Genesis 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. 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.
There were literal giants in the earth before the Flood, men of immense stature, strength and lifespan who lived hundreds of years with vigor of mind and body far beyond later generations. The sons of God were the descendants of Seth who lost their holy distinctness by intermarrying with the descendants of Cain, joining in idolatry and rejection of God's commandments while only Noah and his family remained righteous. Those mighty men of renown were famed for wisdom, skill and wonderful works, but turned their great powers to unbridled wickedness, cruelty, oppression and self-exaltation under Satan's control, defiling the earth. Their unhallowed marriages, polygamy, indulgence of appetite and passion, and corruption of marriage led to apostasy that provoked God, after one hundred and twenty years of probation, to destroy the world by the Flood, saving only eight. The same perversion of marriage, violence and neglect of God will mark the last days, warning against intimate alliance with unbelievers and showing that following the majority leads to destruction.
Giants and Their World
The coming in of the sons of God to the daughters of men was the mingling and marrying of the descendants of Seth, who were called the sons of God, with the descendants of Cain, who were called the sons of men. Through those unions the holy seed lost its distinct holy character and integrity, was drawn away and corrupted into sin, joined in idolatry, and rejected the commandments of God. Noah and his family were among the few who stayed righteous in that corruption.
The giants were people of very great stature, strength, and size, vastly larger than people living now or for thousands of years past. Animals and trees then were also many times larger than now. They belonged to a human race only a few generations after Adam that still kept much of its early vigor, when human life was still measured in centuries after access to the tree that would prolong life was lost. They lived many hundreds of years, nearly a thousand years, were counted as youths at one hundred years old, and came into active life from sixty to one hundred years old, about the time the longest-lived now finish life and pass away. They had sound minds in sound bodies, with mental and physical strength far beyond the present feeble, degenerate generation, and their hundreds of years gave them time to gain knowledge, skill, and art beyond what the present holds, so that more ancient arts have been lost than are now possessed. The idea that the present is an age of real progress and that past ages were progressing in true knowledge is a delusion from Satan, the father of lies, who turns the truth of God into a lie.
They were mighty men of renown, renowned for wisdom and skill in planning and executing cunning and wonderful works. Their great abilities and rare powers could have served God, made His name a praise in the earth, and fulfilled the purpose for which He gave them life. Their guilt was as great as their skill and mental ability, because they gave loose rein to iniquity and used their powers in unbridled wickedness, having turned from God to cruelty and oppression of those unable to resist them. They were a long-lived race of lofty stature and giant intellect who yielded to the control of fallen angels and devoted all their skill and knowledge to exalting themselves. Their wonderful and celebrated works of art led the world to idolize their genius, while their cruelty and evil inventions defiled the earth, defaced and marred the image of God in humanity, and caused Him to blot them from His creation and remove them from the earth. In death they experience no change but will be raised with the vast throng of the wicked to fight against the city of God, resuming the current of their thoughts where it ceased, actuated by the same desire to conquer that ruled them when they fell.
This stands in real, literal history before the Flood, in a real historical generation whose character prefigures the present age. Methuselah, Noah, and many others labored to keep alive the knowledge of the true God and to stay the tide of moral evil, Enoch had repeated to his children what God had shown him about the Flood, and Methuselah and his sons lived to hear Noah preach and assisted in building the ark. One hundred and twenty years before the Flood the Lord by a holy angel declared His purpose to Noah and directed him to build the ark, and while building Noah was to preach that God would bring a flood of water to destroy the wicked and that those who believed, repented, and reformed should find pardon and be saved. That period of violence brought a warning and a probation of one hundred and twenty years while the ark was built, setting a limit to forbearance so repentance would avert judgment, but the years were not appreciated, the warning was rejected, the limits of mercy were passed, and only eight people were saved.
Bones of men and animals, petrified trees, instruments of warfare, and other large relics found in the earth are their remains, buried in Noah's day and preserved as evidence to later generations that conditions differed in many respects from the present and that the antediluvians perished by a flood. Apart from Bible history geology can prove nothing, and the time when those conditions existed is learned only from the Inspired Record. God designed the discovery of these things to establish faith in inspired history, but men by vain reasoning make a wrong use of them to argue for long ages before creation, turning into a curse what was given as a benefit.
Apostasy Leading to Flood
The marriages of the sons of God to the daughters of men were unhallowed unions that led to apostasy and ended in the destruction of the world by the Flood. That setting stands alongside those who knew God but did not honor Him, becoming vain in thought and darkened in heart. It warns that choices that may seem small or harmless, and acts of self-indulgence, can have grave and momentous consequences for oneself and others.
Polygamy was one of the sins that brought God's wrath on the antediluvian world, and after the Flood it became widespread again and weakened the sacredness and obligations of marriage. Satan overcame the inhabitants of the old world as he had Adam and Eve, through indulgence of lustful appetite and corrupt passions. By controlling appetite and exciting and strengthening the passions he increased continued transgression of God's law, defaced and almost obliterated the image of God in man, and destroyed physical and moral dignity until man bore only a faint resemblance in character and noble perfection of form to Adam in Eden. Their sin at last provoked God's wrath to destroy them by water, as He destroyed other cities and nations ripe in sin by fire, water, earthquake, sword, famine, and pestilence.
Their conduct degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins, where inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self was their god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. Appetite ruled mind and conscience in eating and drinking, and marriage became an all-absorbing infatuation entered under bewitching Satanic power without consulting God and driven by feelings, desires, and passions into indiscreet unions covering lustful abomination, bringing untold misery and dishonor to God. That contaminating influence called forth God's wrath in the Flood to rid the earth of its curse. Their condition was eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage in a corrupt way, with the hearts of the young filled with thoughts of getting married, disobedience to parents, and wanton conduct. Many married without consent or counsel of parents or the church of God and without asking God's will and pleasure or keeping God in thought, marrying not to glorify God but to glorify and gratify loose passions and depraved lusts, and those who would not have God in thought were destroyed by water.
After Adam and Eve lost Eden, their descendants followed their own imaginations in wickedness and refusal to obey, persisted in disobedience, and exceeded the limits of God's long patience. God gave them a probation of one hundred and twenty years through faithful messengers, leaving their future in their own hands so repentance would avert judgment, but they would not believe, laughed at Noah, and would not turn from wickedness to obey, so His word was fulfilled to the letter in the Flood. The Flood thus shows that God may intervene in judgment, limit human life, and stop the spread of lawlessness. The whole world in those days was corrupt and perished because great numbers did not follow God, so the verse means only a few believe present truth and obey God's commandments, and believers must not be discouraged by small numbers nor follow the majority, for following the majority leads to destruction and missing heaven. After rejecting Noah's message and refusing to reform by accepting Christ, with nothing reformative left in sin, the people plunged into sin with greater abandon than ever and doubled the enormity of their corrupting practices with minds set to carry their spirit of revolt, would never be forced to submission, and the Flood God brought declared their rebellion incurable.
Warning for Last Days
The marriages before the Flood connect wrongly managed marriage with wrongdoing, for marriage managed in that way was a crime, and those marriages stand as a warning about the misuse of marriage in the last days. Married men and women before the Flood followed impurity, and that same kind of impurity has appeared among those claiming a special burden to correct others about purity. The same spirit that led to every kind of corruption in Noah's day stands behind the claim that a woman may allow familiar freedom so long as she preserves her virtue, and that freedom is dangerous and corrupts the heart.
When men professing godliness marry those who do not respect and obey God's commandments, such unwise, intimate alliances with those having no connection with Heaven are a curse and disastrous to both parties and a direct departure from God that opened the flood-gates of sin then. Love founded on mere sensual gratification is headstrong, blind, and uncontrollable, bringing honor, truth, and every noble power of mind under slavery to passion until reason and conscience are unheard. In these alliances the creature receives the love that should be given to the Creator, and there is danger in any intimate relation with those who have no connection with Heaven, for it is friendship that is enmity with God and leads to falling into the same habits. Satan constantly works through pleasing, intelligent unbelievers to tempt God's people to sin.
The mighty men and men of renown of that time supply the description for powerful, famous people in positions of trust and power today. Despite their prominence, those in high positions know little about the causes of society's troubles.
The increasing sins of the present age are like the sins cited in Genesis 6 that brought the Flood. Before the Flood the marriage relation was perverted and defiled, with divorce after divorce as today, and the land was filled with heart-sickening violence where men killed women and women killed men, even young girls killed for refusing marriage. The same state exists today and is worse near the large cities, proving Christ's warning that the coming of the Son of Man will be as the days of Noah, and the laws of the land will become more and more oppressive. Their conduct degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins, where inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self was their god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. Appetite ruled mind and conscience in eating and drinking, and marriage became an all-absorbing infatuation, with courtship and marriage entered under bewitching Satanic power without consulting God, driven by feelings, desires, and passions into indiscreet unions covering lustful abomination with an unsanctified marriage bed, bringing untold misery and dishonor to God. That contaminating influence called forth God's wrath in the Flood to rid the earth of its curse, and the same eating, drinking, marrying, buying, selling, planting, and building in neglect of eternal interests will again awaken the sword of justice.