Recently, a man killed nearly 60 people and injured roughly 600 when he shot into a country music festival crowd in Las Vegas. As Americans we responded with questions like:
- Why did he do it?
- How could this have happened?
- How can we prevent it from happening again?
- Does this mean we should have different gun laws?
But we’re also Christians, which means we should ask another set of questions before and while we’re asking those listed above.
- How does God perceive this?
- What does God feel about this?
- What is God doing?
- What might he do?
Christians must remember that God is the most important factor in human history. That’s why we study the Bible. It helps us submit to reality’s orbit around God, the center. It helps us get to know his character and the way he has acted throughout his history with his people. Only when we understand God can we understand the world around us.
In Genesis 6:1-8, we see specifically that God sees, grieves, and responds to sin. The passage breaks naturally into two sections. The first is murky with ancient mystery. The second is clear as crystal.
Murky Mystery
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:1-4)
What?! This sounds like something out of The Lord of the Rings, not the Bible. But it is in the Bible, so we must ask, who were these beings?
Let’s start with the sons of God and the daughters of man. Were they:
- Fallen angels intermarrying with human women?
- Demon possessed men marrying human women?
- Polygamous rulers abducting harems?
- Seth’s sons intermarrying with Cain’s wives?
And what about the Nephilim? Where they
- Giants?
- A clan of mighty warriors?
- Offspring of the sons of God and daughters of man? Some sort of “half-breed angel children” as one writer put it?
The fact is, we don’t know. God did not choose to elaborate, explain, or emphasize these characters beyond these verses (except a brief mention of Nephilim in Numbers, which doesn’t add much to our understanding). It remains mysterious…
We modern American Christians are bad at accepting mystery. But as difficult as it is, we must pause here and admit that, even with the sum of human knowledge in our pockets, we don’t know everything. And we must say with Paul, “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”
What we do know is that something happened that caused verse three: “Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.’” This brings us to the second section.
Crystal Clarity
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. (Genesis 6:5-8)
Wickedness and evil are not new. It’s easy to watch the news and think things have never been this bad. But that’s just not true. Here we see that, only 10 generations into human history, “the wickedness of man was great in the earth.”
As Christians, we know that evil is ancient. And we remember that God is the most important factor. So lets see what we can learn about him in these verses.
- The LORD Sees Sin
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)
He sees macro wickedness and micro evil. He sees the great wickedness of man in the earth and the evil intentions and thoughts of his heart. He sees worldwide trends of greed, violence, and oppression. He also sees the minute palpitations of sin imbedded in our motivations and desires.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the Las Vegas shooting is the fact that investigators can’t uncover the shooter’s motive. But God knows. He knows the heart secrets behind every headline before the news crews do. And he knows you and me better than we know ourselves.
He sees sin. He is not oblivious. He is not distracted by other things. He is aware.
- The LORD Grieves Over Sin
And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Genesis 6:6)
How can God, who is all-knowing and in control, regret something he has done? Bear in mind that the Bible uses human language to indicated divine realities, but words like ‘regret’ cannot fully capture what God feels. In 1 Samuel 15 God told Samuel that he regretted having made Saul king (verse 10). Then just 19 verses later, Samuel states, “the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man” (verse 29). So in Genesis 6:6, we see that God feels something like what we call regret. It’s a sort of grief and sorrow at what he sees in the world, but it’s not the pain we feel when we’ve made a mistake.
Do you think of God as emotional? Many Christians do not. They think of God as an unemotional, impersonal force or machine. But he’s a being, and our human emotions are reflections of his divine emotions. We’re made in his image.
God sees sin, and it grieves him to his heart. He is deeply moved with emotion over the wickedness and evil he sees in humanity.
- The LORD Responds to Sin
So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:7)
God saw the widespread wickedness and comprehensive evil of mankind, and acted. God will not tolerate sin. He insists on justice in the world. And so he determined to erase man from the land.
Hope
But God is both just and merciful: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8). God is always preserving a tiny remnant. Like leaven and mustard seeds, God preserves a small people who remain faithful to him. We saw it with Seth, now with Noah, and soon we’ll see it with Abraham and Israel, then ultimately with Christ.
The youth group recently learned the word propitiaton. It’s a theological word that captures an important aspect of what God has done for us through Jesus. He has made a way to satisfy his righteous wrath so that we could be forgiven of our sins without compromising his justice. On the cross, Jesus absorbed God’s wrath against sinners. All who shelter under him in faith find favor with God.
I heard a story some time ago of a riot. The rioters turned their wrath upon one man, surrounding him in an avalanche of violence. A local pastor was in the crowd, holding up his Bible and shouting in vain for the people to stop. He finally crammed himself through the circle of wrath until he was upon the helpless man in the center. He laid on top of him, holding his Bible over his head for protection, and absorbed the blows of the angry rioters. This is a picture of what Jesus has done for us on the cross.
God sees our sin, both the great wickedness of the world, and the intentions of our individual hearts. It grieves him. He has acted in wrath before, and will again. Only those who seek shelter in Jesus Christ will be spared.
Discussion Starters
- Do you think like a Christian? Do you watch the news, engage in conversation, consider the world around you in light of the fact that God is the main factor? Is there any difference between you and a non-Christian in regard to your response to things like the Las Vegas shooting?
- In light of the fact that God sees and grieves over our sin, do you regularly confess and repent? Are you tempted to hide your sin or ignore it, rather than coming into the light and receiving God’s forgiveness?
- In light of God’s wrath against sin, do you urgently and intentionally communicate the gospel? Or do you feel you’ve become numb to these realities? As you think about these things, is there anyone that comes to mind in particular you can be praying for?
- Once you’ve discussed these things, feel free to discuss the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the Nephilim. Who in the world were these people???
