The term translated "the sons of God" is, in the Hebrew,
B'nai ha Elohim, "sons of Elohim," which is a term
consistently used in the Old Testament for
angels1, and it is
never used of believers in the Old Testament. It was so understood by the ancient rabbinical sources and by the early church fathers.
Meanwhile, attempts to apply this term to "godly leadership" is without Scriptural foundation.
2 A "sons of Seth and daughters of Cain" interpretation strains and obscures the intended grammatical antithesis between the s
ons of God and the
daughters of Adam. Attempting to impute any other view to the text flies in the face of the earlier centuries of understanding of the Hebrew text among both rabbinical and early church scholarship. The lexicographical antithesis clearly intends to establish a contrast between the "angels" and the women of the Earth.
If the text was intended to contrast the "sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain," why didn't it say so? Seth was not God, and Cain was not Adam. (Why not the "sons of Cain" and the "daughters of Seth?" There is no basis for restricting the text to either subset of Adam's descendants. Further, there exists no mention of
daughters of Elohim.)
And how does the "Sethite" interpretation contribute to the ostensible cause for the Flood, which is the primary thrust of the text? The entire view is contrived on a series of assumptions without Scriptural support.
The Biblical term "Sons of Elohim" (that is, of the Creator Himself), is confined to the direct creation by the divine hand and not to those born to those of their own order.
3 In Luke's genealogy of Jesus, only Adam is called a "son of God."
4 The entire Biblical drama deals with the tragedy that humankind is a fallen race, with Adam's initial immortality forfeited. Christ uniquely gives them that receive him the power to become the sons of God.
5 Being born again of the Spirit of God, as an entirely new creation
6,
at their resurrection they alone will be clothed with a building of God
7 and in every respect equal to the angels
8. The very term
oiketerion, alluding to the heavenly body with which the believer longs to be clothed, is the precise term used for the heavenly bodies from which the fallen angels had disrobed.
9
The attempt to apply the term "Sons of Elohim" in a broader sense has no textual basis and obscures the precision of its denotative usage. This proves to be an assumption which is antagonistic to the uniform Biblical usage of the term.
- Cf. Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7 (where they are in existence before the creation of the earth). Jesus also implies the same term in Luke 20:36.
- God simply refers to Israel as "my sons" and "my daughters." Indeed, all of Adam's race are termed God's "offspring" in Acts 17:28 (although Paul is here quoting a Greek poet).
- The sons of Elohim are even contrasted with the sons of Adam in Psalm 82:1, 6 and warned that if they go on with the evil identified in verse 2, they would die like Adam (man). When our Lord quoted this verse (John 10:34), he made no mention of what order of beings God addressed in this Psalm but that the Word of God was inviolate whether the beings in question were angels or men.
- Luke 3:38.
- John 1:11-12.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17.
- 2 Corinthians 5:1-4.
- Luke 20:36.
- This term appears only twice in the Bible: 2 Corinthians 5:2 and Jude 1:6.
- C. M.
