hisalone said:
At this point, I'm convinced (in my mind) about the origin of demons, for me, it is the only thing that makes any sense. Saying it refers to the line of Seth is too big a stretch, more so than that fallen angels taking wives. These are those angels who left their first estate, they chose to leave heaven. Just because they did not marry when in heaven, doesn't mean they wouldn't marry if they chose to leave heaven.
Can you help me understand why this is the case?
As for me, it was just the opposite situation: I used to think that what was going on in this passage was demons/fallen angels copulating with human women and producing evil giant children. When I stumbled upon the idea that what was actually going on was intermarriage of the godly Sethite line with the ungodly Cainite line, it made so much more sense of the passage and was not fraught with the numerous difficulties involved with copulating fallen angels.
Let me just go through some of the problems in particular with Tom Brown's article:
1) His interpretation of Jude 8-9 is nonsense. Michael the Archangel did not rebuke Satan, true enough. But this has nothing to do with the "power" of fallen angels. (Indeed, Michael is portrayed in Rev. 12 as having cast Satan out of heaven!) The point in Jude is that if even the mighty archangel Michael did not rebuke Satan himself when Satan wanted to dispute over the body of Moses, how much less should sinful men revile the gospel which they do not understand.
2) His distinction between demons and angels, that angels have "celestial bodies" and demons are bodiless, is unwarranted. Angels are spiritual beings, having no bodies, although angels can sometimes
appear in corporeal form. The only "celestial bodies" I can think of are the glorified resurrection bodies of men (I Cor. 15:40,49). That (certain!) demons seek out bodies to possess is only an indication of their ill will, their desire to harm men. And I might also add that Satan entered into Judas (John 13:27).
3) His interpretation of Matt. 12:43 is also unwarranted. Of course, he uses the KJV because he can twist that translation to his purposes. But the word translated "walketh" is
dierchetai in Greek, the primary meaning of which is to journey or pass through. (And anyway, how does a disembodied spirit "walk"??)
4) His interpretation of Eph. 6:12 is ALSO unwarranted. He draws a sharp distinction which Paul simply ISN'T making. In Greek, the verse reads thus:
oti ouk estin hmin h palh pros aima kai sarka, alla pros tas archas, pros tas exousias, pros tous kosmokratoras tou skotous toutou, pros ta pneumatika ths ponhrias en tois epouraniois. In English, "For our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world-lords of this darkness, against the spiritual (forces) of wickedness in the heavenlies." For Paul, these are all variegated descriptions of the same thing, namely, Satan and his demonic hosts (which are fallen angels).
5) His idea that the demons once had bodies and have since lost them is simply without support anywhere in the whole of Scripture. His suggestion, furthermore, that they are specifically the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim is also unbiblical. He relies on an apocryphal text, I Enoch, to support the idea, and on Jewish tradition (talk about heeding Jewish fables!-Tit. 1:14). He also has to read into the Hebrew text of Genesis 6 to get the idea that the Nephilim are the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men; as I've pointed out before, the text only indicates that the Nephilim were contemporaneous with the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men. The text does not indicate that the Nephilim were
born from these marriages. It is also completely ludicrous to suggest that fallen angels lived in human society and married human women as they pleased. NOWHERE in Scripture is there any indication that fallen angels live in human society! Indeed, Jesus' recounting of this time in history in Luke 17:26-27 would seem to indicate that it was human beings only, not any fallen angels, who were marrying and being given in marriage.
6) In Job, Satan came in "AMONG" the sons of God, but he is never himself counted in their current number. In Job, the sons of God are EXCLUSIVELY unfallen angels. In this sense, Satan was
formerly a son of God. Furthermore, William has provided some excellent citations showing that
believers are also called "sons of God," which is perfectly compatible with the "sons of God" being the godly line of Seth in Gen. 6.
7) Tom Brown also wants to argue that the angels cast out of heaven can marry; but this would necessarily conflict with the meaning he has already given to Eph. 6:12, where he says that the fallen angels are the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly realms!
8) His interpretation of Jude 6-7 is also, you guessed it, totally unwarranted. As Pilgrim pointed out, the likeness between the fallen angels and Sodom and Gomorrah is not that they both sinned sexually, but that they both rebelled against God and suffer punishment for it. If Brown's interpretation is to be sustained, in the flow of Jude's argument, we have to also say that "the way of Cain," "the error of Balaam," and "the rebellion of Korah" were sexual as well!
9) Lastly, and this should be emphasized, Tom Brown's interpretation of Gen. 6 is a fundamental necessity for him to be able to propogate his false & heretical teachings about deliverance and exorcism.
So, that said, exactly WHAT problems does this solve for you regarding the origin of demons?
