Latest / The Extra Mile Podcast / #1 - Who Were The "Sons of God" in Genesis? (with Pastor Austin Young)

Transcript

#1 - Who Were The "Sons of God" in Genesis? (with Pastor Austin Young) · The Extra Mile Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a seed coming, how can I pollute the seed that it can't come?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I believe that demons, that's what fallen angels are, slept with women in a way to pollute the human line so the Messiah couldn't be born, so we couldn't be saved.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, this isn't a fallen angel conversation.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't a psychotic sexual conversation.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is a spiritual warfare conversation.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, welcome everybody.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Steve Husky.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We are at the Extra Mile Podcast where we just lean into some content from maybe some things we didn't get to on a Sunday morning, questions we didn't get to answer, verses we didn't get to read, and sitting with Pastor Austin Young, our next gen pastor, and uh doing some incredible work.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so, Pastor Austin, what do you think?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get a chance to listen to the message?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it it's hard because I don't actually ever get to be in the room.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of watching a recording, which is I feel like it could be a good setup for like now we're discussing it in a yeah.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm much more dynamic in person.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: In a recording setting.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like now I kind of um it's the same medium for me.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think I like it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say my first introduction to the idea of Nephilim, I've heard about it for years, like being in ministry school.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's one of those that like you kind of try to avoid.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't want to get too deep into revelation and you don't want to get too deep into Nephilim.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like I know Nephilim is a big deal, and I do not have the bandwidth to get into what it means and do all of the study.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for me it was super helpful.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I'd finally heard maybe my first explanation of it just a couple months ago of someone kind of laying out some theology of it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, that kind of wraps my head around it.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it was like a, you know, it was a clip.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a little seven-minute talk.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think hearing an entire message on it was super helpful.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because the the the video I watched laid out some good theology possibilities, but the way that you kind of tied it into, okay, so what does this mean?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this in here?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: What does this actually teach us about the big story of scripture?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it matter?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: How does it even set up the flood kind of how you were setting it up?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for me, um, it was helpful to have some handles on a conversation that I know has been growing.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you know, it was my first time ever hearing from the book of Enoch.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm just like, I'm not ready for that.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not ready for apocryphal text.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not ready for, I was like, I'm just not ready for that yet.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was nice to kind of dip my toe in it and be like, okay, now I'm not going to be an idiot when it comes to these conversations, but also it felt like it had purpose and it wasn't like this rabbit hole conspiracy biblical theory type thing.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot to it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you weren't there in the room or didn't listen online, the message we uh we had this past Sunday was this conversation out of Genesis chapter six, where the Bible describes the time where it says the sons of God came and took for themselves the daughters of men, and out of that came giants.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a it's this idea where it's unbelievable, but if it's biblical, I mean I think we should lean into it.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so um the question was like, who are the sons of God?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there's really only three major theological takes.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's either the descendants of Seth, um, or it was like these divinized kings, these important elevated people.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when you look into how late those theories came into existence when they were introduced, the earliest theory, the most consistent theory, the theory that was believed by the Jews from about 500 BC up through Christians, including the early church fathers, to about 200 AD, was that these sons of God were angels.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And angels slept with women.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's just bonkers to me.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: What what did you think when you came to that?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I don't know.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I I think it helped because you got into some of the like like even just practically, I'm thinking, I'm like, but if angels, I mean, do angels have human like physical bodies then?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you get into that in the mess, I was like, okay, that's helpful to just be like, like, practically, how does this happen?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then so I I think that's helpful to be like, because at first you're almost like, so is it like how Jesus was conceived?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like the spirit like put into the women.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, no, it's like it literally says they like slept with the women, like were with them.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just interesting to me, um why they would.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was probably what what helped me the most was when you started getting into the motivation of like, okay, why would they do this?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm like, I mean, I'm sure like the early created men and women were attractive, I guess, but I'm like, angels were perfection, so I mean, could these created beings really have been like worth throwing away your like not divinity, but like your your place in heaven, you're throwing it away because you know it's against what God wants.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So why would they throw that away to do this?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's kind of the shift that helped me of I'm like, okay, it's crazy, but if you can convince me of a why and why God would include this in the story, why it even exists in the story of God, I think that helps me process the stuff that seems absurd.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the Nephilim is a it's a cultural conversation, it's not just happening in church, even though it's a really a biblical conversation.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Nephilim, you can type that in a Google search.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: You'll find on TikTok.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's all kinds of, you know, um what do they call it?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: These guys that are on all the rabbit trails, they're you know, in aliens coming and sleeping with women and uh the uh Anunnaki.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's a deep conversation.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So my intention was to bring it back to the Bible where it started and to give it legs.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Why does it matter?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because without the why, it's what I said Sunday, without the why, we lose our way.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a fascinating conversation that is almost repulsive, maybe unbelievable.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: But when you tie in the why, hey, it's a it's a big conversation that it's worth having.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not leaning into too often, but it's worth having.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I think that's what's helpful about it is it's it's kind of addressing the questions, it's making sense of it, it's setting up um, you know, to that why.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, could you just give like the quickest?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's like this whole huge meta-narrative story, but like, is there a simplified way to like give a little bit of the motive of like, okay, so why would these angels who are then defying God, they are now going to be removed from heaven, why would they come down and sleep with these human women?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does that I don't know, what could the motivator be to do that?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's I think that's a super helpful angle for people to understand.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the way, the way Peter says it, or I'm sorry, Jude says it in verse six and verse seven is they left their abode, they left their domain.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So why would they leave?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is your question, why would they leave their place?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why would they leave their domain and do something so outrageous, so scandalous?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, ultimately, we find out, and again in 2 Peter and Jude, so costly.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the answer is found in Genesis chapter 3.15, where this is where God is cursing Adam and Eve for their disobedience, and ultimately the serpent for tempting them into their disobedience, and God is cursing Satan, and he says this.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: In Genesis 3.15, he says, And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: He will strike your head and you'll strike a seal.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is what's known as the proto-evangelium.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first time we see the gospel pronounced, and basically what God is saying to the serpent is hey, there's gonna be some lineage, there's gonna be a seed, and it's gonna be a he, a male seed that's gonna come from the line of the woman.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when he comes, his goal is to crush your head.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um so you know, we're not the only one to hear that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's somebody else who knows scripture, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's Satan.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: We we see Satan quoting scripture to Jesus.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So he knew the plan of the enemy.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so my my thought is that this was his way of strategically trying to overcome the plan.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if there's a seed coming, how can I pollute the seed that it can't come?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I believe that demons, that's what fallen angels are, slept with women in a way to pollute the human line so the Messiah couldn't be born, so we couldn't be saved.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, this isn't a fallen angel conversation, this isn't a psychotic sexual conversation, this is a spiritual warfare conversation.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I think that's what helped me the most is it goes, oh, this actually really fits into the entire story, the redemptive story of the Bible of God going, Well, I'm gonna bring people back into relationship with myself.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: He kind of, I don't know, it feels like like a bad strategic move to tell the enemy exactly how you're gonna do it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in some ways, it's like to show that he's like, I'll tell you my plan and then I'll still be able to execute it.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like a little bit of like, uh, I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do and then I'm gonna do it, and then it's just gonna prove how much better I am than you a little bit.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think that helps frame the entire craziness of it of going, that's actually like a really good first move.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're getting in on the ground floor.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what, maybe a dozen people on earth?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you can just like take advantage and mess up at from the beginning, then you could always you could point back in 500 years and say, Oh no, no, I defiled that line.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: This can't be the son of God.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then God kind of, you know, just goes, It's okay.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can, I can still manage even if you try to stop it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I love the I love the phrase we people use sometimes that you know, Satan was playing checkers and God was playing chess.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, he thinks he's got a king, and man, God was so far ahead of what he what his plan was to ultimately birth the Messiah through Mary and Joseph and bring us our redeemer, our seed crusher.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I call him.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's it's super helpful to see it in the bigger picture because I think I think what happens is when you get into this stuff, and then you can get into this, especially if you start going down revelation rabbit holes of three really smart people that believe three very different things are gonna be the end of the world.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, when we were talking about this, I was joking, I was like, are we gonna tell people how many of them already have the mark of the beast?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like, is that what this podcast is gonna be?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where they'll be like, actually, some of you have already know.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like you get into those, and you can get into this craziness of like explaining these kind of secondary or the craziest things you find in the Bible, and you go, you have people making them the main thing, you have them making it something that you focus on and wrap your whole life around and become kind of conspiracy theories in a way.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can we take this story?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, Nephilim is a big one.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do we take this story and then actually keep living our lives, being aware of it, not making it the main thing, allowing it to inform us in the biblical narrative of the story of Jesus, like all of that, because all of scripture points to Jesus?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't remember, maybe you can correct me the exact quote you say, but every word in scripture there's for a reason, and God put every word there.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if he put that in there, how do we not make this the main thing?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do we still address it?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do we let the craziness inform us without consuming us?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I guess so.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Again, because it's a fascinating topic, it's easy to go down a rabbit hole and spend an unhealthy amount of time studying this and researching it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And actually the Apostle Paul addresses, I think, this issue with Timothy, at least indirectly, and I believe maybe directly to the Nephilim and giants and the sons of God sleeping with women.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says He says, um, he says, as I this is in uh uh first Timothy um in chapter one, verse three and verse four, he says, As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus, that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies which cause disputes rather than godly edification, which is in faith.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, he's saying, Hey, major on the majors and minor on the minors.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this fallen angel Nephilim is a is a minor conversation.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, I could be wrong.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I hold the major interpretation that most theologians, again, early church fathers, most Jews held.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it doesn't really change the narrative of we're lost as sinners and we need a savior, and Jesus was born of a virgin to come and be that Messiah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so what Paul is saying is, hey, Paul, don't allow discussions to get lost in the weeds and you lose sight of true doctrine, which is I think Jesus being the Messiah.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And there are some theologians who say when he mentions this endless thing in endless genealogies, that what he's referring to is some people are trying to dissect the genealogies in Genesis three, I'm sorry, Genesis four and five before it gets to six, saying, Hey, when did this when did this happen?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: When did the giants show up as a result of these angels sleeping with women?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And there were debates and conversations, and I think that's when you're in the weeds.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: When you're losing time discussing genealogies rather than Jesus, you've crossed the line.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: If we're talking about fallen angels, that's fine.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: But let's keep our pick let's keep our eye on the prize that Jesus saved us, but there's still a spiritual battle.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: The devil failed in trying to stop the plan of God to send the Messiah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: But he is still actively working in all of our lives to try to make us fail in our pursuit of Jesus.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the tension between the two is don't forget you're in a spiritual warfare, but don't get caught in the weeds of the conversation.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's super helpful because it's almost like making sure that these the things that seem crazy or like they shouldn't be in there, are they informing the main thing?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Are they informing the redemptive arc of scripture?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are they informing who Jesus was, why Jesus came, the tension that exists between our sin and Jesus' redemption of our sin?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like it plays into that story so directly.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps, I think you're going to get into next week the story of the flood.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so why was the flood necessary?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because then you get into the, you know, we can get into that later of like, why would God do that?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this helps go, okay, God just wasn't like some crazy like mass murderer.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like he is actually protecting the plan of redemption.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: To bring people into relationship with him.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm getting into we could just keep getting into it, but I'm like, but that I feel like when it draws you back to who Jesus is and what he did on the cross and how it plays into the fact that God wants to make us right with him for eternity.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's like, okay, that that actually does have a place in conversations, but it's just it's like a topping.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's not the main thing.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so I, you know, I just would want to end with the challenge.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you know, God has a plan for your life, and it's ultimately for you to know his son Jesus, because it's only through Jesus that um salvation comes.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And there's also a real devil.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know that uh that seems fascinating to some to hear, but he's real, and his plan is to deceive or to discourage or to distract, and he'll use anything possible to do it.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So let's keep our eye on the prize and uh keep following the narrative of scripture, which always leads to Jesus, our savior and our redeemer.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, thanks for leaning in just for a few minutes for the Extra Mile Podcast.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Pastor Austin.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.