Jude points to a time before the Genesis Flood for his second example of the Lord’s judgment. He mentions the wicked who “kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation…” (Jude 1:6), as described in the KJV. Other translations phrase it differently but they all give the same sense, and they tell us the wicked are spirit beings, angels, who sinned.[1] Yet, how would an angelic rebellion, which the Bible **never** describes or even mentions,[2] be helpful to Jude to use as an example for what was occurring during the first century AD against the Church and the Gospel of Christ? Many are quick to interpret what was done, but they are not so quick to show why Jude chose that particular event to serve as a warning against the wicked deeds of the false teachers during the first century AD.
The Greek word translated into angels by most translations is aggelos (G32) and means “a messenger, envoy, one who is sent, an angel, a messenger from God,” according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon. It is used of human beings in the Gospel narratives at: Luke 7:24 and Luke 9:52. It doesn’t automatically refer to spirit beings. In the context of Jude’s letter how would an angelic rebellion warn human beings not to rebel? Well, if such a rebellion were described, it might warn humans not to do such things, but such an event is never mentioned in Scripture. So, how could it warn anyone about anything? The actual event that Jude points to is Genesis 6, which unveils the reason the Lord brought the Flood upon all humanity, and notice he judged humanity, not angels. The Flood destroyed humans, not angels.
One has to wonder how an angel, which is an asexual being—having no means to reproduce (they are individually created beings)— could have sexual intercourse with women, which is how many interpret Genesis 6. How ridiculous is that? Does **kind** producing after its own **kind** (Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25) have any meaning at all to the folks who read Genesis 6 and interpret spirit beings having sexual relations with human women? While the Theory of Evolution tells us that life forms evolve jumping from one kind to another, the Bible is not so chaotic. It has rules for the beginning of life. Yet, the authors of these translations, who should know better, try to tell us (and alas most folks believe them) that asexual spirit beings are able to have sexual relations with human beings.
So, what does Genesis 6 really say and how does it fit into Jude’s context of false teachers and persecution going on in the first century AD? A few years ago I studied the epistles of Peter, and Peter and Jude mention the same passage of Scripture (Genesis 6), which was supposed to stand as an example or warning for folks who would use violence to attain their objectives. This is what I had to say about 2Peter 2:4-5…
“The Hebrew word for daughters in Genesis 6:1 is bath (H1323) and is translated into towns and villages in over 30 other verses of the Old Covenant text. If we said: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and towns arose unto them, that the sons of god saw the towns of men were good (wealthy) and took of them (the towns) wives, as many as they desired” (Genesis 6:1-2), that seems to make better sense. Likewise, lusting after the wealth of the towns of men and taking as many wives as they wished implies violence. Not only did the women suffer violence but also the towns, because the reason for the sons of god taking the wives was to acquire the wealth of the towns. Such a thing would have increased their power and wealth and that of anyone who may have sent them. Much violence and war is implied in Genesis 6:1-2, and this is borne out in Genesis 6:4. Strong’s concordance defines the word giants (nephilim – H5303) as giant, bully and tyrant. If the offspring of the sons of god were tyrants and mighty men of great fame, it indicates they used their might to oppress others. Genesis 6:5 indicates that the earth was filled with their violence, which bred only more violence and evil behavior from others. God has always judged this sort of behavior.”[3]
What occurred in the antediluvian era was also occurring during the first century AD. Both concerned wealth and attaining that wealth through violence. The churches in the Roman provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (1Peter 1:1) were wealthy, and the high priest at Jerusalem lusted after that wealth. Every seven years (the Sabbatical year) Paul brought some of that wealth to assist the poor Jews in Judea and Galilee, but the high priest wanted it for himself and his projects of wicked intrigue, which Josephus mentions in his Antiquities of the Jews. The false teachers were the agents of the Jerusalem authorities and they wanted to gain the wealth of the churches at the expense of the Gospel of Christ, which they had hoped to destroy in the process of attaining what wasn’t theirs.
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[1] Exceptions might be the: Diaglott, TS-2009, and YLT, which translate the Greek word into “messengers who kept not their first estate…”
[2] Both the Jewish apocrypha and the pagan myths abound with literature which tells of angels or lesser gods rebelling and warring against the Lord or the main god (Zeus) of the Greeks. Yet, the Bible doesn’t mention any of this or even hint it is so. One would have to abuse Scripture, as many do with Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, in order to show some angels rebelled against the Lord. Nevertheless, the context shows the text refers to human kings, not spirit beings. Spirit beings aren’t even mentioned in either passage, nor are they mentioned in Genesis 6, the passage which Jude points to in his epistle. An interpretation of angelic, spirit beings, is pure conjecture and should be rejected by scholarly inquiry, but it isn’t, to their utter shame.
[3] See my earlier study: The World of the Ungodly.
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