Friday, July 18, 2014

Job 1:6a: who are, "the sons of God?"


6 ¶  Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD,…  

We need to define Biblically who the individuals are in this scene in Heaven. The, “sons of God,” (with a lowercase ‘s’) are beings directly created by God and are not born of biological processes. The idea that there is life not resulting from biological processes is a difficult one to accept only because we are not aware of any day to day interaction with such beings we call, “spiritual.” The phrase, “Son of God,” (with an uppercase ‘S’) is a reference to God in the flesh, the visible appearance of God (Hebrews 1:3) in the normal, to us, physical world.

Adam, being the first man, was a son of God. He was created to look like God.

Luke 3:38  Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Genesis 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

After Adam’s cowardly rebellion mankind began to degenerate and Adam’s descendants were made in his image, lacking the perfection that God intended.

Genesis 5:3  And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

From this scientific fact we can make a prediction. All humanity has and will experience genetic decay as long as we exist in this physical existence. I refer you to Alexey Kondrashov’s 1995 article in the Journal of Theoretical Biology entitled, “Contamination of the Genome by very Slightly Deleterious Mutations: Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?”(6) Another example is James F. Crow’s “The High Spontaneous Mutation Rate: Is it a Health Risk?” for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. (7) There has been nothing since these papers to indicate the opposite idea.

That being said, the sons of God referred to in verse 6 are spiritual beings created directly by God. They pre-existed the physical universe that we know, as we are told in the Book of Job.

Job 38:4 ¶  Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5  Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 6  Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7  When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

The Christian becomes one of these direct creations of God when he receives Christ and is indwelt by God’s Spirit in the new birth.

John 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

The sons of God are represented in this physical world by an angel, an appearance that has the ability to act on the physical world. Imagine a hologram with the power to act in the place of the individual it represents. (Isaiah 63:9 where the full name is, “the angel of his presence.)”

“Angels,” and, “sons of God,” can be used interchangeably based on the context and the action presented.

Every person is born biologically, called the “water birth.” Without the second birth in the Spirit every person is doomed.

John 3:3  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 5  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Perhaps the Christian is a replacement for the sons of God who chose to enter the physical world of existence. Who can say but God?

Genesis 6:2  That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…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.

Jude 1:6  And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Nevertheless, these beings presented themselves to God on some occasion.

(6) Alexey Kondrashov, “Contamination of the Genome by very Slightly Deleterious Mutations: Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” Journal of Theoretical Biology 175 (1995): 583-594.

(7) James F. Crow, “The High Spontaneous Mutation Rate: Is it a Health Risk?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Vol. 94 (August 1997): 8380–8386.

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