If the “Sons of God” in Genesis 6 were the sons of Seth, how are we to understand the other references to the “Sons of God” in Scripture?
Since, in the eyes of those who have failed to follow the plot, Genesis does not mention the origin of the sons of God, their primary proof text is the first chapter of Job. Those who insist that, due to the presence of Satan among them, the sons of God who presented themselves before the Lord were angelic members of God’s council, have once again not been paying attention.
Because Job is not privy to the conversation between God and Satan about him, it is wrongly assumed that Satan is one among other assembled angels. Since Job is not an angel, it is assumed that he is not actually present at this meeting. What is overlooked is the typological significance of the event in the structure of the book. The first step in the covenant pattern is Transcendence. That concerns the authority of God. He then chooses His Hierarchy. In the pattern of sacrifice, this is represented by God’s choice of a “son of the herd” without blemish who is then set apart and cut up as a sacrifice. This is why it is not Satan who initiates the attacks on Job, but God. The book begins with a description of Job’s blameless character (priesthood) and his great wealth (kingdom). This introduction is significant in a liturgical sense. It explains why it is God who then puts this “son” on the altar.
“If his offering is [an ascension] from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:3)
A successful ministry is one that is willing to continually put everything on the altar for the sake of further growth. Job continually put his children on the altar—in type—that they might prosper under God’s hand as he did (Job 1:5). Throughout covenant history, God was also willing to continually put everything on the altar, risk all that He had gained, for the sake of further growth—until it was time to put Himself on the altar. This is the step where many pastors who achieve great growth in a numerical as well as spiritual sense ultimately fail. As with our children, for our ministries to succeed we must allow them to outgrow us. This is what Jesus explained to His disciples.
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7)
The first attack strips Job of all of his kingly attributes—the fruit of the land and the womb promised to Adam. These are the elements of earthly succession as an heir of the God whose chosen sons are the “firstborn” according to faith instead of birth order. This renders Job unacceptable to his people.
The second attack targets Job’s own body, disfiguring him and thus making him “spotted and blemished” in his priestly attributes. This should render Job unacceptable in the court of God (Leviticus 21:17-19).
As those who have read the Torah, we are expected to understand these allusions. If Job was indeed a living sacrifice, and thus an heir of God, then he no longer resembled one. All that remained was his faith. The negative Covenant Sanctions made the veracity of his Covenant Oath entirely suspect. Having suffered under the legal “head” of the case against him (judgment from heaven), he then suffered under the accusations of a nest of snakes who had been his “friends,” that is, advisors and confidants on earth (Luke 23:12; John 15:15; James 2:23).
All of this means that Job is indeed one of the Sons of God—Noahic priest-kings—who met together as the Divine Council on earth to be inspected by God in the way that Jesus inspects the pastors of the churches in Revelation 2-3. The same “courtroom” scenario shows up in Zechariah 3, where Satan is once again accusing a man who offers sacrifices on behalf of others. He does this because he wishes to destroy not only the man but also those for whom he mediates. The Lord has to step in to make the Aaronic priesthood clean once again after the exile, since it cannot make itself clean. In legal terms, this act of atonement is a reprise of the ministry of God to Adam in the Garden of Eden. God steps in, and history can continue. Joshua (“salvation”), once he is purified, enjoys new access to the court of God as one who has the authority to mediate between heaven and earth, “bargaining for souls” like Abraham and Moses.
This is not a court of angels but the union of the sanctuary on earth and the sanctuary in heaven when God’s cloud comes to visit—going to-and-fro in the Garden in the wind of the day of the Lord (Genesis 3:8; Acts 2:2; Revelation 1:10). During worship, and during church discipline, Yahweh bows the heavens and the image below and the reality above become one, united by the Spirit as a pillar of fire and smoke, an “ascension” that keeps the physical waters above and below apart. In Revelation 2-3, notice that Satan, although he is mentioned in the letters, is entirely absent from the inspection. He had already been thrown down—at the ascension of Christ—and no longer had access to the court of God to accuse the brethren (Revelation 12:10). Instead, the devil had taken up residence in the earthly sanctuary (Revelation 12:12) and rendered it demonic in its hatred of the true Sons of God, those who were now entirely blameless, good, acceptable, and perfect sacrifices in the sight of God. This explains John’s meaning when he says that the saints—not the unbelieving Jews—were the Sons of God, that is, those who mediated between God in heaven and the sons of men on earth.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3:2 KJV)
What did he mean? That the Levitical sacrifices that had mean mediating between heaven and earth were now obsolete. In Jesus, the entire world had been judged, and He had been taken up to heaven in a pillar of cloud as the ultimate ascension. The Temple was still standing so John’s role as pastor was to protect the sheep from the hirelings, that is, the Judaizers (John 10:12-13). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had given a precise definition of the office of “Son of God” (Matthew 5:9). It is the office of the peacemaker, that is, one whose ministry of sacrifice reconciles heaven and earth (the vertical) that brothers might be reconciled through unity in worship (the horizontal). This is why, after the tongues of Pentecost, the corrupt Temple worship is referred to as Babel/Babylon, a false priest-kingdom.
Noah was the first man qualified to bear God’s sword not only in sacrifice but also against men. He had authority over “all flesh” (Genesis 9:3-7). Job was a member of the “Sons of God” order of priest-kings established by Noah. This order would firstly have included his sons, and subsequent examples are the tribal heads in the genealogies. Later godly examples are Melchizedek and Jethro, and Melchizedek’s ungodly successor, Adonizedek. These three men were the beginning, middle, and end of the Canaan-Egypt-Canaan “there-and-back-again” of the promise and possession of Canaan’s Land by the sons of Seth.1
Jethro’s executive experience—meeting with other tribal heads to offer sacrifices (priesthood) and organizing “heads” over “troops” of people (kingdom) was no doubt the reason for his wisdom in advising Moses to appoint a team of judges. Likewise, Jesus counsels the “star-pastors” of the seven churches of Asia to avoid corruption and to judge their people with both justice and mercy.
And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought [an ascension] and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God. (Exodus 18:12)
Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. (Exodus 18:21-22)
These priest-kings would offer sacrifices, worship together, and then counsel each other. In Job 1, the other “Sons of God” who assembled for inspection would have included Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu. Think of this as a “round table” meeting at Camelot. In Job 1, Satan, the only only angel with a legal right to accuse (until the Advocate ascended to heaven in Revelation 4-5) is the only spirit-being who has access, which explains why none of the other supposed “angels” have anything to say. The truth is that the actual Sons of God have plenty to say. Job, being blameless, had been singled out by God from among them in the same way that God singled out Jesus as “the lamb” from the other Israelites at His baptism (John 1:29).
What this also means is that, as the case against Job was hammered out, God was present in this human “court” the whole time as a legal witness to the proceedings (Deuteronomy 17:6; Matthew 18:20). Ultimately, whether Job was to be cursed or blessed was His decision, because Job was an anointed priest-king. Suffering under the corrupt rule of Saul, David refrained from regicide because he knew that God had spared Cain, the firstborn king. The heart of the king is in God’s hands and so is his life (Proverbs 21:1-30). In that sense, leaders are indeed above the Law, answering to a higher judge. This is the issue throughout the book of Job. Why was God judging him? The father and mother of a godless son could take him to be judged by the elders at the gate (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21). But Job himself was an elder at the gate. Who judges the judges? The angels who were sent to rescue Lot (Genesis 19:1; 2 Peter 2:7)? No, only the God who can discern the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Those judges who condemned others would be judged by God for secretly committing the same sins that they publicly condemned (Matthew 7:1; Romans 2:1-3; 1 Corinthians 11:31). What were Job’s secret sins?
This legal inspection of God’s sword-bearers is also the context of Psalm 82 (the second-favorite go-to text for the “sons-of-god-are-angels” dullards) where the Lord comes to judge the judges, that is, those who sat in the seat of Moses on earth as legal representatives of heaven (Matthew 23:2). This was the role intended for Adam, who disqualified himself from bearing God’s flaming sword as an elohim—one who is many, a created one who is blessed by God to procreate. The fact that Psalm 82 follows the biblical covenant pattern makes this indisputable.2 God’s whole purpose for mankind is to put a sword in the hands of His children.3
The attacks upon Job as being deserving of judgment are also a play on the original brotherly rivalry at the altar in Genesis 4. Abel and Cain bring their offerings to the Gate of God at the “end of the days” in order to mitigate the curses upon the land and the womb. Satan was present there as well, ready once again to steal and destroy. His strategy in Eden—the weaponization of the Law—had been foiled through God’s act of blood atonement. He would now use the act of atonement itself to provoke jealousy and force the hand of man to destroy where he had failed to force the hand of God. After the failures of man in Genesis 3 and 4, the misconstruing of the nature of the sin in Genesis 6 wrongly implies that Satan has agency in human history beyond the work of corrupting the hearts of men. This is a false teaching. Let us not give the devil any more credit that he is due. Without his human agents, Satan is nothing more than a bad smell from a hole in the ground.
This brotherly rivalry between Abel and Cain, and later Jacob and Esau, is not only the context of Jesus’ exhortation to make peace with a brother before bringing an offering (Matthew 5:24, it is also the background for the entire epistle of 1 John, in which the apostle trains the Jewish Christians in their discernment between true and false brothers—the haters and murderers, despite their claims as Jews, were obviously not the Sons of God but the sons of the devil (John 8:44; 1 John 2:9).4
The rift between the priestly and kingly lines after the judgment of Cain ultimately reversed the direction of the jealousy—the humble priestly line was not given the gifts and skills enjoyed by the self-exalting kingly line, and were likely also fewer in number because they did not practice polygamy.
Cain was personally denied the “strength” of the ground but that does not seem to have led to hunger among his people. Various words relating to strength and might are used of kingly men throughout the Bible, both the godly and the ungodly, and that includes the “mighty men” of Genesis 6. Unlike Samson and Boaz, their strength and might did not come down from God but from the “ground up.” The result of the multiplication of sons and daughters via polygamy was a “Baalistic” stimulation of nature outside of the intentions of God. James B. Jordan writes:
The Baal-Ashteroth religion understandably was intimately concerned with fertility. The Creator God of the Bible had promised fertility to Israel if they were faithful to Him (Dt. 7:13-14), but what He demanded was moral loyalty, including especially sexual chastity (monogamy). The religion of Baalism, however, advocated exactly the opposite method of getting fertility. Chaotic sexual orgies would stimulate Nature (Baal and Ashteroth), and fertility would be the result (human, animal, and crop fertility). The true religion of Israel said that fertility was obtained by submitting to the Creator, while Baalism said that fertility was obtained by stimulating Nature. Thus, in true religion, man is the servant/slave of God, in submission to Him; while in Baalism, man is the LORD of his god (Nature) who needs to be stimulated by him.
Nature religion is a religion of stimulation. Man has to stimulate Nature in order to get results. Like the Baal priests of the ancient world, he may engage in sexual orgies, or cut himself with knives (1 Kings 18:28), in order to arouse the sleeping god… So, for the ancient Baalist to bow before his idol was not an act of submission, but an act of stimulation. What he believed was the same thing modern secular humanists believe: that man is the LORD of Nature, and that there is no Creator God to whom man is responsible.5
The Cainite line would eventually have destroyed itself had it not been for the “shot in the arm” of the spiritual blessings conferred upon the Sethites. Since they became united in one body, like bread intermingled with wine, making one Man of the two, nothing would be withheld from them (Genesis 11:6; John 17:20-22). James B. Jordan writes:
Paganism naturally self-destructs. That self-destruction was happening in the seventh generation from Adam, in the days of Lamech and of the prophet Enoch. Then something happened that galvanized and strengthened the pagan civilization: The believers began to intermarry with them. The Spirit-given strength and cultural discipline of the righteous were transferred to the culture of the wicked.6
Genesis 6 tells us that there were already Nephilim in the land in those days, and that the intermarriage of the priestly and kingly lines only produced more of them, and that they were even worse—the mixture of priesthood and kingdom called up the “hosts” of false prophecy like devouring locusts from the abyss. God’s answer to this was the prophetic testimony of Noah. The root word of Nephilim is “fallen ones” which is an allusion to the Fall of Man. The point is that the kingly line of Cain, blessed with all the gifts of practical wisdom in husbandry, technology, and the arts, indeed became “like God.” Without the physical limitations later placed upon them by God—the reduction of lifespans and a harsher climate—these great, glorious men, “giants” in every respect—were the apex, the height, of natural man and his potential. In that sense, these mighty men “ascended to heaven” but as “satans,” thieves and murderers who shed each other’s blood in unforgiving vengeance because they rejected the mercy of God in blood atonement. In a lawless culture, everyone necessarily becomes a legalist.
Another correspondence between this Adam-to-Noah cycle and the original event in Eden is that which exists between Adam’s loss of access to the Tree of Life as an individual (without which he was mortal) and the shortening of the lengthy lifespans of men in this original corporate order. Without atonement, eating of the “kingly” tree (the “supernature” of investiture by God) would bring instant death, but loss of access to the “priestly” tree allowed things to reach a “natural” end. As “fallen stars,” the days and years of the lives of primeval man imaged the lengths of the days and years of the rotations of the lights in the sky. It is likely that before the Great Flood and the removal of the primordial “waters above,” only the “seven lights” (the sun, moon, and five bright planets) could be seen from the earth.7
Barnouin points out that the patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11 lived lives of curious numerical lengths. Enoch, for instance, lived 365 years, the length of a solar year. Kenan lived 910 years, ten times a standard quarter year of 91 days. Lamech lived 777 years, which is the sum of the synodical periods of Jupiter (399 days) and Saturn (378 days) (Genesis 5:23, 14, 31). Is it possible that God was saying to Abraham that his seed would be like the great patriarchs of old, the faithful godly men who were blessed and preserved before the Flood, and in the years after the Flood?
Barnouin suggests that when Abraham looked at the stars, he was considering the planets and how they govern tine (Genesis 1:14), and making an evaluation based on this. The years of the patriarchs corresponded to the time-governing periods of the planets and other heavenly bodies. Abraham’s seed would be like this. They would be a heavenly people, gathered around God’s heavenly throne. Their history would mark time.
Barnouin sees this fulfilled in the censuses’ of the book of Numbers, in which these same astral periods recur. In Numbers 1, all the men twenty and older were enrolled in the Israelite militia, God’s army. As God’s army, Israel was in one sense a “heavenly host,” captained by the Lord of heaven. In this respect, they are spoken of as stars in Deuteronomy 1:10, and as a heavenly host they are commanded by an angel, the Angel of the Lord (Joshua 5:13-6: 2; Exodus 23:20-21). Thus, it would not be surprising if the numbering of that heavenly host had some Sun, Moon, and Stars association with astral numbers.8
This post-flood order of tribal priest-kings not only explains the inclusion of Job (Jobab, an Edomite king) in Genesis 10:29 as one of this new order of “Sons of God”9 but also means that another text which is used as evidence of their angelic identity actually refers to the tribal heads after the Great Flood and not angels who existed before the creation of Man. The “Sons of God” mentioned in Job 38:7 were those who rejoiced, not in the Creation of the world, but in the re-creation of the Land and the Sea after the Great Flood. These “cosmic” images of priesthood and kingdom were later used of the Jews (the Land of Canaan) and the Gentiles (the restless Sea of the seventy nations listed in Genesis 10). The “Land” stanza uses the pattern of the Tabernacle to describe the priestly domain in the natural order, and the “Sea” stanza uses the pattern of Israel’s national dominion—as a host of tribes—to describe the kingly domain in the natural order. This is also the background of Jesus’ condemnation of Herods’ Temple as a house built upon the sand, an unstable compromise—or intermarriage—between the Land and the Sea (Matthew 7:24-27).
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the [land]? (Creation – Ark)
Tell me, if you have understanding. (Division– Veil)
Who determined its measurements—surely you know! (Ascension – Altar & Table)
Or who stretched the line upon it? (Testing – Lampstand)
On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, (Maturity – Incense)
when the morning stars sang together (Conquest – Laver & Mediators)
and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Glorification – Shekinah)
Thus, the “morning stars” are the first light bearers in the dawn of the new world, “governing lights” described in the language of Genesis 1. These “stars” were the representatives who first ascended the mountain of God to offer atoning sacrifices, and their spiritual “offspring” were those who followed in their wake, in the way that Paul considered Timothy to be a “son.” When it comes to flesh and Spirit, supernature overrides nature every time. This is what provokes the natural sons to jealousy.
Although sons can humble themselves as servants, angels are only servants, not sons, which is why the symbol of stars is used to describe kingly sons, including those promised to Abraham (Genesis 15:5; 37:9-11; Daniel 12:3; Matthew 2:2; Revelation 1:20; 12:1). The Son of God describes Himself as the bright morning star in Revelation 22:16, and He calls His “angels,” the star-pastors of the seven churches, as representatives of all the sons of God on earth.
As a son of Esau, Job was familiar with the imagery of star-sons. After worshiping God together on the day of the Lord, these priest-kings would fellowship and return to their respective tribal cities. This was the arrangement of the world from the ministry of Noah to the establishment of the priesthood of Israel. Just as the ascension offerings of Noah held back the raging waters of the physical sea, so also the sacrifices of Israel held back the restless waters of the social sea. This microcosmic “Land and Sea” stood in for the physical world as a sacrificial substitute in order to mitigate against another global flood. Clearly, this typological and architectural correspondence was what the Lord had in mind when He said these words to Job.
When Job questioned God, He was answered not with a revelation of the unseen realm (Job never found out about God’s challenge to Satan) but with a loaded dissertation on the meaning of everything in the realm of the seen. Having “open eyes” in the Sanctuary allows us to see not things that were unseen, but to see things as they really are (Genesis 3:7; Luke 24:31). Left in the dark without that key piece of information, the theoretical disputations between Job and his brood-of-snakes accusers make it a very long book. However, even when His case finally got from the earthly court to the heavenly one, the Lord made short work of it without even mentioning the reason for Job’s suffering. It was all about the vindication of God (as the Father) via the vindication of Job (as the Son). Although the answer is hinted at in the image of God as a deity who rules the stars and keeps dragons (dinosaurs) as housepets (Job 38:31-33; 40:15-41:34), God’s blessing of Job with even greater riches was the actual answer: Covenant Succession as an heir by faith, that is, a vindicated Son of God. God takes good things and makes them very good; He takes great men and makes them greater. And He does so by putting them and everything they have on the altar as an ascension.
Regarding Genesis 6, the lesson for us is that since angels are God’s servants, not His sons, “the unseen realm” with which so many become intrigued, is, as far as God is concerned, merely the kitchen, the stables, and the laundry. These are unseen for a reason. We are given scant details concerning the angels because our Father concerns Himself not with the help—who are a dime a dozen—but with His children (Galatians 4:1-7; Hebrews 1:1-14).
Job was one of the Sons of God, a mediator who offered ascensions between the waters above and the waters below, a man who reconciled heaven and earth and was thus one of the blessed peacemakers described by Jesus. The only issue that mattered was the character of God and that brightness reflected in the character of Job. The men who had seen Job, both in his humiliation and in his glory, had seen the Father (John 14:9).
What God revealed when questioned was that the answers to all the deep questions of Job and his friends concerning Job’s suffering had been right there all along, in the visible realm, staring them all in the face, hidden in plain sight. In the created order, everything is Word.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
(Psalm 19:1-4)
Through faithful, obedient perseverance, Job’s “eyes were opened” and he became “like God,” his priestly patience and kingly wisdom shining like the brightness of the sky above, turning many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
“Our heaven is up yonder with God. God’s heaven is down here upon earth with us. His delights are with the sons of men.” – Andrew Bonar, Heavenly Springs
TO BE CONTINUED.
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- For more discussion see Out of His Belly and Cutting Off Canaan.
- See Where Judgement Begins.
- See The Sword of Adam.
- For a line-by-line commentary, see The Shape of 1-3 John and Jude.
- James B. Jordan, Judges: A Practical and Theological Commentary, 35-37.
- The Case Against Western Civilization, Part 4: The Nephilim Factor.
- See Covenant Structure in Genesis 1 – Day 2.
- James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World, 58-59.
- See James B. Jordan, Was Job an Edomite King?.
