escapeallthesethings.com By Tim McHyde
The “mighty” Nephilim giants of Genesis 6 are gone, but Revelation describes a return of another kind of Nephilim to play a major role in the end times. Despite this, few Christians know anything about the Nephilim—nor would they want to know given the scary details of these actual monsters. Without facing this shocking level of evil and abomination that God has chosen to allow, you can’t fully understand end-time prophecy or even God’s ways. If you are brave, it’s time to understand the Nephilim in the Bible and conquer your fear of monsters.
Real Monsters: Giants, Demons, and Fallen Angels
Most of us stopped being scared of monsters once we left childhood and learned that just like Santa Claus, these scary creatures are fantasy. They exist only in children’s imagination, legends, Greek mythology and movies like Poltergeist—not reality.
However, if you (as a believer) stop to read the entire Bible, you may be forced to reconsider that reassuring thought. The OT and NT have accounts of several varieties of these real-life monsters:
- Giants: Even casual Christians are aware that David fought a nine-foot giant named Goliath. Probably only a minority realize that the Promised Land was filled with giants, the bad news of which made up the “evil report” that the ten unfaithful spies of the land scared the children of Israel with.
- Demons: Most Christians also know that the New Testament tells of how Jesus and the apostles had to contend with demons, also known as ghosts or poltergeists. The NT gives no explanation as to their origin and purpose. They are just treated as an everyday part of life, responsible for as much as one-quarter of the sicknesses that Jesus healed.
- Fallen Angels: Let’s not forget Satan. He’s an evil or fallen angel who cast one-third of the angels to earth in revolt against God (Rev 12:3).
There is one other biblical monster which the typical Christian has probably missed:
- “Nephilim”
Despite their obscurity, we shall see that the Nephilim are a key to understanding how all of the above are connected and also to understand aspects of end time Bible prophecy such as the locusts, Antichrist/Beast and False Prophet, and “the abyss.” They also may explain why there are persistent reports of UFOs and alien life in the world today.
Who Are the Nephilim?
The Nephilim are one of the more mysterious and disturbing topics of the Bible. The word Nephilim only appears twice in the Bible. Here are the two passages:
Genesis 6:1-4 (HCSB) — 1 When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. 3 And the LORD said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.
Nephilim literally means “fallen ones.” But what are they and what made them powerful and famous? Early interpreters believed them to be giants. Nephilim was translated as “giants” (gigantes) by most ancient Bible versions such as the Greek Septuagint (“gigantes”) and Latin Vulgate (“gigentes”).
The other occurrence of Nephilim bears that conclusion out. It is found in the “evil report” that the ten unfaithful spies gave of the Promised Land. Note that unlike the first account:
Numbers 13:32-33 (HCSB) — 32 So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. 33 We even saw the Nephilim, there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.”
The Nephilim are said to be the source of the Anak. As the context indicates, the Anak were one of the races of giants in the Bible who could view the Israelites as ants in comparison. (Quite fittingly, “anak” (ענק) is the word for “giant” in modern Hebrew.)
Like with the “rapture timing question” (i.e., a pre-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture), not everyone agrees on what the Nephilim were. Just as the majority of Christians believe in a pretrib rapture, the majority of Christians doubt that the Nephilim really are giants and that the “sons of God” who parented them are angels. Just like the idea of a post-trib rapture, it’s too scary for the average Christian to believe that God would allow such ghastly horrors as evil angels to roam freely and create freakish monsters. Yet as we shall see, not only is God allowing us to be on the earth for the Great Tribulation, he is also allowing us to be on the earth with living, breathing monsters.
Who Are “The Sons of God?”
The identity and nature of the Nephilim is indeed greatly complicated by the ambiguous term used for their procreators, the “sons of God.” Just who are they?
It’s helpful to recognize that in biblical usage, the term “sons of God” (benei HaElohim) refers to only direct creations of God such as Adam (Lk 3:38) and the angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). You and I only have the right to “become the sons of God” but are not there yet (John 1:12). When we are rebirthed (John 3:3) by God into glorified spirit bodies at the rapture or resurrection, then we shall be at last (Rom 8:19). The following passage makes it crystal clear that we become sons of God “like the angels” in the resurrection:
Luke 20:36 (HCSB) — For they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection.
Since glorified humans did not exist in the time of Genesis 6, that means the sons of God referred to there must be the angels. This, by the way, is just how the Greek Septuagint (Codex Alexandrinus) translation of the Hebrew OT rendered the phrase “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2. “Angels” there makes perfect sense in context because of how the “sons of God” is a term of contrast to the “daughters of men. It’s describing something different from and much more noteworthy than “the sons of men” and the “daughters of men” mixing as they do every day since Adam and Eve. That is not noteworthy. Finally, angels mating with humans is the best explanation for why the offspring were so “powerful” and “renown.”
How Can Angels Have Sex if They “Don’t Marry” (Mt 22:30)?
Now that you can see from the Bible that the sons of God who created the Nephilim are fallen angels, there are many questions and objections that may come to mind. Is such a thing even possible? Would God allow it? If so, why?
A frequently raised objection to this idea of how the Nephilim came from sex between angels and women cites this statement of Jesus:
Matthew 22:30 (HCSB) — For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.
Article continues below…
“DEPART FROM ME, I NEVER KNEW YOU!” – JESUS
Jesus predicted that he will tell many sincere believers to basically “get lost” instead of welcoming them into the Kingdom. So…who are they and what did they miss or do wrong? In this study, get those answers and the one requirement for salvation Jesus taught (that Christianity misses) so that you can make sure you don’t hear these dreaded words yourself!
If you analyze it carefully, you can see that Jesus’ statement has nothing to do with evil angels on earth having sex. It’s talking about holy angels in heaven marrying. (It is proven every day on earth that sex without marriage is possible.)
The Bible tells us much about the nature of angels. One recurring theme is that angels appear in human form, such as those who came to Abraham and Lot, completely convincing ones, at that. For example, Paul said we may entertain angels unbeknownst to us (Heb 13:2). Abraham apparently took the three angels who visited him as “men” (at first) and offered them a meal. Most interestingly, the angels ate the food (Gen 18:8)!
If angels look like humans, act like humans and even eat food like humans (hmm, where does the food go?), then we may wonder what else can they do like humans? What reason do we have to doubt that they can engage in sexual reproduction, too? I personally have no doubt that an angel could pass a complete physical—if they could ever be compelled to submit to one :).
What Exactly Are the Nephilim? (Wasn’t Jesus Technically Nephilim?)
An important point to draw from this understanding of how angels can manifest physically as they wish is that their offspring with women are not “half-angel and half-human.” Nor are they part-spirit and part-human…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (escapellthesethings.com)
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