Question:
Who are “the sons of God” spoken of in Genesis, chapter 6, as marrying “the daughters of men”?
Answer:
They were the men who professed the religion of God. Division came after sin entered. Various expressions indicate this. For instance, in Genesis 4:26, we read, “Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah,” or, as the margin reads, “to call themselves by the name of Jehovah.” The children of Seth were those who had faith in God. The children of Cain became the sons of men and looked simply to this earthly life. They did not have the faith in God that was manifest in Abel and afterward in Seth. The one class were men of the world; the other, children of God. But the children of God, with their human desires, looked upon the daughters of men, and saw that they were fair, and “took them wives of all that they chose”; and just as Solomon’s heart was weaned away from God by his wives, so the sons of God became corrupted in this way. Mighty men sprang from them, but these men were corrupt and wicked at heart.
The New Testament gives a clear warning against the marriage of Christians with unbelievers: “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion bath light with darkness?” See 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. Such marriages have always been lacking in completeness.