Did angels have sex with women?

In reply to Dan. Hi Dan, I agree with you 100%, you need to read the whole article first though. When you are debating a topic, you first go thru what the opposite view is, then you explain what you believe Scripture is saying and why. I know it is hard to spend time to understand the other view, but you must if you want to win the debate. Many Christians believe just that, that Angels had sex with human beings, but we know that is not what God is saying in His Word, so I have given their view and use their references first. Then, I go over why we do not believe angels had sex with women. I hope this helps. Brother Gary

Question: Did angels have sex with women? In Genesis 6 it says that sons of God went into daughters of men.

Answer: “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 shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” (Genesis 6:1-4)

The question arises over what these words from Genesis six mean, and how they affected almost a whole generation of people being lost to Satan. “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.

So first, I will give the view of some Christians concerning the “sons of God” and the meaning for these words. “The identity of these (6:2) “sons of God” has been a matter of much discussion, but the obvious meaning is that they were angelic beings. This was the uniform interpretation of the ancient Jew, who translated the phrase as “angels of God” in their Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. The apocryphal books of Enoch elaborate this interpretation, which is also strongly implied by the New Testament passages Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4-6; 1 Peter 3:19,20.

The Hebrew phrase is bene elohim , which occurs elsewhere only in Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7. In these three explicitly parallel usages, the contextual meaning can be nothing except that of angels. A similar phrase bar elohim, occurs in Daniel 3:25, and another, bar elim , occurs in Psalm 29:1 and Psalm 89:6. All of these also refer explicitly to angels. The intent of the writer of Genesis 6 (probably Noah) was clearly that of introducing a monstrous irruption of demonic forces on the earth, leading to universal corruption and eventual judgment.

(6:2) “took them wives” The “taking” of these women most likely refers to fallen angels, or demons, “possessing” their bodies. The word “wives” (Hebrew ishshah ) is better translated “women.” There is no necessary intimation of actual marriage involved. By this time in history anarchism and amorality were so widespread that these demons were easily able to take possession of the bodies of multitudes of ungodly men; these in turn engaged in promiscuous sex with demon-possessed women, with a resulting rapid population growth. Satan perhaps hoped to generate a vast army of human recruits to his rebellion and also to thwart the coming of God’s promised Seed by corrupting all flesh.

(6:4) “giants” These “giants” were the monstrous progeny of the demon-possessed men and women whose illicit activities led to God’s warning of imminent judgment. The Hebrew word is nephilim (“fallen ones”), a term possibly relating to the nature of their spiritual “parents,” the fallen angels. That they were also physical giants is evident from the fact that the same word is later used in connection with the giants in Canaan at the time of Joshua (Numbers 13:33) and by the fact that the word here was translated in the Septuagint by the Greek word gigantes .

(6:4) “also after that” “After that” clearly refers to Numbers 13:33 and probably represents an editorial insertion in Noah’s record by Moses. These giants in Canaan may also have had demonically-controlled parents; they were also known as the Anakim, the sons of Anak.

(6:4) “daughters of men” The idea that these “daughters of men” were actually descendants of Cain, and the “sons of God” descendants of Seth has been a widely held Christian naturalistic interpretation. This was not the intended meaning of the writer, however, who could certainly have written that the male descendants of Seth began to take wives from the daughters of Cain if that were his meaning.

The descendants of Seth were not “sons of God” (most of them perished in the Flood) and the female descendants of both Cain and Seth were certainly “daughters of men” (literally, daughters of Adam ). Besides, Adam had many other sons in addition to Cain and Seth. Further, even though intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is wrong, it could not in itself have produced universal wickedness and violence.

(6:4) “men of renown” The antediluvian giants had, by the time of Moses, become renowned heroes of antiquity, as far as the world was concerned. They, like their parents, were probably demon-controlled. Their gigantic stature was engineered by genetic manipulations. They could not have been demi-gods (half man, half “god”), however, as ancient mythology claims, since such imaginary beings are beyond the pale of God’ creative purposes. Fallen angels are not prospects for salvation whereas fallen men and women are. A half-angel, half-human being would be an impossible anomaly in terms of soteriology. The only apparent solution to all the problems posed by these verses is demon possession of both parents and progeny, not demonic marriage or procreation.” (Taken in whole from The Defender’s Study Bible by Dr. Henry M. Morris.)

While I believe Dr. Morris very aptly presented the view of some Christians in the past and today, I still have to disagree with some of his conclusions. The main disagreement I have with this view is that it is clearly in opposition to the statement from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself about angels. By the way, this verse was not addressed in the above view, but Jesus says in no uncertain terms, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30)

Since this verse is very clearly teaching that angels do not have sex, probably not even the ability to do so, how is it that they could have sexual intercourse with women before the flood? Herein lies the main fallacy of the above view, plus the fact that these giants are in other places in the Bible, like the one who fought David.

It was one of the hardest things that I ever had to get use to at Bible School, and that was when there were different views presented. Basically growing up in a Christian home and church we usually got only one view presented to us. So this was quite a change to have to think for myself, and like Paul said, examine Scripture to see if what we are being taught agrees with the rest of Scripture. In this case these are “born again” Bible believing Christians that love the Lord with all their hearts and have done much to spread the gospel that believe this view. This however, does not mean that they are always right. Nor am I always right, but in this case there are some things that were overlooked that may shed some light on the subject.

Here is what I believe Scripture is teaching us, and that is there were two different groups of people on the earth at the beginning, those who worshiped God and those who did not. Then as a result of temptation by fallen angels (demons) the whole human race fell into sin, except for Noah and his family. We will see how demons enticed men and women to breed themselves like animals to become large and mean warrior types, with no concern for obeying God and their conscience.

It is impossible for the “sons of God” in Genesis six to be angels because angels do not marry. This is not just what I am saying; this is what Jesus said in no uncertain terms, again He said: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:34-36) So in this passage of Scripture Jesus lets us know that there is no way the “sons of God” in Genesis six are angels. (Jesus may even be correcting this misunderstanding about the sin of people before the Flood.)

Another thing, fallen angels, or demons as we call them often, are never called “sons of God.” At one time they were sons of God, but when they fell all at the same time with Lucifer, who took a third of them with him they were no longer called “sons of God.” “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Revelation 12:7-9)

Yes, it is true that there are other references in the Old Testament that use this same phrase “sons of God”, but it is always referring to holy angels, not fallen ones. Notice in the above Scripture they are called angels, not “sons of God” after they were cast out of heaven. However in this same verse 36 of Luke it calls believers “sons of God.” Why should the New Testament be off limits when interpreting Old Testament Scripture? I realize it is in a different language, but believers are still called “sons of God.”

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.” (Job 1:6) Notice the holy angels are called “sons of God,” and “Satan also came among them.” It does not say the sons of God and Satan was with them; it makes a distinction between the two. Satan was not in the group of the “sons of God.” Dr. Thiessen comments on this in his Lectures in Systematic Theology. On his discussion of angels here is what he says, “Five times angels are called “sons of God” in the Old Testament (Genesis 6:2, 4; Job 1:6; 21; 38:7); but never do we read of the “sons of angels.”

The reference in Genesis 6:2 probably intends to protest against the intermarriage of the godly line of Seth with the ungodly line of Cain; for there seems to be no distinction of sex among the angels. The word “angel” in Scripture is always in the masculine gender; but this is also the gender of beings in whom there is no sexual distinction.

Because they are a company and not a race, they sinned individually, and not in some head of the race. It may be that because of this fact God has made no provision of salvation for the fallen angels. In Hebrews 2:16 we read: “For verily not to angels doth he give help, but he giveth help to the seed of Abraham.” Strong says: “Christ could join himself to humanity by taking the common nature of all. There was no common nature of angels which he could take.” ( Lectures in Systematic Theology by Henry Clarence Thiessen)

This idea that the angels married people is from ancient myths. These myths may have been stories of demons, and it is possibly where the Greeks got the idea about the gods marring people. Also, there is the apocryphal book of Enoch, that some suggest we should believe, but are we to place our faith and trust in apocryphal books and myths of men over the clear teaching of the word of God?! Here is what Enoch said, according to this apocryphal book, some put their trust in:

“It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful (Gen. 6:1-2). And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, saying to each other: Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children, whose stature was each three hundred cubits. [This would be about 450 feet tall.]* Comment G.T. Panell

These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them; when they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them; and began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood.” ( The Book of Enoch from the Ethiopic, chapter 7) Does that sound like the truth to you or a myth?! These people were well over 400 feet tall according to the story, sounds a bit like Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, even more fantastic!

Josephus is mentioned as another proof reference of some who say that angels married people. But he may not even have been a believer, and sometimes he just repeats stories that were believed to be true, but had no basis in fact. Here is his story of before the Flood and what happened:

“Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven generations; but in process of time they were perverted, and forsook the practices of their forefathers, and did neither pay those honours to God which were appointed them,

…they now shewed by their actions a double degree of wickedness, whereby they made God to be their enemy; for many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength, for the tradition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants.” ( Josephus ) His is more believable, but still gives only a made up story, that had been passed down by Jews. This still goes against the clear teaching of Scripture, that angels do not marry or have intercourse, let alone children!

This is not just what I am saying, but also many other fine, born again Christian teachers with excellent reputations for teaching sound doctrine, here is what Dr. C. I. Scofield has to say about this subject:

Some hold that the “sons of God” were fallen angels “who kept not their first estate” (Jude 6-7, cp. “even as Sodom and Gomorrah”; 2 Peter 2:4-9. Accordingly, this intrusion into the human sphere produced a race of wicked giants (Genesis 6: 4-6). Others hold that since angels are spoken of in a sexless way (cp. Matthew 22:30), and that the words “took them wives” signifies a lasting marriage, the reference has to do with the breakdown of the separation of the godly line of Seth by intermarriage with the godless line of Cain.

A refinement of the latter view holds that the expression “sons of God” refers to all the godly, and “daughters of men” to all the ungodly, irrespective of their natural paternity. Whichever view is held, it is obvious that Satan attempted so to corrupt the race that the Messiah could not come to redeem man. But God salvaged a remnant (Gen. 6: 8 ff.), and a godly line was preserved. However, there is no remedy for rebellion against God; the judgment predicted by Noah’s ancestor fell (Jude 14-15; cp. Gen. 7:11; Isaiah 1:2-7, 24-25) ( New Scofield Reference Edition by C. I. Scofield)

So far, we understand now, that the godly line of Seth “sons of God” intermarried with the godless line of Cain “daughters of men.” “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)

“What then produced the violence, wickedness and abnormalities of the people described in Genesis 6? What is the resolution to solve this situation? It is quite simple, the children were all fully human offspring of truly human parents. Their parents were entirely human, but humans who were freely willing to be recruited, directed and controlled by fallen angels who were manipulating them for Satan’s benefit. Satan cannot create, but he can manipulate that which already exists and he can counterfeit the things of Gods’ creation.

“Satan can see the genetic makeup of people, and he knows which ones have the genetic material necessary to produce large stature. Then just like a dog breeder, he can cause willing humans to “breed” in order to produce people of greater and greater size. His plan was to corrupt totally the human line in order to prevent the birth of the sinless Son of God.

“Satan and the fallen angels would, as part of their schemes, want to corrupt the human population, so as to prevent the birth of the Promised One, as prophesied by Lamech in Genesis 5:29.

“One element concerning the nature of the sinful actions of these fallen angels was that they compounded their sin. These angels left “their own habitation” or “first estate”; they not only tried to cause people to sin, but they actually attempted ancient genetic engineering of the human race. (Jude 6, 7) For this double crime they are now confined in Tartarus awaiting final judgment. (2 Peter 2:4)

“And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” (Jude 6-7) “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell (Tartarus) and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly.” (2 Peter 2:4-5)

“Giants” ( nephilim )

“Gigantism is common among plants and animals in the fossil record. The root word for “giants” ( nephilim ) is naphal which means “fall” and refers to the fallen state of their demonic heritage. The LXX translated the word into Greek using gigantes. The same word is used of the giants seen in Canaan. (Numbers 13:33)

“These giants’ physical stature is easily explained by simple known principles of the laws of genetics using mutations and recombinations of human genetic information. The wide variation for size in humans has existed from the time of creation within the human gene pool.

“Gigantism may occur by fortuitous random combinations or by controlled genetic manipulation, that is, guided breeding. If human intellect can manipulate genetic material today; then demonic forces could just as easily have done the same thing in the past. This would have been achieved through their recruitment of willing humans to determine which persons mated with another to achieve the desired result-giants. This is simply ancient genetic engineering.

“Mighty men of old, men of renown”

“These giants were men who were revered for their great strength and great violence, not necessarily for their great knowledge or intellect. The words “mighty” and “renowned” do not necessarily mean good but can mean bad. Here these words are used with acute satire. These men were “mighty” and “renowned” for their evil and their wickedness. (Genesis 6:5)

“Wickedness is at its greatest when the most notorious of sinners are “men of renown.” Men in the Mafia are also mighty men, men of renown. There is a corollary which would be, “Wickedness is great when great men are wicked.” (All of this is taken directly from Creation: Our World View by Dr. Grady S. McMurtry whom I had the privilege to meet at Teen Missions International, a wonderful man of God. I did not give the first part of his view, since I disagreed with it, however, the rest of the book is excellent and I highly recommend it.)

It should not be that hard to believe that people can become very tall or large. We have the record of (also videos) Robert Wadlow who was eight feet eleven inches tall and he lived in recent times. David fought a giant called Goliath; you can find the history in 1 Samuel 17. He had other relatives that were as tall as Goliath as well. “Now it happened afterward that war broke out at Gezer with the Philistines, at which time Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Sippai, who was one of the sons of the giant. And they were subdued.

Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, with twenty-four fingers and toes, sixon each hand and six on each foot; and he also was born to the giant. So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him. These were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.” (1 Chronicles 20:4-8)

I am told that in Africa today there are tribes of very tall people. So it is not hard to believe that through enticement from demons people could breed themselves and come up with giants. As hard as it is to believe this happened, it shouldn’t be, but sometimes similar things happen today.

To give a personal story, I worked at a restaurant at one time, and one day I was visiting with a female employee who said she wanted to breed herself. (She did not use those exact words, of course, but that is what it amounted to.) She explained that she was not interested in marriage, but she would like to get pregnant by a football player, because she wanted to raise a boy who would become a football champion.

You may think that we would never do the immoral things they did before the Flood, but that is just not true. Today, we have such things as sperm banks, and so on. Hitler had his “volunteers” for his “super race” breeding program. There is another sin that was prevalent before the Flood, that is also prevalent today, and that is violence. We see around the world violence on the increase more and more every day. So God will have to judge our generation too, for its many sins!

One of the biggest causes of this entire break down in righteousness was the breakdown of the family. You will have to admit we see this happening again before our eyes. In the days before the Flood people got their eyes off of the LORD and onto the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. “For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.” (1 John 1:16)

The sons of God took wives for the wrong reasons. They did not care about marrying believers any longer, this was in clear violation of their consciences and God’s instructions. This is why believers are not to marry unbelievers, and we looked at these verses earlier from 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, but let me remind you of one very important verse out of that passage. “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” (2 Corinthians 614)

“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” (Genesis 6:5, 12) So all that was left was for God to judge them with the Flood, which is the discussion of our next section.

God says that in the last days it will be like it was before the flood and before Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man before as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matthew 24:36-39)

People are like sheep, we follow each other, we see someone doing something wrong and we want to do it too. Not too many years ago, abortion was considered very wrong. Not too long ago, homosexuality was considered extremely wrong. Now these things are becoming accepted. Violence also is on the increase, and will continue to increase until Christ returns to this earth as its King.

“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” (Luke 17:26-30)

[Taken from Worldview Part 4]

I hope this helps,

Gary Panell