What are Nephilim and do angels marry?

Caller: Hi how are you tonight?

Pastor Doug: Hi Kevin, welcome to the program.

Caller: Thank you. My question comes out of Genesis chapter 6 beginning with verse 1 when it talks about the Heavenly Beings, and they took the women that were being born - and uh I'm having a problem understanding are these Heavenly Beings - were they fallen angels?

Pastor Doug: Well you know it's a, we're due for this question. We usually get this question about once every couple of months and it's an important question. It's a very common misunderstanding. Let me read this for our listeners Kevin ok?

Caller: Ok.

Pastor Doug: It says in Genesis 6 verse 1, 'Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful. And they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, 'My Spirit should not strive with man forever for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years.' '
Let me pause right there. First, let's identify the Sons of God. There are some people - there have been even Bible translations, and that's what caused a lot of the problem, not translations but paraphrase Bibles, that say these Sons of God are Heavenly Beings or Angels that had intimate relations with human women.

Now if we let the Bible interpret itself, you notice for one thing that when Luke does the chronology of Jesus in Luke chapter 3 38 and he says, 'And Enos was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God.' Adam is called the son of God. Then you go to 1 John chapter 3 verse 1 and it says, 'Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called sons of God.' All right so here it's telling us two times the sons of God are people but they're committed people, people committed to the Lord.

After Cain killed Abel, Adam and Eve had another son named Seth. And Seth, it says, feared the Lord. Seth and his descendents were children of God. Cain was carnal Enos. That means he was a mortal man. He did not have everlasting life. As long as they remained separate, the truth of God was preserved but when the sons of God began to marry - the children of Seth began to intermarry with the daughters of Cain - then that distinction, that holiness, it evaporated. That's why the next verse says God said My Spirit will not always strive with man. He's got 120 years before the flood. And so the sons of God were the descendents of Seth that were true to the Lord. They still offered sacrifice to God. The daughters of men were the daughters of Cain's descendents who had not the knowledge of God preserved.

Caller: Ok.

Pastor Doug: There's nothing else anywhere in the Bible that gives us the slightest hint that Angels procreate. Matter of fact, the Bible teaches the contrary.

Caller: Ok thank you.

Pastor Doug: All right. Good question though. Thank you very much.