Hebrew and Greek there is a correlation between “spirit” and “breath” or “wind”: for example, John 3 has Jesus stating, “The wind [pneuma] bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit [Pneumatos].”
3) Due to 2), it may be that the Angels are being poetically said to be wind-like which makes sense as they too “bloweth where” they “listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth” and also because referring to them as wind would be within the context of a natural phenomenon which would match the reference to flaming fire which is another natural phenomenon.
4) If Angels are spirits then his ministers, whoever/whatever they may be, are the result of a combination of a spark, a fuel source and oxygen aka flaming fire.
I would also like to note that Bodie Hodge expends some amount of cyber ink making statements that, or so they seem to me, to be unnecessary such as the above quoted, “these angels that appeared as men were not the fallen ones” which is true but there is no reason to assume that fallen ones cannot do likewise: again, even though the Bible states nothing about Angels that appeared as men as in shapeshifting or what have you but only that they appeared as men as in that is just what they look like.
Very common depiction of an Angels and yet,
unbiblical as they do not have wings.
Likewise, he writes:
It may be too much to say for sure that these two verses early in Job [1:6 and 2:1] are referring to angels, but even so, it wouldn’t be referring to fallen ones. There are no other instances in Scripture that refer to fallen angels or demons as sons of God to verify this in Job.
I said that these sort of statements are unnecessary since if the Job texts do refer to Angels then they refer to Angels, those texts have nothing to do with fallen Angels and something else I will point out within the next comment just below. But first, there is no need for the Bible to refer to fallen angels or demons as sons of God since the Genesis 6 text is identifying the key players as the sons of God and daughters of men (with the Septuagint/LXX translation as angels of God) which is a title for Angels whether fallen or not and here is a hint: so is the title “Angel.”
He also writes:
Regardless though, Job 38:7 is an excellent example of angels being termed sons of God. However, this is referring to angels during the Creation Week, before any of them fell (which would have to be after God’s declaration that everything was “very good” in Genesis 1:31). So this doesn’t give much support to fallen angels being called sons of God.
Again, if sons of God is a title for Angels (as well as Adam, Hebrews, Christians and Jesus) then that is what they are titled: fallen or not.
This one brings us to the point upon which I touched above and noted I will mention below that:
It seems unlikely that God would put fallen angels in a class with un-fallen angels, Israelites (God’s chosen people), and Christians (the bride of Christ).
It may seem unlikely but the point seem to be that Angels are sons of God and some of those fell: it is that simple. Now, since “Angel” means “messenger” we may ask whey fallen Angels are referred to as Angels even when they are fired form their job, in a manner of speaking, and no longer deliver messages for God? In fact, Hodge wrote of “fallen angels” and “un-fallen angels” but why class them together? Simply because that is what they are: that is their job title, a description of what they were meant to do. Note that Revelation 12 has Michael and his (loyal) Angels warring against Satan and his (fallen) Angels.
Admitting that the term sons of God does sometimes refer Angels, Hodge refers to how “this claim becomes erroneous when it is thus worded: The title ‘sons of God’ is used only in reference to the angels.” Well, no problem as no one has made any such a claim.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page. You can also use the “Share / Save” button below this post.