Some believe that a struggle between good and evil in the Earth began when some angels were cast from Heaven or willingly came to the Earth lusting after women. These angels seduced or raped women and the children of these unholy unions are called the Nephilim. The Nephilim are giants. Some believe that even today their descendants live among us. It is believed that they are responsible for much of humans suffering as they plot and scheme to take over the world.
Disregarding the book of Enoch, the story of the “Nephilim” is found in the book of Genesis.
Genesis 6:1-5 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Who were these sons of God?
The fallen angels were attracted by the beauty of women, which means they were not necessarily evil. The evil appears to come in later generations, but when these angels took wives, it was not described as evil. These sons of God did not rape women, but instead they married them. Marriage requires some kind of oath. These angels took an oath to their wives and would therefore have felt affection for the women they married. It would have to be righteous angels who decided to be born into this new world that God had created.
They would have been born as babies just as when the Son of God came into the world. They would have lived as humans. This is how they were able to have wives and children.
Jesus, the Son of God came to the Earth and lived as a human. It should not be hard to believe that some righteous angels of God had done the same thing. Some angels would have decided to become human since it was a beautiful world that God had created. It was a clean world with great natural beauty. It was a world without the division and warfare of today. Getting married and raising children can be a beautiful adventure, and it might be attractive to a righteous angel.
Who were the giants?
The passage says that there were giants in the Earth. After that came the children of the angels who were called mighty men of renown. The children of the angels were not called giants. The giants came first, and the wording suggests that it was the “angel” parents who were the giants. They were not giants physically. They were giants spiritually since they were angels, and this is clarified with a statement about human longevity.
This passage states that humans will live one hundred and twenty years which is approximately our maximum life expectancy. But Genesis talks of several people who lived many centuries. This is often explained by claiming that people lived longer before the flood because of the atmosphere, but Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood (Genesis 9:28). The great longevity of some people in those days was because of their righteousness, not the environment. The 120-year statement came well before the story of the flood without any indication that it was talking about how many years remained before the flood. The very next sentence doesn’t talk of the flood; it talks of giants. That is the context of the 120-years.
Human longevity.
Even before the flood almost all people lived a maximum of one hundred and twenty years. If some people lived much longer, then they must have had a greater spirit. The wages of sin is death, so these people with great longevity were more righteous than most of us. They had a stronger will, a stronger spirit. Jesus is perfect and He is currently over two thousand years old as a human. The angels who came to earth in the early part of creation were not perfect. They were not strong enough to completely overcome the influence of Satan, but they were righteous enough that they lived a very long time.
These angels, or more correctly these humans with the spirit of an angel would be wise and virtuous. They would hold positions of leadership. They built a remarkable society, on which the legend of Atlantis is based, but they were not perfect, and they eventually experienced death. In their absence human society became corrupt and oppressive. Thus, it is said that their thoughts were evil continually, and God sent the flood.
