Jesus: From Genesis to Revelation

Day 1: The World Unravels -- the Sons of God, Total Corruption, Divine Grief, and the Word 'But'

Reading

Historical Context

Genesis 6 opens with one of the most debated passages in the Old Testament. “The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose” (6:2). Three major interpretive traditions have competed across the centuries. The oldest, attested in 1 Enoch and favored by many early church fathers, identifies the “sons of God” (bene ha’elohim) as angelic beings who transgressed their proper domain – a reading supported by the use of the same phrase in Job 1:6 and 2:1 to describe heavenly beings in God’s council. A second tradition, prominent among Reformers like Calvin, reads the “sons of God” as the godly line of Seth intermarrying with the ungodly line of Cain, blurring the boundary between the faithful remnant and the corrupt majority. A third view identifies them as tyrannical rulers or kings who claimed divine prerogative, exercising a predatory droit du seigneur – “they took as their wives any they chose.” Whatever the precise identity, the theological point is consistent across all three readings: a boundary has been violated, and the violation accelerates the corruption already unleashed by the fall.

The Nephilim appear in verse 4 – the word may derive from the Hebrew root naphal, “to fall,” suggesting “fallen ones” or perhaps “those who cause others to fall.” They are described as “the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown,” language that evokes the warrior-heroes celebrated in ancient Near Eastern mythology. The text places them not as objects of admiration but as symptoms of a world spiraling beyond recovery. In the broader literary context of the primeval history, the Nephilim represent the climax of a trajectory: the sin of Eden has produced fratricide (Cain), vengeance culture (Lamech), and now a civilization so thoroughly corrupted that even the boundary between the human and the divine is breached.

Verse 3 records God’s first response: “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Hebrew verb yadon is difficult – some translate it “contend with” or “remain in” – but the theological weight is clear. God sets a limit. Human life, already diminished from the extraordinary ages of Genesis 5, will be further curtailed. The 120 years may refer to a countdown before the flood or to a new maximum lifespan. Either way, it signals that God’s patience, though vast, has a horizon.

Then comes the Bible’s most devastating diagnostic statement: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5). Five escalating terms – every, intention, thoughts, only evil, continually – close every escape route. This is not occasional sin. This is not cultural decline. This is a verdict on the human heart at its root. The Hebrew yetser, translated “intention” or “inclination,” will become a technical term in later Jewish theology for the inner impulse that drives human behavior. Here it is diagnosed as producing only evil, without interruption, without exception. The fall of Genesis 3 has metastasized from a single act of disobedience into a universal condition.

God’s response is not detached judicial pronouncement but grief: “And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (6:6). The Hebrew yit’atsev – “it grieved him” – is built on the same root (etsev) used in Genesis 3:16-17 for the pain of childbirth and the toil of labor. The curse that entered the world through human disobedience now reaches the Creator himself. He is not unmoved by the ruin of what he made. The God of the Bible is not the apatheia of Greek philosophy – he feels, and what he feels is the deepest anguish the text can describe. Then comes the word that changes everything: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (6:8). The Hebrew chen – grace, unmerited favor – appears here for the first time in Scripture. Its placement is theologically precise: before Noah is called righteous, before he walks with God, before he lifts a hammer, grace finds him.

Christ in This Day

The total corruption described in Genesis 6:5 is the condition that makes the incarnation necessary. Paul will quote a chain of Old Testament passages to restate the same diagnosis: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12). The universal scope of human depravity – every intention, only evil, continually – is the backdrop against which the gospel shines. If the human heart could produce its own cure, the cross would be unnecessary. Genesis 6:5 explains why it is not.

The grief of God in verse 6 points directly to the suffering of Christ. The yit’atsev that grips the Creator’s heart in the days before the flood is the same grief that will weep over Jerusalem: “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:41-42). It is the grief that will sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44) and cry out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The God who grieves “to his heart” over a violent world does not observe the suffering from a safe distance. He enters it. The incarnation is the ultimate expression of the divine grief that Genesis 6:6 introduces – God responding to corruption not merely with judgment from above but with presence from within.

The word chen – grace – appearing for the first time at the darkest moment of human history establishes the pattern that will govern the rest of the biblical story. Grace arrives not when conditions improve but when conditions are beyond repair. Paul states the principle with systematic precision: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5). The “but” of Ephesians 2:4 is the “but” of Genesis 6:8. In both cases, the conjunction interrupts a death sentence. The grace that found Noah in a world given over to evil is the same grace that finds sinners in their deadness and makes them alive. Noah did not earn the favor. He received it. And every recipient of grace since stands in the same posture – not achieving but receiving, not climbing but being found.

Jesus himself draws the explicit connection between the days of Noah and his own return: “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37). The corruption, the obliviousness, the continued pursuit of ordinary life while judgment approaches – these characterize both eras. But the parallel implies a deeper truth: just as grace found Noah before the flood, grace is offered now before the final judgment. The window remains open. The “but” still stands.

Key Themes

Connections

Old Testament Roots

The diagnosis of Genesis 6:5 reverberates throughout the Old Testament. Jeremiah echoes it: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The Psalms confirm it: “The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Psalm 14:2-3). The trajectory from Genesis 6 through the prophets is consistent – the human heart, left to itself, does not evolve toward goodness but drifts toward ruin.

New Testament Echoes

Paul’s catena of quotations in Romans 3:10-18 systematizes the Genesis 6:5 diagnosis. Jesus identifies the heart as the source of defilement: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery” (Matthew 15:19). The grace that found Noah becomes the grace that saves sinners in Ephesians 2:8-9. And Jesus’ reference to the “days of Noah” in Matthew 24:37-39 places the flood narrative squarely within the framework of eschatological expectation – the pattern repeats, and so does the offer of rescue.

Parallel Passages

Compare Genesis 6:1-4 with Jude 6-7, which describes “angels who did not stay within their own position of authority” – Jude reads the Genesis 6 boundary-crossing as angelic transgression. Compare the grief of God in 6:6 with the grief of the Spirit in Ephesians 4:30: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” The God who grieves over a corrupt world still grieves when his people participate in corruption.

Reflection Questions

  1. Genesis 6:5 diagnoses the human heart as producing “only evil continually.” Jesus confirmed this: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts” (Matthew 15:19). If the problem is in the heart itself, what kind of savior does humanity need – and why is external moral effort alone insufficient?

  2. God’s grief over human corruption (yit’atsev) uses the same root as the pain of the curse in Genesis 3. How does knowing that God grieves – that he is not detached from the ruin – change the way you approach him with your own failures and the brokenness of the world around you?

  3. The word “but” in Genesis 6:8 interrupts a death sentence with grace. Where in your own story has God’s “but” appeared – a moment when favor arrived not because conditions had improved but precisely because they had not?

Prayer

Father, we read the diagnosis of Genesis 6:5 and we recognize ourselves. Every intention. Only evil. Continually. We do not stand apart from the corruption – we carry it. Left to the inclinations of our own hearts, we produce what the text describes. And yet you grieve. You are not indifferent to our ruin. The pain you feel over a broken world is the pain that drove you toward us, not away. Thank you for the word “but” – for the chen that found Noah when there was nothing in the world worth saving, and for the grace that finds us in our own deadness and makes us alive. Lord Jesus, you wept over Jerusalem. You sweat blood in the garden. You bore the full weight of the corruption Genesis 6 describes. We bring you our corrupted hearts today – not with a plan to fix them but with a plea for the same unmerited favor that found one man in a world given over to evil. Find us again. Amen.