(Ver 1.3)  This is Part 9 of a series of advanced lessons on the subject of the reality of angels found in the Bible.  I have already covered a lot of information on the subject so if you have not read this series from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1”.  Today’s Bible lesson is directed at and designed for spiritually mature Christian believers.  If you are not one of these, please just go read somebody else’s Bible lessons for today.  I will be discussing some mature subject matter and some things that I do not wish to offend anyone with.  Please evaluate your heart and be led to know if you are strong enough not to be offended and only then continue reading this lesson.    This Bible lesson will also no doubt be very long since I will attempt to answer 4 or more complex questions in one Bible lesson.  I probably should have broken it down into smaller chunks but you can do that on your own if you want.  The information specified is divided into chunks with the subject headings given.  So take them slowly and read them all at your own pace.   Learn everything you can about each subject given and have fun doing it.

I recently got a comment from someone on one of my angel series Bible lessons that raised some direct points about angels which require further explanation, scriptural clarification and reemphasis.  I did a Bible lesson on how the Bible says that some of the angels that fell with Satan came to the earth and physically had sex with the women of the earth to produce a race of giants.  This lesson came directly from the information contained in Genesis chapter 6 as well as several supporting scriptures in other parts of the Bible.   My commenter suggested that my lesson on Genesis 6 was in error because he believed that this was impossible for angels to accomplish.  He presented what he thought were three or four primary conflicts found in the Bible with what I taught.  First he said angels were sexless spiritual beings that do not marry or are given in marriage therefore it is impossible for them to have sexual intercourse with a human female like I was teaching.  Second he said that angels could not be physically seen by humans because of Balaam’s experience while riding on the donkey in Numbers 22.  Finally he emphasized that the Bible says that angels are “ministering spirits” so therefore they have no physical presence to even have natural sex.   He uses approximately 3 or 4 verses to help prove his point and we will review them all plus many new ones that he did not include or mention.  My commenter has basically raised four points or questions which require in-depth answers:

1. Are ALL angels called genderless, sexless, nonsexual or asexual beings anywhere in the Bible?
2. Are ALL angels defined as being only spirits anywhere in the Bible?
3. Are ALL angels consistently invisible and never able to manifest in the physical world to be seen?
4. Who are the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis chapter 6 according to the Bible if NOT angels?

These are the basic questions that I will attempt to focus in on from the facts given to us in the Bible.  There are over 280 verses in the Bible that directly mention angels by a form of that word title.  There are probably at least that many verses in the Bible that speak of angels indirectly by calling them by some other name, title, symbolic description or other hidden reference.  If we include titles, names and descriptions for Lucifer, Satan, demons, unclean spirits, Michael and Gabriel in the Bible the number of references to angels probably doubles again.  So we have the potential for over 1000 verses to research.    That is just too many Bible verses about angels for us to review them all in this lesson, but that does not mean they are not all important to know or learn.  What I want to do is to emphasize that there is more than one truth on the subject of angels found in the Bible.  We cannot take any one isolated truth and try to make it the entire truth or we will become confused.  We must therefore take into account every verse that we can find on the subject to observe and accumulate as many of the facts as we can.  Only by balancing every fact can we even come close to the knowledge of the actual complete truth.

Let me give you an example of what I am saying.  If I said that I bought a new car that is a single truth, but that is certainly not all of the truth that you may need to know in order to have a complete understanding of my car.  Was it a brand new car from a dealership or just a new car for me?  Was it a little car or a big car?  Who was the manufacturer of the car?  What was the model of the car?  What was the year of the car’s manufacture?    What color was the car that I got?  What options or features did it have?  What kind of motor did it have?  Was it a hybrid?  Was it fuel efficient?  On and on I could go to get more and more of the details by asking the right questions.  This is what people need to do when they study the Bible.  Observe the facts given to us in one verse as established truths, but then ask more detailed questions to expand our knowledge of the subject under discussion.  Only by digging deep in the Bible can we resolve the questions and fully understand the subjects.

Getting Back to the Basics!  What is an Angel?

Let’s review some of the basic facts about angels.  This is called getting back to the basics on the subject.  Ezekiel 28:14-15 describes Lucifer as being the anointed cherub and God informs us that Lucifer was a created being.  We can learn from this verse that an angel can be anointed by God just like a natural man can be anointed.  We can also easily conclude that every angel was a created being by a universal group association.  Nehemiah 9:6 seems to say that the hosts of heaven were made by God.  We also know from reading in Hebrews 1:5 that angels are not physically born beings exactly like humans are.  We can easily learn that angels can never die by reading Luke 20:36.  We also can understand that the reason that angels cannot die is because according to Hebrews 1:14 and Psalm 104:4 that angels are first and foremost spirit beings.  The angel’s spiritual domain or home is stated to be in heaven (Mat 24:36, Heb 12:22).  We can also surmise that angels have freewill according to Isaiah 14:12-14 and Jude 1:6.  Based upon this information we can conclude that angels are now divided into two general groups that I will call the faithful and the fallen.  We further have learned that angels are not omnipresent beings (Job 1:7, Dan 10:13).  We can also ascribe that angels are not omniscient beings (1 Cor 2:8, 1 Peter 1:12).  Finally we can see that angels are not omnipotent beings according to Daniel 10:12-13 and Rev 12:7.  However, we can also see that angels have great supernatural power (Gen 19:11, 19:13, 2 Kings 19:35).  These are just some of the basic truths surrounding angels but that is not the entire truth about angels found in the Bible.

What we begin to realize is that angels possess many qualities that are similar to humans.  We also can see many qualities that are different than humans.  Two of the main words translated as “angel” are the Hebrew “H4397” and the Greek “G32” and their word meaning is “someone sent as a messenger”.  Clearly the Bible definitions of these words translated as angel immediately contradicts with my commenter’s point that angels cannot manifest in the natural realm to bring a message from God to the natural people on the earth.  If angels are the designated messengers of God they must be able to communicate with any of the natural people on the earth at any time in one of the following ways:

1. Angels must manifest in the natural realm to be seen or heard through the natural senses.
2. The voice of angels must be heard internally by the human spirit or the human mind as a thought.
3. Angels must be seen and heard in a dream while sleeping.
4. Angels must be seen and heard in a spiritual vision either closed or open.

I do not have the time to explain every angelic speaking option and all of their details in this lesson.  If you do not understand everything, I have several other Bible lessons that explore them in more depth.  We can find so many examples of angels in the Bible performing these types of communications with natural people and that is where we will go next.

Can Angels Manifest to be Seen by the Natural People on the Earth?

Num 22:23  And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.

According to my commenter NO angel can be seen by humans because Balaam could not see the angel that was standing directly in front of him.  I actually find this verse fascinating because the animal that Balaam is riding upon is said to see the angel but not Balaam.  I believe that this is very informative about the supernatural ability of angels to selectively appear.  But, according to my commenter this story proves that angels are spirits that cannot ever be seen by the natural human eye.  The only problem with that assertion is that there are too many other Bible examples that are being ignored to establish an independent unproven truth.  I want to see if the Bible says that angels have appeared to anyone on the earth in any form, method or fashion.  I want to be open to find what the Bible directly says about the circumstances, the surroundings, the timings, the context, the reason for the appearance and the individual participants named.  I have gone through the Bible in some depth to discover a sequence of occurrences and I will list some of the examples in the following table.

I would recommend that you go through the entire chapters given and read all of the surrounding verses to get the complete message specified about angels. Also these are certainly not every occurrence of the manifestation of angels found in the Bible.  I only showed you these to prove that angels can be seen in various forms and ways by people in the natural realm.  If you read every example closely you can see that the angels also interact physically with the people on the earth at times by touching them, speaking to them, and many other things.  The method of appearance may vary and the form that they take may also vary.  But, that is the demonstrated power of God and angels working together for good.  It also reveals that evil can be equally accomplished by the angels that are not faithfully obedient to God.  What I try to do is to teach people that we must not put God or other spiritual beings in our little box and try to place limitations to what we think that they can accomplish in the natural realm.  Notice that I have given you over 20 examples of angels being seen by natural people directly on the earth.  These displayed manifestations of angels prove that they can be seen both spiritually and physically.  What we have just learned is a basic reality that angels are at times invisible and at other times completely visible and that helps us to ask some new questions about how this is possible.

What we are doing is expanding our knowledge of the spiritual realm.  What we are learning is how easy it is that sometimes people can draw wrong conclusions using only a small number of limited known facts.   What is required is the acquisition of more facts that will help us to increase our understanding on the subject being studied.  This is actually a very important concept while studying any subject in the Bible.  Do not draw or leap to conclusions until you have all of the facts.  Keep your mind fluid and open filling it with more and more facts.  Then do not guess, presume or assume anything.  To be presumptive is one of the greatest dangers in achieving erroneous Bible interpretations.  What is a presumptive assertion?  A presumptive conclusion of error is always based upon human ignorance with no supporting facts or evidence from God.  This erroneous position is an un-provable declaration with limited information being promoted as the complete information.

Presumptive behavior is very much like when people today say that God does not exist because they have never seen God.  Whether you have personally seen God or not, never proves God’s existence for anyone nor does it prove that God cannot be seen by anyone else.  People who have never seen God could have never looked for Him.  People who have never seen God could have looked in the wrong places for Him.  People that have never seen God probably have never considered the fact that God may not want to be seen right now at this moment.  It is like looking for your child if they do not want to be found by you and that simply means they are hiding until they decide to jump out an suddenly reveal themselves.  People who have never seen God have not been everywhere on the earth or in the universe, or even into the unknown spiritual dimension so there is no way that anyone can prove there is no God by their limited knowledge and experiences.  Therefore their word of assertion that there is no God is simply presumptive foolishness.

There are just too many reasons why some things cannot be proven without facts. There is a great illogical presupposition that occurs when people try to use their limited human knowledge to proclaim something about a subject that is as all-encompassing and complex as the existence of God or angels, what they are capable of and what they can or cannot do in either the natural realm or the spiritual realm.  Here is the basis of the illogical problem, just because I have not seen an angel does not prove that no one has ever seen an angel.  That would be entirely ignorant of me to make that assumption.  The same is true when we read the story about Balaam in the Bible, just because Balaam did not see the angel at first does not prove that anyone else in the Bible never saw an angel.  It would be illogical and ignorant to attempt to stretch the story of Balaam to say that.  Now if we can find a verse of truth that says that angels cannot be seen, then that verse would change the situation of factual knowledge.   But, just because we read about one man that could not see the angel it does not prove that no one can see an angel and the Bible proves this repeatedly as I have already demonstrated.   Do not make a wrong assumption based upon one man’s experience, base your beliefs only upon all of the facts presented.

Can Spirits Have Bodies?

We have proven conclusively that angelic spiritual beings can manifest in the physical world and be seen and even be touched.  So they have physical presence at certain given times and situations.  Now I’m going to talk about a new concept that is very important.  Do any angelic spirits have bodies?  I can speak using me as an example and say from a human perspective my eternal and internal spirit has a mortal body.  This truth is also true for you.  We know that Paul writes to the church “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8).  Christian spirits will depart their body to be in heaven after the death of the body.  So we must then ask ourselves, do eternal angelic spirits have eternal spiritual bodies or are they like the spirits of people after they die?  Here is the complexity of a new subject called the resurrection.  People on the earth die and leave their bodies behind on the earth, but this is only a temporary situation until the redemption of our bodies is accomplished (Rom 8:23).  The subject of the resurrection will be the focus of this section of the lesson.  Here is a verse that my commenter tried to confirm his conclusion that angels have no bodies:

Heb 1:14  Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

I have to agree that if this was the only verse that I studied about angels that it appears to say that they are spiritual beings like when the people on the earth after they have died and left their bodies.   As we can all see angels are called “ministering spirits” and we can all just automatically know or more precisely again “assume” that spirits have no bodies either spiritual or physical.  Do you understand yet, the problem in making that kind of assumption based upon no confirming knowledge or stated facts in this verse?  Did you read anywhere in this verse where it says that an angel has no body?  I did not see it; the emphasis was clearly on the spiritual part of the angel, but that does not mean they do not have a physical part.  Therefore to say angels do not have a body is an assumption at this point of time with the given information.

We cannot make assumptions about things that we do not yet have any facts to confirm or we will just come up with a new baseless theory, like scientists have done with evolution.  Do you know what a theory is?  A theory is any stated position that is based upon human ignorance of the subject under discussion.  Theories whether educated, reasoned or purely invented are never based upon all of the facts since all of the facts are not known.  If all of the facts were known, theories would be unnecessary.  Facts will always trump theories, but facts must first be discovered.  Theories will always have to bow their knees to the facts of truth found in discovery.  Since none of us on the earth have ever lived in the spiritual realm we are at the mercy of learning about the spiritual realm from the facts that are presented to us in the Word of God.  I want you to understand that just because we think we might know a handful of the facts, does not mean that there are not still hundreds of other new facts that are still left to be discovered.  I will introduce you to a scripture that my commenter did not mention but it is relevant none-the-less.  Jesus while speaking of His resurrected body said to us that spirits do not have flesh and bone in Luke:

Luk 24:39  Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

Wow, am I trying to make this more complicated on purpose?  This appears on the surface to be further confirmation to what my commenter was saying.  Jesus clearly says that “spirits do not have flesh and bone”.  However, that is not exactly all that Jesus said.  You see you have to pay very close attention to every word spoken and not just a select few that you want to see to make your point.  Jesus does not say that a spirit has no flesh or no bones; He said they do not have flesh and bones like mine and that is a completely different statement and changes the meaning entirely.  If I said, “you do not have a car like mine”, does that mean that you do not have a car, or does that mean that your car is different than my car?  I firmly believe that it means that Jesus’ resurrected body was not like their body.  It is very clear to me that angels must have a spiritual body, but that it is just not a body exactly like the resurrected body of Jesus with nail prints and scars.  Do you understand that logic?  This will lead me to my next set of points that we need to grasp fully.  Here is another verse that my commenter thought was his best reason for why angels are sexless spiritual beings:

Mat 22:30  For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

According to my commenter he has concluded that since God says that angels do not marry and we all know that people do marry, that people can therefore have sex and angels therefore cannot have sex.  Again this is an example of making a verse say what it does not say and actually ignoring what it does say.  All of these scriptures that my commenter gave me sounded like really good arguments until we actually study them in more depth and read the rest of the Bible on the subject of angels.  Let’s talk about what this verse in Matthew is about within the stated context and then determine what facts are presented and what conclusions we can logically learn from them.  If you read the verses that precede this one you will see some Jewish men asking Jesus a question concerning the Law of Moses.  If a man married a woman and had no children and dies, the man’s brother was required to marry the woman to “raise up seed” for his brother.  In their story this occurs repeatedly for seven brothers and one wife and they then ask Jesus after the resurrection in the eternal spiritual realm, whose wife will this woman be since she was married to each brother in the natural realm?  Technically speaking the subject context is the resurrection and not the marriage or the sex, but the marriage and the sex was where their mind was focused and Jesus’ answer is greater than their thoughtless reasoning.  That is the context of the verse concerning marriage.  What did Jesus say in response?  Jesus told these men they did err not knowing the scriptures or the power of God and then He goes on to tell them that people on the earth will be resurrected to become like the angels and that they will neither marry or be given in marriage.  Here is where we need to stop and think and ask some new questions.

1. Does that mean resurrected people will all have sexless bodies?
2. Does that mean resurrected people will no longer have the ability to have sex?
3. Or the best question to start with is; do resurrected people have bodies at all?

These are some really tough questions.  They however will reveal much if we dig to find the answers.  Before we try to answer the questions, let’s examine what exactly was stated in Matthew 22:30 and what does it mean without stretching it to say anything it does not say?  I want to list what the verse says and then I will list what it does not say.  Here are the stated facts that I can see being presented to us in this lesson from Jesus:

1. Marriage is not an option after the resurrection.
2. People on the earth that were married here will not be married to each other in the spiritual eternal realm.
3. People on the earth will no longer have a mortal body that will die.
4. People on the earth after the resurrection will be like the angels.

Here is what the verse does not say:

1. It does not say that angels do not have sex.
2. It does not say that angels cannot have sex.
3. It does not say that resurrected people do not have the ability to have sex.
4. It also does not say that angels do not have bodies.

These are simply all of the facts that I could come up with off the top of my head.  If I try to make this verse in Matthew say anything else then I would be stepping into the realm of theoretical speculation and that be a wrong action to take.  What we need to do is to learn what else the Bible reveals on the subject of the resurrection in order to determine the factual truths to answer the questions that we have developed.  Here is a very relevant verse about the resurrection that we need to apply to what we have just learned:

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

If you read the entire chapter you will clearly see that this verse is about the resurrection from the dead that will occur very soon.  Further it answers the question do resurrected people have bodies.  It also reveals the factual existence of “spiritual bodies” and the potential that spirits might have one.  Therefore God reveals there are two different kinds of bodies in existence today.   Sowing and reaping of seeds is one of the primary subjects of this verse and God informs us that the seed that is sown is our natural human body and the crop that is reaped is our new spiritual body.  This verse is very informative and profound using created concepts to explain how spiritual things will work.  It states that one seed produces one crop.  It also reveals the crop to be greater than the seed sown.

In the natural realm the seed sown always determines the crop produced.  This law of self-sustaining propagation must also apply to this lesson of the resurrection or God would not have mentioned it.  In other words the unique seed that was sown (our body) in the natural realm must also determine the unique crop produced in the spiritual realm.  In the natural realm no two humans are exactly alike.  Each has unique fingerprints, DNA, spirits and other characteristics that make us all different seeds to God.  So let me ask you this, if I am a human natural male seed, will I produce an eternal spiritual male body or a new sexless spiritual crop?  If I produced a sexless crop the seed would have had to have mutated, been altered or changed.  If I was a sexless seed here on the earth I would have to say I would become a sexless crop in the resurrection, but since I am not sexless and neither are you, I have to conclude that what is produced in the spiritual body must directly resemble the natural body seed that was planted to produce it.  I mean come on, a corn seed does not produce broccoli.  Here are some more very relevant verses on the subject of the resurrection:

2Co 5:1  For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2Co 5:2  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

2Co 5:3  If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

2Co 5:4  For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

I pray that these verses are not too complex for you.  God is not describing two housing projects; He is describing your body before the resurrection and after the resurrection.  God says that when this earthly body is taken away, it will be replaced with a new heavenly body that will remain forever.  The mortal will be swallowed up by the immortal.  Both are bodies that clothe, covers, or cloak our spirits.  Our spirits will forever be housed inside of a body.  One body was mortal and one will be eternal.  This really is not that complicated, but people miss it every day.   These are verses that apply to us becoming like the angels that we read about in Matthew 22:30.  These verses say our resurrected bodies will be like the bodies of the angels in heaven that also never die.  These verses practically prove the existence of angelic bodies.  If angels did not have eternal spiritual bodies then the Bible becomes a lie.

After Jesus was resurrected from the dead was He a sexless being?  You see you cannot find that lie in the Bible.  Jesus was the risen Son of God and not a sexless child of God.  Jesus is still called the Bridegroom a male dominated reality and He did not change or transform from His naturally sown seed body that He possessed.  Therefore, I have concluded that it is only logical to believe that both males and females will exist after the resurrection from the dead.  If this is true then males and females must have existed before the resurrection from the dead in the angelic realm because Jesus said that we will all become as the angels of God.  Uh oh that makes the existence of female angels a required reality.  If female angels do not exist then resurrected female humans cannot exist in order to be like them.  It also dictates that every angel has a spiritual body that does not die like the ones that we will possess soon.  Therefore, we must conclude that there exists spiritual bodies and that they are comprised of spiritual male and female bodies and that they are no different in features and characteristics from the sown seed natural bodies that produced them.  Let’s continue to study by searching to see if angels are called sexless in the Bible.

Are Angels Sexless Beings?

We clearly know that angels are spirit beings based upon what we read about them in Hebrews 1:14.  But we also learned that even spiritual angels have spiritual bodies by reading 1 Corinthians 15:44.  What is a spiritual body?  Is a spiritual body one that we cannot see, one we cannot touch or one that does not have sexual organs?  I believe that it would be an inconsistent definition and one that cannot be confirmed with the rest of the Bible if we tried to extend the definition of the angelic spiritual body to be anything other than a body that will never die.  Also I believe that a spiritual body cannot be a body that does not have any physical substance or the disciples would not have been able to see and to touch Jesus after He was raised from the dead.  Further the Bible says that the resurrected Jesus ate with the disciples after being raised from the dead proving He still had internal organs that could process natural food. Therefore, a spiritual body by definition can only be a body that does not ever experience death.

We should know from reading the Bible that God is a Spirit according to John 4:24.  But we also know that humans are called spiritual beings in verses like 1 Thessalonians 5:23.  We further understand by casual observation that people on the earth come in two basic varieties with many individual examples of each and these are either males or females.  Now, let me ask you this very basic question: Was our God ever referred to as a sexless spiritual being in the Bible?  Has our God ever been referred to as a female spiritual being in the Bible?  If you do the research you will have to answer “NO” to both of those questions.  God is always referred to in the masculine male perspective when referenced, described or named.  If God is a male spirit, then can there exist a female spiritual being?  If you do not think so, why would God bother to call Himself a Male if it does not matter or if no female spirits did exist?  You only label or qualify a noun with an adjective in order to differentiate one type of the noun from another noun of like variety.  I am called a husband to distinguish me as being different from my wife.  I believe that it definitely matters how we view our God.  If you view Him as a sexless spirit God you have perverted His word and changed it into a lie.  If you view the Spirit of God as a female God then you have also perverted His word and again converted it into a lie.

I logically believe that I cannot begin to define what a male is or even understand the concept of spiritual maleness without the existence of a counterpart female spiritual being.  Do me a favor and go to the dictionary and see how they define the word male.  A male is always defined by the distinctive human physical characteristics that are different from a female.  So how do you understand what a male is without a female existence?  It would be like trying to describe to someone what the direction east was if no west direction existed.  How could you do that?   One of the only ways that you understand the direction of east is by the existence of the antithesis west direction.  Why would God call Himself a male if He is not one?  Go through your Bible and find me one scripture that says that God is either a stated female or a sexless spirit.  I do not believe that you can find it and if you did it would contradict with the many other verses that say He is a male spirit.  God is always called by masculine titles, names and descriptions.  God is only called our “Father” and never our mother in over 200 verses in the Bible.  A “Father” is always a male procreator and never the female recipient.  God is also called the “Husband” and the “Bridegroom” and never the female bride in His Word.  God is always called King and never a queen.  Jesus Christ is called a man and the Son of Man consistently in the Bible.  These are all male titles of leadership, headship and authority.  That is very clear to me that it matters what we think and how we think on the subject of God’s sex and His position in the spirit world.  If God is not sexless and calls Himself a male spirit, then there has to exist both male and female spirits by implied definition and direct antithesis association.  Let’s examine a short list of Bible verses that reveal angels are also not sexless spiritual beings either:

I just gave you 10 very good witnesses that say angels exist in the form of males.  These are all very clear references that demonstrate angels are not sexless beings.  You never call any being either natural or spiritual a man, a prince or a son if they are not one.  These are all self-evident scriptures that directly reveal the existence at minimum of male angels and by implication the existence of female angels.  Since the existence of female angels is not the main issue of my commenter I do not need to prove the existence of female angels.  I believe that female angels must exist by God’s stated usage of the male adjectives and pronouns that are used to describe some of them and the implied antithesis that these convey. My goal today is to prove the existence of angels as males in order to confirm that they can have sexual relationships with the natural female women on the earth if they choose to do so.   What I have done is shown you more than verses that describe some angels as being males.  A male is what?  Did you look up the word in the dictionary?  A male is a being spiritual or natural with male sexual organs and ONLY this differentiates them from females.  So far we have addressed the reality that angels can be seen, that they have a spiritual body, they are not sexless and that their body must resemble our resurrected body.  These are the stated facts so far that confirm my Bible lesson but I have a lot more that needs to be addressed.

Who are the Sons of God in Genesis 6, Angels or Men?

6:2  That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Gen 6:4  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.

Two times here in Genesis chapter 6 I believe that angels are called the “sons of God”.  These are of course the controversial verses that are in dispute that people like to try to explain away.   Clearly we can see that some beings are called the “sons” of God and that is what we need to determine next.  Who are these “sons of God”?   What I want you to understand is the reason that my commenter is disputing these verses to be angels.  Since the noun “sons’ is used that designates the existence of male attributes and because of the implied marriage and the sexual relationship mentioned that conflicted with his interpretation of Matthew 22:30 that angels cannot have sex because they do not marry.  I can see how that can become a potential problem for someone who does not know the facts.  However, we have already seen in the Bible repeatedly that angels are called men and by other male titles.  So angels definitely qualify to be the stated “sons of God” in these verses by direct definition and association.  My commenter wrote these verses off because they designate that angels are not sexless, that they can marry and that they have to be more than spirits.  What I want you to do is to understand that just because God says that angels are not supposed to marry does that mean that they cannot marry?  Let me ask you this question, was Lucifer supposed to sin or was Lucifer created to be sinless and to remain sinless but he decided to sin?  Those are excellent questions to consider.  I believe that just because a being is created not to do something does not mean that they cannot do it if they choose to rebel.  It is like in the natural world when people pass laws for people not to speed, but yet people speed every day.  This is where the freewill of men and angels becomes a factor.  We see that reality demonstrated and repeated in the life of Adam and what he chose for us all.  We must be able to conclude that because angels are not supposed to marry, that it does not mean they cannot marry.

So because my commenter rejected my interpretation of Genesis 6, he had to come up with an alternative explanation for the reality of who the “sons of God” were.  He basically told me that the only difference between the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men” were that the sons were the human descendants of Seth and that the daughters of men were the human descendants of Cain.  However that is just very poor unfounded human reasoning that cannot be substantiated with any confirming scriptures and it basically tries to teach us that one human race cannot legally marry into another race.  People creatively change the words in the Bible to create explanations that fit what they want to believe.  Notice that the “daughter’s of men are not the daughters of Seth anywhere.  “Daughters of men” are always generic for every female descenant from Adam.  One of the main problems with this assertion is that it sounds like racism and I’m not going to go there because it is based upon ignorance.  In order to confirm his theory we would first need to find some scriptures that says the “sons of God” were any of the human males from Seth but that is not found anywhere in the Old Testament.  Humans are never called the sons of God until after Jesus is raised from the dead and the church is born from above to become the spiritual sons of God.  Next we would have to find where it says that Seth had only males and that Cain had only female children, since that was the reason for the separate title distinctions given to us according to my commenter.  What we can see developing is an implied philosophy of prohibited interracial marriage where one race cannot marry another race of human descendants of the family of Adam.  We can clearly see that this is an unfounded teaching in the New Testament.  If the race of Seth cannot marry the race of Cain we have several major new problems and still no explanations to why this would have cause giants on the earth.  God does not say that any race should not marry any other race anywhere until after Israel became a nation and God only commanded them not to intermarry with other nations to keep them from the idols of those other godless nations.  However even Jesus’ genealogy teaches us that Gentiles were included in the nation of Israel with the addition of Rahab and Ruth.  Both of these women were faithful to God and they helped to bring His messiah into the world.  So God permitted such exceptions of inter-racial marriages depending upon circumstances and the conditions of the hearts of the women.

When we start deviating from the Word of God it is easy to find contradictions to shoot them down.  Genesis 5:7 informs us that Seth had both sons and daughters and in Genesis 4:17 God says that Cain also had sons.  Therefore, both of these verses are conflicting with my commenter’s wrong interpretation that the sons of Seth wrongly married the daughters of Cain to produce the giant race.  The sons of God (males) can only be associated to be angels and the daughters (females) of man can only be associated with all human women from every descendant of Adam’s family.  No other interpretation can be confirmed using the Bible.  Only the unity of the angels with human females could have produced the perverted race of giants that existed in the days prior to the flood.  No other explanation can produce the stated result or explain how this occurred.  What we need to do is to research where else in the Bible the term “sons of God” is mentioned and then interpret them all together the same way to be consistently correct in all of our of interpretations.  This is called letting the Bible interpret itself and it is critical to getting the truth.  The term “sons of God” are the Hebrew words “ben Elohiym”.  This specific combination of Hebrew words together only appears in 5 verses in the entire O.T.  So God must be revealing something by their limited usage.  Let’ go to the only other references to “sons of God” and see what God reveals to us about them:

Job 1:6  Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

Job 2:1  Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.

Job 38:7  When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

I cannot read any of these three verses and see anything but angles being the “sons of God”.  It is impossible to say that they are the sons of Seth.  It is impossible to call them human at all.  If you read them all in context you will see that these sons of God appeared in heaven (a spiritual realm) before the very throne of God and they have returned there to be in the presence of God only after coming back from the earth.  Had any human ever done that before Jesus died?  I do not believe that you can find where a human in the Bible came from the earth to present themselves before the throne of God only to then returns back to the earth and then to again return back to heaven one chapter later.  This can only describe an angelic being that is capable of coming and going from both realms of dimension.   The key to understanding what is happening here in Job is found in the dream that Jacob had of the spiral stair case that went from the earth up into the heavens where he also saw the angels ascending and descending.  This is exactly what is happening in the book of Job.  Let’s review this verse to make sure you don’t miss it because it is very important to the interpretation of Job:

Gen 28:12  And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

If the angels ascended and then came back descending from heaven this perfectly describes and matches what is happening in the book of Job to the letter.  If you do not see that then you are clearly very blind.  In this verse in Genesis the angels of God are the described beings that go back and forth.  No human has ever done that in the Bible except for the Lord Jesus Christ who was the first.  Do you recall when Jesus arose from the dead and He appeared at the tomb to Mary and He told her not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to His Father in heaven?  So Jesus was the first man that ascended into heaven from the earth to cleanse the temple in heaven with His shed blood (John 20:17, Col 1:20, Heb 9:11:14) and then to return physically to appear to His disciples.  We can therefore conclude that the “sons of God” referred to in Job are the angels of heaven and based upon this knowledge we must conclude that the “son of God” in Genesis 6 are also the same types of angels by direct named association.  Also, if you go back and reread the context of Job 38:7 you will see God speaking of the creation of the earth.  In the context three verse later the “sons of God” are shouting for joy about the works of God hands.  We have to say that these “sons of God” that shouted are the angels in heaven since man did not yet exist on the earth when this was accomplished.  This is really not rocket science and it is not that hard to grasp, but you do have to be open to receive it.   There can really be no other valid Bible interpretation based upon what God said in His Word; the “sons of God’ are angels of God.

Can Angels Physically Manifest on the Earth?

I believe that I have already shown you multiple verses that angels are called by male dominant titles and descriptions and that they can physically appear on the earth.  Therefore, do not think that because angels are described as spiritual beings that they are not also sexual beings. I have already taught you generally speaking that angels have spiritual bodies that we will obtain to after the resurrection.  Now I want to reemphasize the fact that these spiritual heavenly beings can have a physical presence on the earth to do many things and even natural things that human do everyday.  Let me help to prove that to you from the Bible.  You may have forgotten that the N.T. says for us to do the following to angels:

Heb 13:2  Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

How are we (the natural people of the earth) supposed to entertain spiritual angels if we cannot see them, touch them or feed them with our own natural foods?  How do you entertain an invisible spiritual being?  This verse is not requesting us to be Broadway show performers or Vaudeville stage comedians to angels.  It is simply telling us to treat angels with kindness and hospitality like we should do with every human.  People that believe that angels cannot become visible and that angels do not have bodies that we can touch would make this verse impossible for us to perform.  You see it would not be possible for me to interact physically with a stranger and for me to not know they were an angel if they did not look exactly like me, sound exactly like me and act exactly like me.  If they have no physical attributes like mine that are visibly displayed I cannot venture to entertain them unaware.  Do you understand this?  As soon as any angel refused to eat what I gave them it might prove that they were unable to be entertained like a common stranger.  If I invited a stranger to spend the night at my house and I offered for them to sleep in my quest room and they refused and disappeared they would immediately become not like a stranger that I could entertain.  They only way for an angel to be here unaware is for them to appear and respond exactly like a courteous polite human would to an offer of kindness.  If all angels were 12 feet tall with wings on their backs then that would be an instant give away that they were an angel and thus my awareness would be alerted instantly and they would not be found unaware.  Therefore some angels must have spiritual bodies that look and functions exactly like mine or I would be able to instantly recognize them to be angels.  There is an example of this entertaining of angels in the Bible that is also very relevant to this study.  Read these verses very carefully:

Gen 19:1  And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;

Obviously Lot could see the angels physically with his natural eyes that were sent to Sodom.  However, did they look like angels or did they look like men to Lot?  That is what we need to figure out in this story and then we need to determine what they did and what they didn’t do in the natural realm.  Keep in mind that Lot did not write the book of Genesis it was written down by Moses.  The Bible does not say that Lot knew that they were angels.  The Bible implies that Lot sees two strangers entering the city and that Lot is gracious, considerate and hospitable to them.  Nevertheless the angels are physically seen by Lot proving to us all again that angels can be seen and this dispels the myth that angels are always invisible.

Gen 19:2  And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.

I want you to notice what is occurring here.  The angels are clearly visible to Lot with Lot speaking directly to them and they are invited to come to Lot’s house to spend the night and to even wash their feet at his house.  If Lot thought they were angels why would Lot offer these services to angels?  Uh oh?  Are these not problems for my commenter?  Angels have natural looking features like feet that can be washed with natural water.  That does not sound like invisible spirits to me.  So far this is an example of Lot entertaining two strangers like Hebrews 13:2 said for us to do.  Since Hebrews 13:2 was not yet written I don’t know how Lot decided to do this, it must have been in his heart to do.  Keep reading in this chapter and notice that at no time does Lot acknowledged them as supernatural beings even though that is clearly what they are and the story only gets better from here:

Gen 19:3  And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

Here is where it really starts to get much more interesting.  You see Lot convinces the angels to come to his house and it even implies that he touches them to help convince them.  You could view this as verbal persuasion or physical persuasion or even a combination of both of these human actions.  The angels come to Lot’s house and he fixed them a huge dinner feast and they did eat it.  Uh Oh, Again!  CAN YOU READ what this says?  If angels can eat our natural food with their spiritual mouths then they also have the stomach and digestive like organs to process that food and even the natural orifices to expel the waste.  What we can clearly observe is the human like features that we all possess being found present in the realm of angels.  We must therefore conclude that if angels have a mouth, then they also have an implied stomach and digestive system, an implied waste disposal system and we have already seen that they have direct literal feet mentioned.  Therefore, where do we stop to say that they do not have sexual organs to go with all of the rest of the male package?   At least three times in this chapter the angels are called “men” in the inspired Word of God.  Is God a liar?  Men are only men if they have the male sexual organs present.  I really do not want to get any more graphic than this, you either see it or you don’t.  But, in light of what else is revealed to us about these angels in this chapter we will see that the people of Sodom saw it:

Gen 19:4  But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

Before the angels lay down in a natural physical bed to sleep and after eating the dinner feast with Lot, the men of the city surrounded the house because they have also seen the strangers come into the house with Lot and they want what from them?  This next bit of information is going to rock your religious boat a bit, so get ready to sink or swim:

Gen 19:5  And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

Here is where it gets really deep.  The men of the city think the angels are men just like they are.  These are more examples of angels being unaware that we just read about in the N.T.  However these men of Sodom do not want to entertain the strangers in the same way that Lot did or even in a sane human right way.  These men of Sodom are all homosexual men and they want the angels to have sex with them.  If the angels have no anus or sexual organs this would have been impossible for these men of Sodom to accomplish.  All the angels would have had to do is to step outside and show the men they were sexless and the problem is over, but the angels did not do that, did they.  You might be wondering how I got from “Know” them to “Have sex” with them and that is why you don’t understand what the Bible says.  The Hebrew word translated as “know” is “yada” and it means to have sexual intercourse.  Adam we are told “Knew” (yada) his wife Eve in Genesis 4 and she had a son.  So to KNOW is a sexual reference to having intercourse.  Clearly the men of the city could see that the angels were sexual beings or they would not have desired this sexual experience with them.  These verses are self-evident that angels have the ability to have sex.  However these were not Satan’s angels these were God’s angels sent from heaven and they did not want to have sex with the Sodomites.  After all they were there for that reason to destroy the city because of the homosexuality that was present.  What we learn in this story is that at least some angels have spiritual bodies that look very natural to us humans.  They can sleep in beds, they can eat natural food, and they can even wash their feet.  These concepts are just too radical for many people to grasp.  But we are about to learn that this is a two way street that goes both ways from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven:

Psa 78:24  And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.

Psa 78:25  Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full.

These two verses reveal that people on the earth were eating the same food that angels ate in heaven and we have already clearly seen in Genesis 19 that angels physically ate the natural food that people eat.  I have now shown you too many verses that at the least say some angels are no different than people physically speaking on the earth.  What God is demonstrating is that physical things parallel the pre-existing spiritual things and those things can even be interchanged or exchanged from one dimension to the other.  From my Bible studies the only difference that I can find between the spiritual realm and the natural realm is one is called temporary and the other is called eternal.  That is a very radical concept to consider.  Could God have created the natural world as a pattern of the spiritual world?  Will the coming eternal new heaven and new earth also still be a pattern of what we see today, without the presence of evil?  I believe that it will.  I could give you many more verses but I have spent too much time on this response and I do not even know if my commenter or anyone else will receive it.  If anyone does receive it then it was worth the time that I spent.

My commenter raised some good scriptural points, but simply misapplied the limited information that was contained in the verses to draw some wrong conclusions.   We explored a lot of verses about angels in today’s lesson.  I hope I balanced them so that you could see that angels are spiritual beings like us with eternal bodies.  All of these Bible verses about angels should be factored into the complete knowledge of the subject. Out of all of these verses people have chosen to focus on a select few of them, ignoring the rest.  I believe that I have given you overwhelming evidence that angels are real and that angels have great ability and power both spiritually and physically on the earth.  I have given more than enough witnesses that angels are not sexless, that angels can be seen physically, and that angels had to have been the “sons of God” in Genesis 6.   Until next time I thank you for studying the Bible with me and I will try to continue the other subjects that left hanging in the next lesson.  For now I’m done with the subject of angels.  The only factor that I wish I could have gotten to is why the angels had sex with the daughters of men.  I believe the reasons why they were doing this, is extremely important to understand, but that will have to be another Bible lesson in the future.  God Bless.