Angelology

3. Who were the sons of God of Genesis 6:2, of whom the Scripture says that they married the daughters of men?

They were angels, for the angels of God are called ‘the sons of God’ in the book of Job, as it is written: “Whereupon are the foundations [of the earth] thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:6-7). I say that the sons of God who shouted for joy when God laid the foundations of the earth were angels and not human beings for man had not yet been created, in that man was made on the sixth day while the earth was made before. That is the only explanation which can be given to those words.

The fact that the sons of God of Genesis 6:2 were angels is confirmed by the apostle Peter as well as by Jude. Peter says that “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Peter 2:4), and Jude says: “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 6-7). In relation to the words of Jude, I would like you to notice that he says that Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them gave themselves up to fornication and perversion in like manner or in a similar way, that is to say, they committed fornication as those angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation.

Some believers say that those sons of God were human beings (according to this interpretation, they were men who at that time called upon the name of the Lord) and not angels. But this interpretation is not correct because if those sons of God were human beings and not angels, it would not make sense to say that “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Genesis 6:2) for it would be tantamount to saying that the sons of men saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they married them. What kind of strange or unusual thing would have happened? I don’t think that in that case there would have been something strange or unusual. Instead, the writer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, called those beings ‘sons of God’ for their nature was different from the nature of human beings. Thus the writer wanted to highlight the different nature which existed between the sons of God and the daughters of men, in that the sons of God were angels while the daughters of men were women born from the union of man and woman. This is confirmed by the passage that points out the time when that event occurred, as it is written: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them” (Genesis 6:1), for it is evident that the angels could see the beauty of the daughters of men only after the daughters of men were born.

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