ARTICLES

Who Were The Nephilim?

If you Google the Nephilim on the Internet, you'll be surprised at how much information you'll find. People are intrigued by them. They are discussed, at times, as mythological titans or demigods. Information about these strange, polluted beings didn't originate with mythology.

The Bible teaches us that the Nephilim were actual giants.  Genesis 6:4 says, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown."  I quote the New American Standard Version of the Bible here.

At first, I thought the Nephilim were rebellious angels who left their domain and committed heinous acts with the daughters of mankind.  However, the Septuagint, an early translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, translates the original word by gigantes, which literally signifies giants.  Many of our English Bibles used the word giants instead of the term Nephilim. So then the Nephilim were the offspring of rebellious angels, called sons of God in the passage. Somehow, these rebellious angels changed their form and mated with the daughters of mankind.   ​

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Who Were The Ancient Gods Of Egypt?

Genesis reveals "gods" as objects made by men’s hands and actual beings that people worshiped (See Genesis 35:4.). Let me elaborate on the latter point. God executed judgment on the gods of Egypt when He brought the Israelites out of Egypt where they suffered cruel bondage for hundreds of years. 

Exodus 12:12 states: "For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments--I am the LORD" (NASV). 

Who were these gods whom God executed judgment against? I believe the book of Jude provides us with an answer. "Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day" (Jude 1:5 and 6 NASV). The gods of Egypt were the angels who left their state of being. These rebellious angels posed as God but really they were not Him.

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The Book Of Life

I used to think the only names written in the Book of Life are those who are believers in God. What I discovered by studying the Bible more closely is that all of humanity, that is, everyone who proceeded from Adam in the Garden of Eden, are included. What are the implications of this? Let me explain.

When some Israelites committed wrong actions against God, and He announced His intention to bring down a heavy punishment upon them, Moses asked God to remove his name from the Book of Life instead. The Scripture passage says:  "The LORD said to Moses, 'Whoever has sin against Me, I will blot him out of my book' "   (Exodus 32:33 NASV).

Please don't skim this. Read it more than once. This text implies that God writes the names of human beings in His book and removes them only when warranted. Another Scripture that conveys this same idea is Revelation 3:5: "He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His
angels."

Apparently, according to the Old and New Testaments, all of mankind has their names written in the Book of Life. God removed names when people incur judgment and subsequently go to the Lake of Fire (See Revelation 20.).

Amazing. God loved us before the foundation of the world and desired that we might know Him. His compassionate and thoughtful action was to put our names in a book long before we were born. He even made provision for the broken relationship that occurred through Adam that resulted in sin passing down to every human being. He sent a second Adam - His Son, Jesus - to save us.

All any of us has to do is believe on Jesus, and the cleansing work from sin He did on the cross, and we are saved.  We experience eternal life and the Father never takes our name from the Book of Life.