Have the Nephilim Returned? Yes, I'm Serious.

Modern theologians suffer the same self-censorship as modern scientists; they ignore what they can't explain. The Bible is a supernatural book, so don't worry if it's weird.

Despite chronicling displays of heresy at Protestia, Pulpit & Pen, and Polemics Report for the last fifteen years, I’ve yet to see any new heresies develop in my lifetime. The devil is an old devil, and I think he’s run out of fresh ideas; he is finite, after all. What appear to be new heresies are really just resurrected old ones, perhaps sung to a different tune or crooned by a new singer.

The world does not stop because our understanding of certain things is limited. The timeline God has given us is confronted daily with unexplained things, many of which the Scripture speaks to - if only we would listen. Our world is weird, and getting weirder, but the church grows more and more disinterested in providing answers that are as weird as our dilemmas.

Consider, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency declassifying files related to the 14 year-long Project Stargate, which made headlines only this week. The CIA had used “astral projection” done by seers to successfully locate hostage victims or uncover enemy secrets. In fact, “remote viewing” had been successfully accomplished in a partnership between Stanford University and American intelligence agencies since 1972, but all that had already been declassified. You can find the CIA report here.

But this week, journalists have been writing about a particular project within Stargate which had convinced some within the CIA that a race of giants existed on Mars one million years ago. No, I don’t believe that to be accurate history - but it demonstrates exactly how weird the world is becoming. American Intelligence certainly believes in the supernatural, perhaps more than many of our clergy and Christian leaders. And frankly, that’s as weird as giants on Mars.

HERESIES RETURNED AND SOCIANISM RUN AMOK

In partnership with Protestia, we’re republishing my Baptist Catechism book, with marginal notes on each question-and-answer, referencing glossary definitions in the back of the book for heresies that the catechism will thwart (it will be available for free to Protestia Insiders and paid subscribers to Insight to Incite).

I’m in the process of finishing that up now, and made a note in the introductory sentence that historic heresies were included that currently have no significant modern support. And I’m doing so, because they will absolutely return if Jesus tarries. But one such heresy that has not yet faded from view, and is always in season, is that of Socinianism.

Socinianism, named after Fausto Socizzi (1539-1604), is the de-spiritualizing of Scripture, God, or Christianity. An Enlightenment-era error, Socinians intellectualize Scripture and de-emphasize supernatural aspects of things ranging from the literal creation account, to the Virgin Birth, to the Resurrection. Tim Keller’s BioLogos would be one such example, in which the heretics turn the miracle of creation into a mundane and rudimentary biological process captive to the laws of science and free from the power of God.

Socinianism is on a spectrum, and there are many who hold to it. And it’s a captivating and tempting little demon, for sure. Theologians pride themselves in explaining things, and things from Scripture that cannot be explained get nary a mention from our seminarians or their vast troves of work. If something can only be explained by, “God said this,” or “it’s because God did this by virtue of being God,” it gives the theologian almost no glory at all. No one is impressed by someone who simply says, “I cannot explain this, because God is beyond my explanation.”

Salvation, for example, is surely a miracle if there ever was one, but by the time the soteriologians get done with it, it’s been dissected into a five point acronym, 23 sub-points, 86 marginal notes, and is preached with three points of alliteration. It all seems quite unimpressive and understandable by the time the theologians are done, and something that is wonderful has suddenly become wonder-less.

Theologians who venture into uncharted territory of the miraculous or unexplainable are quickly ostracized, much in the same way that an astrophysicist is quickly canceled by his peers for even attempting to explain the cause of the Big Bang. Such attempts are the Pandora’s Box of our ignorance, or perhaps a Jack-in-the-Box, when at the end, our ignorance pops out and scares us. Certain questions for which we have no answers, are not allowed to be asked at all. Such is how the Socinians would have it.

ALIENS EVERYWHERE…EXCEPT IN CHRISTIAN CONVERSATIONS

Obviously, the drones flying over New Jersey are within the scope of known human engineering. It’s also obvious that it would be next to impossible for the Coast Guard, the U.S. Air Force, or the federal government to not know what they’re about. Realistic theories include (1) the government searching for a kidnapped nuclear warhead using radiation detection equipment (reports indicate they’re already tried this before, but further into the interior) or (2) a foreign government testing our country’s capacity to stop drone invasions, and considering the Ukrainian conflict has shown us how deadly and unstoppable commercial drones can be when strapped with explosives, this is plausible or (3) a foreign government spying out the U.S., in the same way that the Chinese accomplished last year with their spy balloon (and likely using technology ineffective from satellite).

But none of that explains the other UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomenon) that’s simply other-worldly. These include orbs of light that are accompanied by weather phenomenon with swirling clouds around them, the infamous video from the Las Vegas police (and homeowners) being utterly convinced of personally seeing two alien creatures in someone’s back yard, following a streak of light crossing the sky (witnessed by at least 21 people), complete with video evidence and a video expert testifying the footage is genuine.

No, I don’t believe in intelligent extra-terrestrial beings for the reasons I explained previously in this article. But I do believe in extra-celestial beings because the Bible tells me they exist. That will make the Socinians go crazy, because the weird tales in the Scripture can be explained-away with metaphor to extrapolate some kind of hippy, Marxist object lesson. But the Bible clearly tells us there are creatures in the sky, who frequent Earth, and interact with men.

The question is if you’re convinced enough the Bible is true to cast off the fear of being mocked by the theological caste who believe salvation can be explained like a scientific formula.

The entire world could be talking about actual Sasquatch in space helmets coming to Earth on rays of rainbow light, live on TikTok, and you’ll likely find evangelicals still arguing about whether or not Bathsheba was a hussy or whether Michael Servetus deserved it, because we’re uncomfortable with supernatural claims. And that’s sad, considering the Bible is just one, gigantic supernatural claim that centers on a dead God-man coming back to life and being beamed up to Heaven.

NEPHILIM

The Bible tells us about the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4, Number 13:33, and Ezekiel 13:27. Whether or not they’re referenced elsewhere is up for discussion, but that they were explicitly mentioned in these three places is not.

In Genesis 6:4, the Scripture says…

There were Nephilim 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.

The word Nephilim is a simple transliteration of the Hebrew word, and is often translated giants (as the KJV does here) or “fallen ones.”

The Socinian simply argues that “sons of God” refer to the physical lineage of Seth (from whom the promised Messiah would come) and the “daughters of men” refers to the lineage of Cain (who was cursed), and that nothing supernatural or extraordinary is implied at all.

I would surmise something extraordinary was implied, because this lineage produced stinking giants who were the “mighty men of old.” Just as every world culture has the tale of a Great Flood - because it exists in human memory and a shared human experience - every world culture also has tales of mighty men who were extraordinary beings capable of great feats, of great strength, and great intelligence. In Greek mythology, for example, they were the Titans. But in the Hebrew Bible, they were the Nephilim.

Presuming the Bible is not just an ancient book written by primitive peoples, but was actually “carried along by the Spirit,” and indeed inspired, we can rest assured that mere myth didn’t find it’s way into God’s Holy Word.

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The popular theory among the non-Socinians is that these were demons (angels are referred to as the “sons of God” repeatedly in Scripture) who through some capacity mated with human women and created giant, strong, smart, super-babies. It is for this reason, some surmise, the Scripture says Noah was “pure in his generations” (Genesis 6:9), and one reason God flooded the world was to prevent Satan from demoning-up the human race, which could possibly thwart God’s plans to bring the Messiah through the “seed of woman” as promised in the creation account.

That’s a deep paragraph, so read it twice maybe.

It is very likely that Satan - knowing the prophecy that a human child would crush his head (Genesis 3:15) - would scheme to remove the possibility. But the theory that the flood would prevent further Nephilim (despite God locking up the demons responsible in Genesis 6) is that they reappear later in Numbers 13.

While it’s largely assumed that demons do not have access to a physical body after the Genesis 6 account (unlike non-fallen angels, who seem capable of manifesting a body whenever they want), it’s unclear how the demons would be back to their own tricks again, creating Nephilim babies.

Demons, of course, possess human beings because they want to sin, and the best sins are of the flesh. Once possessing a person, they are free to engage in sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Some theologians over the millennia have suggested that the Nephilim 2.0 were of the variety created by demon-possessed men.

This theory is a bewilderment to me, because I’ve personally cast demons from men and women overcome suddenly with nymphomania. When instructing other ministers, who’ve often come to me for help with the supernatural or demonic, I’ve explained that sudden onsets of sex-addiction or nymphomania (one example was a housewife with a history of chasteness suddenly falling into a state of sexual insatiableness in which she had sex with hundreds of men in the course of three weeks, thanks to a hook-up app; the demon was later cast from her), is a sign of demonic possession. That said, surely we’d see more Nephilim walking around today because demoniacs are definitely making babies.

This is, therefore, one of those things that we can’t explain other than to believe it occurred, and have good reason to believe it could still occur, because we live in a supernatural world.

Could some of the inexplicable and credible sightings of ghastly humanoid figures (like the creatures on video in Las Vegas, who stood at approximately 8 to 12 feet tall), be Nephilim?

Or, when reviewing the claims of respectable human beings who not that long ago, spoke of documented giants as though it were historic fact, could they have been Nephilim? When Abraham Lincoln referenced, “The eyes of that species of extinct giant, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara as our eyes do now,” was he engaging in science fiction?

Could Chuck Missler have been right when he said…

The result of these ungodly unions was a race of very wicked and very powerful hybrid (half-fallen angel, half-human) offspring - the Nephilim - who corrupted, harassed, even killed mankind. Now, at the end of the 20th century, we have the return of "alien" entities with apparent supernatural powers.

Surely, if we’re to believe Missler’s assertion that alien phenomenon could be Nephilim, others in history would have first had the idea that Nephilim are indeed demonic offspring. And indeed, they did. Let’s look at the Church Fathers for their view of the Nephilim and - with humility - consider them smarter than us.