THROUGH THE BIBLE: Genesis 6..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. We're going to continue this morning our corporate reading of the scripture. Before we get into the words of God and into the sermon, we're going to be reading corporately the Bible.

We started in Genesis chapter one. We reach chapter six now. We're going to be reading the whole chapter, and I'm going to be reading from the English standard version of the Bible. So this is the word of God. Genesis chapter six.

When men began to multiply on the face of the land, daughters were born to them the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive and they took as their wives and any they chose then the Lord said my spirit shall not abide in men forever for his flesh his day shall be 120 years the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of men was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made men on the earth, and it gripped him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out men whom I have recreated from the face of the land, men and animals, and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." Verse 9. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, he was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits, and its height, 30 cubits.

Make a roof of the ark and finish it to a cubit above and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.

And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female." That's 20. of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind. Two of every sort shall come into you to keep them alive.

Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up, shall serve as food for you and for them." Noah did this. He did all that God commanded Amen. This is the Word of God. Brothers and sisters, we have perhaps in front of us one of the most controversial sections in the Book of Genesis and probably in the Old Testament, this first section that speaks of the sons of God or the Nephilims.

There are many opinions about who the sons of God are or the Nephilims are. We hear in chapter 6 we reach this that we call the pre-deluvian history, that which happens before the flood. And as I said to you, this is perhaps one of the most controversial sections of this chapter. The answer to who are the sons of God It's a question that has many different answers. We perhaps could spend much of our time here trying to give an answer to that question of who are the sons of God, but we're not going to do so.

Rather, I'm just going to give you the spectrum of different views on who the sons of God are, so we can focus on the main substance that is found here in Genesis chapter 6. You see, if you want to answer the question of who are the sons of God, people have given, or scholars of commentators in Genesis chapter 6, they have given different views, going from one extreme, a very highly spiritual answer to this particular question, to a more human and more material view. of the answer of this particular question. Some people would say, in this side, the more spiritual view of the answer to that question is that the sons of God that were taking the daughters of men into marriage, that these are fallen angels. Probably you've heard that.

that these are fallen angels, and they will go to Job chapter one with the sons of God came to God himself, one of them being Satan, and they will use that and also some references in Psalm to say that the sons of God were fallen spirits, some commentators will say, or fallen angels that were taking the daughters of men and they were entering into the covenant. of marriage. This is one side of the spectrum, very spiritual. These are spirits, fallen spirits. If you go a little bit more towards the right, to the more material or more physical view of the answer of these questions, some people would say that these are men, that these are men who have been regenerated by the Spirit, that these are descendants of Seth, that these have been renewed by the Spirit and they are descendants of Seth, and that's why they're called sons of God.

In Romans, A, the Apostle Paul calls those who are in Christ, son of God. So they will say that these are the descendants of Seth, coming from Adam through Seth, and these are the sons of God who are men. And they were taking the daughters of men in marriage, and they were just abusing the covenant of marriage. But if you go a little bit more towards the physical side of it, some people will say that these are not necessarily sons of God in the sense that they have been regenerated and saved by grace through faith in the promise that was given in Genesis 3.15, but simply that these are kings.

This is the kingship view of the sons of God in Genesis 6. That is, that the term, sons of God, it was just simply a term that was given back then to those who were ruling and who were the kings of the land. And this is just saying that the kings or the rulers of the land were taking the daughters of normal men, and that they were abusing the covenant of marriage. They say the very spiritual view, then we have the set descendants, then we have the kings here, and then we have one that is very physical and very literal according to the text. And they say that this is just simply speaking of men and women.

The verse says that when humanity was multiplying, in the sense of the fulfillment of the commandment that was given in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, of multiplying, that when humanity and mankind was multiplying, that men, who are the sons of God, you can see that from the genealogy that is given in Genesis 5, from Adam through Seth, these are the sons of God, that they were seen as the descendants of God, were marrying the daughters of men. just simply men and women. Now, these are the answers that people gave to the question of who are the sons of God. But as I said, this is not the most important point of the chapter, even if we go and try to answer the question of the Nephilim. The Nephilim is just simply a word that means giant.

or the giants of the land. Even in the Greek of this section here, the translation in the Greek, we'll use the word gigantes. In Spanish, we say gigantes. That means simply big people or giants. And even you can see from the text, who these Nephilim, of who these giants are.

If you see the end of the verse four, or let's just stay in verse four, it says, The 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. Then, the last part of the verse will say who these Nephilim are. These were mighty men, who were of all the men of renown. I just wanted to give you that little bit of an overview of this controversy, but as I said to you, this is not the main topic of this chapter. If I can summarize in only one word what this chapter is all about, as we did last week with chapter five, if we do it with chapter six, that word would be judgment.

There is judgment happening here. The first manifestation of God against evil and corruption, we can see it here. God has or is going to give the judgment that people deserve. We can see that in verse 3. If you go to verse 3, it says, Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in men forever, for his flesh, they shall be one hundred.

and 20 years. We cannot perceive it in the English very well, but in the Hebrew, this is a statement of judgment. You are going to die. You are going to die. There's going to be judgment that is going to be brought to the land.

There's going to be judgment that is going to be brought to the people. And notice something very important here. I want you to pay attention to this judicial surveillance character of God. When I say this judicial witnessing of God of whatever is happening on the land, if you go to verse 5, it says, saw that the wickedness of men was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." It says that the Lord saw.

The Lord was witnessing what was happening on the earth. If you go to verse 11, it says, Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight. God was witnessing. He was watching everything that was happening in the earth. Now go to verse 12.

It says, "...and God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt." God is the judge of everything that He had created. And everything that He had created was now in corruption. This is His judicial surveillance, or watching everything that was going on here.

But I want you to see another aspect of this judgment that is found also there in verse 12. Go to verse 12. It says, And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. Now pay attention here, beloved. It says, the earth was corrupt.

And now it's going to give us the reason why the earth was corrupt in the sight of God. And it says, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. I want you to notice here the covenantal relationship of man to creation. In Genesis 1 and in Genesis 2, God had said, you are to have dominion over the earth. You are to multiply.

This is the covenantal headship of humans to creation. And in the sight of God, the whole earth was now under judgment because man was corrupted in his ways. The earth had not done anything. but the earth was subjected to futility, subjected, bondage to corruption, Romans 8, because there is a covenantal relationship between creation and the head of that creation, namely, men. So God is going to execute judgment on everything.

Now the question that we need to ask ourselves is why, or what is the reason why God is going to execute this judgment? And this is very important in this chapter below. Why is God gonna bring the flood? What is the substance of this corruption? What is the meaning of this unrighteousness that we find here in Genesis chapter six?

Two main points, very important. The first one, it is the abusing and the, the abusing and the destruction, if you wanna put it that way, of the glorious covenant of marriage. Marriage was being abused. It doesn't matter what position you take on who the sons of God are. But we can see here in the text that the sons of God were taking women or the daughters of men, and they were entering into marriage.

And then in Matthew 24, when the Lord is speaking of his second coming, he will say that in the days of Noah, They were eating and drinking and giving themselves in marriages, speaking of and abusing of the holy covenant of marriage. And this is what was happening here. This is kind of like a reflection of what happened in Genesis chapter 4 with Lamech taking two wives and then killing someone else. In the land, corruption started to spread. And one of the ways that this corruption started to spread was in the abusing of the holy covenant of marriage.

Now, beloved, this is very important. because the Lord here, according to our understanding, He's reacting upon something that He witnesses on the earth. And the first thing that He sees and perceives is that this glorious covenant of marriage that was established between man and woman, that was given in the garden, is now being violated by the corruption of men. That these sons of God are taking wives among the daughters of men. And then, as I said, from Matthew 24, we know that there is an abusing of it.

But the second aspect, beloved, it is also attached with this first commandment or this first mission that it was given to men in the garden. Because it was not only the holy covenant of marriage that was given to them, but there was also a civil task that it was given to men, and that is, have dominion over the earth and subdue it, protect it. You are going to be king over this creation on my behalf. And here, in this text, we can see that this was not happening. If you go to verse 13, please.

In verse 13, it says, And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. We cannot perceive the meaning of this word violence in the English. The perception that we have in English of this word violence is very limited, it's very narrow. But the Hebrew here speaks of chaos, a social chaos. There is completely disorganization in this system that it was given to men.

Corruption and wickedness was in every aspect of life. This is what the Lord says in Matthew 24, just as in the days of Noah. speaking of what was happening here. So the Lord is going to execute judgment because men were abusing the holy covenant of marriage and also because there was a total social chaos that was happening in the land and in this generation. Then there is a glorious word that the apostle Paul uses in Ephesians 2 when he's speaking of our salvation.

And here, the author of Genesis uses it in verse 18, and that word is but, B-U-T, but. He says, but I will establish my covenant with you. In the midst of judgment, in the midst of unrighteousness, God manifests his grace and he says, but. I will establish my covenant with you. This is the grace of God being manifested to unrighteous and wicked people like us, because we're not very different to what happened then.

Now, a couple of things that I want you to notice about this grace. Now, this grace is not only in the covenant in and of itself. The grace of God was manifested before the covenant was given. That grace was given in the person of Noah himself. It says in verse 9, These are the generations of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. This is not of Noah. Nobody is a righteous person. There's no one good, including Noah.

The grace of God was manifested in the fact that he preserved or he kept a person by the power of his spirit, and he made him through the spirit, faith in the promise that was given in Genesis 3.15 of the Messiah that was to come, a righteous and a blameless person who walked with God in the same sense that Enoch walked with God. He preserved this person, so through this person, a covenant will be given to humanity of preservation, of preservation of creation, a creation that will be the escenario in which the Messiah will be born and will redeem his people. First manifestation of grace in preserving and keeping a righteous man, because Noah was not righteous in and of himself. Second manifestation of grace, it is not only that He provides the righteous man who will save humanity, if you want to put it that way, but second, that He provides the means to bring that grace, and that is the ark.

He provides the means by which this man who is righteous and blameless will be preserved through this judgment, and he will see life, the ark, but not only that, He extends this grace to this covenantal relationship of man to creation, because it's not only that he's going to preserve the life of men, but he's also going to preserve the life of creatures. And he says, bring animals, male and female, of every kind into the ark. Now, beloved, you must have it now in your mind, and you should love that, because Noah is a type Noah is a shadow of the righteous, blameless man who walked perfectly with God. The manifestation of God in this time is that He preserved a man to bring judgment and to preserve humanity. But beyond that, in eternity past, God Himself set apart a righteous and blameless man, His Son.

So in Him, He will not give us an ark in which we are going to be added or put on. He will be the ark Himself, and it's in union with Jesus Christ. that we can go through the judgment that it is to come. And then the extension of this grace goes beyond us. Because as in Romans 8, it says that the creation is groaning with pains of childbirth, awaiting for the revelation of the children of God, this future revelation.

Everything is going to be conformed and given to Jesus Christ. All things are going to be united in Jesus Christ. New heavens and new earth and the church with Jesus Christ. Beloved, judgment will come. And the wrath of God is going to be revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and wickedness of men.

And just as the Lord Jesus Christ said, as in the days of Noah, in those days, people will eat and drink and marry and give themselves in marriage. And let me tell you one thing, that one of the signs of corruption in society, it is the abusing of the holy covenants of marriage. When we start seeing these things, these things that go against marriage, we see that the corruption of men, that now this restraining grace of God is being slowly removed from society so we can be given up to our wickedness and our righteousness. But then we know, as we said, let your kingdom come because we have the message. Not a message of an ark that is going to save us from a storm that is to come, but a message that in Christ we will be saved.

Not of the judgment that is coming through water, but the judgment that is coming through fire. Eternal judgment coming and salvation is found by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Amen?