As the “modern nephilim” claim and scriptural argument is peculiar to those who accept the “sons of God” to be angels in Gen 6, this series of articles on this assumes this stance for the sake or arguing what the rest of scripture would show, if this assumption was true.
The Concept of Paternal Spiritual Lineage
The Bible contains within it what I am calling the concept of “Paternal Spiritual Lineage”. The Bible teaches:
- The spirit of a child is multiplied from the spirit (having life) of the child’s father.
A child’s spirit, which is tied to the gift of life itself, is not created completely anew by God and deposited by God at conception, but rather is grown from the spirit of the child’s father. Same as the body of a child is grown from the egg and sperm which combine upon conception, the spirit of a child is grown out of the spirit of the father. His contribution as the giver of the spirit (having life) of the child serves as his major contribution, as the growth of the child’s body in the mother by pregnancy serves as her major contribution. Only the mother can grow the child in her body, through her body, and only the father contributes to the growing of the spirit of a child, which is necessary for the child to have life, from his own spirit. The mother acts as the birth center, the father as co-creator. The soul (mind/will/emotions) and the body of the child are of equal contribution from the mother and the father. The child will be like both mother and father in the traits of their body and soul. (Though technically the father’s contribution of sperm is solely what determines the gender of the child.) But the spirit of a child is a one-size-fits-all matter, as the spirit which gives life in each person, of either gender, is exactly the same.
2. A child’s spirit is of the same type as the child’s father.
Because the mother contributes nothing to the spirit that a child is grown from, and is alive from, it means that the father solely determines the type of the spirit of a child. There are several types of spirits that exist, or that God created: human, angel, and then there is God Himself, who is spirit. If a child has a human type of spirit, or an angel type of spirit, or the spirit of God, is determined solely by the child’s father. A woman’s spirit is not multiplied and grown into a child’s spirit (having life), nor involved in the process, much in the same way that her egg does not determine the gender of the child, but only the contribution of the father determines the gender.
3. The generational curses passed on to a child are indicated to only come from the paternal ancestors of a child, and not the mother or the maternal ancestors, but do come from paternal ancestors on the maternal line. Yet the blessings come from both the mother and the father of a child. This is consistent with the pattern of the first two points above, yet shows that God visits iniquities as He keeps record, and iniquities visited or blessings given are not determined by body or spirit multiplication lineage.
Now to show the above points in the Bible:
First God made Adam,
“And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen 2:7)
The word here for “soul” is clarified in the New Testament,
1 Cor 15:45 “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”
The word here for “soul” is “psyche” and it means “life” and “soul”. It is also used in: Matt 10:28 “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
There is a different word for “spirit” used in 1 Cor 15, which is “pneuma”.
This is the “breathe of life” in Gen 2:7 which references to the “spirit” which gives life.
“The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” (Job 33:4)
“All the while my breath [is] in me, and the spirit (ruach) of God [is] in my nostrils” (Job 27:3)
“And the LORD said, My spirit (ruach) shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” (Gen 6:3)
The spirit of life in man was given by God to Adam in Gen 2:7, and is the spirit of man. Without God striving with the spirit of man, it no longer has life, but the man dies. But as long as God strives with the spirit of man, the man lives. The point being that a man being alive is tied to him having the spirit, of life, giving life, as God breathed into Adam.
The spirit of life, giving life to the body, is in the blood,
“For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul.” Lev 17:11
As such the spirit of man, and life, is tied to the blood of the man’s body.
God specifies that people reproduce through multiplication, saying:
“Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28).
What is multiplication? God demonstrated multiplication for us, by how God made Eve from a little piece, a rib, taken from Adam. (The rib itself contains blood in the marrow, and the life of the body is in the blood.)
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.” (Gen 2:21-22)
God is not recorded to have breathed the spirit, the breathe of life, into Eve in order for her to become a living soul. Nor is God recorded to have repeated this process with Cain, Abel, Seth, or any of their children. God breathed the spirit of life into Adam who became a living soul, and God is recorded to have done this only one time, with Adam.
Then Adam had a spirit and a soul and was alive.
When God made Eve, He multiplied her body from Adam’s body, and God multiplied her soul from Adam’s soul, and God multiplied her spirit from Adam’s spirit.
And as she had a body (with life in the blood) and spirit (the breathe of life) she also became a living soul, through the process of multiplication.
As such, Eve was multiplied from Adam, in body, soul, and spirit. God did this with Eve Himself, but from that point on the same thing would occur with Adam and Eve multiplying to have children, through the natural process God set in place.
This does not negate that that God forms each person in the womb (Is 44:2,24) but the point is that the building materials, a seed, are already in place for God to build from, not just in regards to multiplying a new body, but to a new soul and spirit as well. All are multiplied from what already exists in the father and mother.
That the body and soul (mind, emotions, will) of the mother are inherited traits of a child is obvious, children look like their mothers, have psychological traits like their mothers, the intelligence of their mother, etc. And so we know that both the body and soul of the mother contribute to the body and soul (mind/will/emotions) of the child. Both the mother and father’s soul and body are part of the multiplying process to form a child. Each contributes an equal number of chromosomes, to combine in conception, for the physical body, and the same would make sense of the soul (mind/will/emotions) as well.
But the father’s sperm alone determines whether the child will be a male or a female, and these are the two types of humans. “So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Gen 1:27)
A similar parallel is seen in the spiritual lineage. It is the type of the father’s spirit which solely decides the type of the spirit of the child, and which solely contributes the “breathe of life” itself to the child at conception. This is as automatic, of a natural (spiritual) process, and out of the hands of the child’s father, as is pregnancy in a woman, and her body growing the child’s body. Without the father, the mother’s body grows the child’s body, and the man also just as essentially contributes to the life of the child, by solely contributing the spirit by which the child is multiplied, and in this has the breathe of life.
This is why the Bible over and over again refers to the father alone as begetting a child. Mothers are not said to beget children. The life of the body is in the blood, which is built in the mother’s body in pregnancy. The child would not live without blood, built with the mother’s body, nor without the spirit giving life, built with the father’s spirit. As such their contributions are equally important and essential in producing a child. And it is God who works the miracle of forming a child, in any case. But while the child comes from both the mother and father, ultimately the child’s spirit, having life, only comes from the father’s spirit being multiplied into the spirit of the child, so it had life. This is balanced with only the mother’s body building the body of the child in pregnancy. Life therefore ultimately is inherited from the father, from the spirit. And this is why the Bible repeatedly says that fathers beget their children, in numerous place, here’s one:
Matt 1:2 “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren”
Moving onto two case examples, the same word for “begat” is used in 1 Jn 5:1
“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of Him.”
Jesus Christ was begotten of God the Father. Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God, but He also is God. In this we can clearly see that the type of spirit of the father solely determines the type of the spirit of the child. The three types of spirits which exist are God, angel, and human. Jesus Christ is the God type of spirit, is God, because His Father is God. Jesus Christ could not have a spirit that was only half-God-spirit, and half-human-spirit, but rather: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” (Col 2:9) Jesus Christ came in the flesh (2 John 1:7) and was man (1 Tim 2:5), but also Jesus Christ is God, and came from above, existing eternally, creating all things (Jn 8:23, 8:58, Jn 1). Additionally, we can see that the Bible says Jesus was a man because of His body, even though the spirit of Jesus is God as Jesus is God. The type of the spirit of the child is determined by the type of the spirit of the father alone.
We can also see that in humans, a man with a human spirit begets a child who also has a human spirit, as this is true throughout the Bible. This is also seen in the case of Adam and Eve, in which she also had a human spirit, herself being multiplied from Adam.
But as for their children, the Bible says the children came through Eve, as in “passing through”. The word here “dia” means “a motion through”.
1 Cor 11:8,12 “For the man is not out of the woman, but the woman is out of the man; For just as the woman is out of the man, in this manner also the man is through the woman; but all together from God.”
The distinction is clearly made that while Eve came out of Adam, and while daughters come out of their fathers, that all men (and women) since have come “through” their mother, not “out of” her. But all women (and men) have come “out of” their fathers. Applying this to Eve, this means her children came through her, but out of Adam.
The next case to look at is that of Adam. God said to Adam, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 2:16-17)
We can know that this was not referring to physical death, but to a spiritual death, because Adam did not die the day that he ate from the tree. This is also made clear when compared to Gen 3:22-24:
“Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”
The tree of life would cause spiritual immortality, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would cause spiritual death or dying. Immortality of the spiritual seems to lead to immortality of the body, and death of the spiritual seems to lead to death of the body. From this is can be gathered that Adam was made with neither certain death nor immortal life, but in a neutral state, and could choose to go either way, or choose either tree.
When he chose the tree leading to death of the spirit he had, this death passed onto his children, as they were all multiplied from his spirit. His spirit dying did not cause him to no longer have a spirit, but simply to have an ‘inert husk’ of one, for him to have a dead spirit, instead of a living one, but he still had one. And somehow just having a spirit (even dead or dying) is still enough to bring life to the mortal body, and the living soul. (And it is the Holy Spirit which makes the dead spirit we have to be born again, to eternal life.)
We know that the state of Adam’s spirit, of being dead or dying, was passed to all the rest of humanity his children, as this is made clear in the New Testament:
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned– for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 5:12-21 NASB
“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”
1 Cor 15:21-22, 45
In these passages it is made clear that death passed to all people by Adam alone. This is explained in that Adam was the one original spirit/soul from which all others were multiplied. All of Adam’s children inherited a dying/dead spirit, as it is only the spirit of the father which is multiplied to the children, giving them life. The Bible is specific that it is only by the transgression “of the one” and that “death reigned through the one”.
As such Eve is not included in the multiplying of the spirit, but only Adam, and this includes the attribute of ‘the sinful nature’ or dead-state of the spirit (as well as the type of the spirit).
And so both in the case of Adam begetting all humanity, and in God begetting only Jesus Christ, we can see that the type of spirit of a child, and the attributes of a child’s spirit, come only from that child’s father, and not from the child’s mother.
If Eve’s spirit was involved 50/50 in the multiplying of the spirit of a child, then 1 Cor 15 and Rom 5 could not say what they say without contradiction, as they both point solely to Adam. If Mary’s spirit was 50/50 involved in the multiplying of the spirit of Jesus Christ, then he would spiritually be less than fully God, spiritually speaking.
The first two points being covered, onto the third point, which is told in:
Ex 20:5-6
“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
The word here for “fathers” refers to only paternal ancestors, and not to maternal ones. As such, one might assume that these iniquities are passed down per the concept of Paternal Spiritual Lineage; however this is not the case. God says He will visit the iniquities of the paternal ancestors onto the children. The verse does not indicate that this will occur naturally, as part of a natural process as by multiplying children. This cannot be the case, because every child has “fathers” or paternal ancestors on both their mom’s and dad’s side.
The paternal ancestors of a child’s mother are also referred to here and nothing in these verses restricts the “fathers” to only the child’s paternal side. As such, this “visiting of iniquities” cannot be based on the multiplying of the spirit of the father to produce the child, and is an unrelated matter, even if it bears some similarity.
Rather, God Himself here refers to a record that He seems to keep, of not only the paternal-paternal line, but also of the maternal-paternal line, meaning the male ancestors of a child on both sides of the child’s family.
Additionally, no gender restrictions are placed on God showing mercy unto a thousand generations of those that love Him and keep His commandments. This means a generational blessing of God’s mercy can pass on through either the mother or the father of a child, through their ancestors, without any gender restriction. Again, this confirms that the concept of “generational curses” is not based on the multiplying of the spirit from a child’s father. However, some similarity in how God’s spiritual rules work is found, in that the iniquities of the fathers are visited, and the mothers are not. But this makes little difference, as the iniquities are visited on both the male and female children, and a mother may have the same iniquity visited on her that her father had, as may her children.
A second witness to God actively keeping record like this is found in Psalm 109:14,
“Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.”
Another reason this is known to be unrelated to multiplication is because there is nothing hard-wired about specific iniquities, as a person may repent of a particular sin at any time, or reject an iniquity that is being visited upon them, without the spirit (or body or soul) they were born with changing in some basic hard-wired way (Eze 18).
In summary, two witnesses are to be found in scripture, in the cases of Jesus Christ and Adam, which together show: the spirit of a child is multiplied from the spirit of the child’s father, giving life, and that a child’s spirit is of the same type as the child’s father.
Also the attributes of the life of the spirit of the father pass onto the child, such as Jesus Christ being eternal and immortal, and Adam’s sinful nature and death. However, the sinful nature and dead-state of Adam’s spirit is a general matter, and the specific iniquities of a father that are visited on the children are not based on the spirit being multiplied from the father to the child.
Part 2
There is a third example in scripture which shows this point about Paternal Spiritual Lineage, which is found in Gen 6.
This is the case of the “sons of God” and their children the Nephilim-giants.
“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they [were] fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants 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.” Gen 6:1-4
The term “sons of God” refers to angels (Gen 6:2,4 Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7), and the Nephilim-giants were the children of the “sons of God” and human women. In Jude 1 and 2 Pet 2 these “sons of God” are described as angels who sinned by leaving their own domain, are compared to those who “gave themselves over to fornication, going after strange flesh”, and who are now imprisoned in Tartaros. Their actions made them become fallen angels.
“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Jude 1:6-7
“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast [them] down to hell (Tartaros), and delivered [them] into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth [person], a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned [them] with an overthrow, making [them] an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly” 2 Pet 2:4-6
The chronology in 2 Pet 2:4-6 places the time of their sin to be immediately before the flood, so we can know these are one and the same fallen angels who are referred to in Gen 6:1-4. And we know that these fallen angels in particular who committed this sin are now bound and imprisoned in Tartaros as the sentence for their crime. (Though others are not imprisoned, who did not commit this particular crime, see Rev 12, Luke 4, Eph 6:12.)
We can gather that several things would be true about the offspring of this union, based on the concept of Paternal Spiritual Lineage.
- As angels are immortal spirits, their children the Nephilim-giants would have immortal spirits. This is the same as God the Father and Jesus, except that God is eternal, and the angels and their offspring all had a beginning point, being created.
- As the angels who sired these Nephilim-giants were sinful, the offspring would be sinful also.
- As Jesus Christ was God in spirit, but man in body, we can gather that the Nephilim-giants were fallen-angel in spirit, but men in body. Jesus Christ is the only Biblical example to work from on what would happen in a situation like this. He had the spirit of God, but a human body and the Bible calls Him a “man”, so He is a man, and had the body of a man. As such these Nephilim must have had mortal human bodies, but immortal sinful spirits. These Nephilim-giants were men, having a human body, though the spirit of a fallen-angel, just as much as Jesus Christ was man, having a human body and the spirit of God. The Bible calls Jesus a man, in truth (1 Tim 2:5). With the same amount of truth, these Nephilim-giants were also men.
The Nephilim-giants all died in the flood, in regards to their bodies. But based on their Paternal Spiritual Lineage, we should expect for their spirits to not have died, but rather to be immortal. As such they should be mentioned later on in the Bible, if the concept of Paternal Spiritual Lineage is true.
There are only 3 things we know about them. They should be able to be identified as immortal evil spirits, who do not have a body of their own. This precisely matches the Biblical description and accounts of demons in the Bible. And so the concept of Paternal Spiritual Lineage leads us to the point that demons in the Bible are the disembodied evil spirits of the dead Nephilim-giants.
Demons have the spirits of a fallen-angel (though not the spirit-body of an angel) and are immortal. They cannot receive eternal life as a gift, because they already are immortal. Repeatedly in the New Testament Jesus generalizes that the demons work for Satan, and says that Christians will cast out demons in His name. Satan is called the prince of demons, and it is obvious that the demons are adversaries to Christians, and work for Satan. Just like fallen angels, demons seem to be incapable of receiving salvation, because just as fallen angels are immortal and there is no way for them to be “born-again”. Demons, in being immortal, cannot be “born-again”. Humans have a spirit, in an inert-dead state, which while essential to having mortal life, does nothing towards eternal life.
The inert-dead human spirit must be born-again, regenerated, by the Holy Spirit:
“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God… Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” John 3:3,5
The Nephilim-giants are called “men” by the Bible (Gen 6:5), yet they cannot be born-again by the Spirit because they already are alive immortal spirits, which we know as demons. They cannot be born-again like humans with human-type spirits, and therefore cannot enter into the kingdom of God. In this the Bible generally seems to classify them in the same category as fallen angels, in many ways, though less powerful because they lack the spirit-bodies that fallen angels were created to have, demons are still categorized like fallen angels when it comes to the issue of salvation and who they work for.
It is for this reason that it is very important to establish that there are in fact no “modern nephilim hybrids” living today esp. who look human and live among us, which is what this website attempts to do. This same information that the Bible teaches on the concept of Paternal Spiritual Lineage, when applied to the story of the Nephilim in Genesis, shows that there were not any Nephilim after the flood of Noah, and that there is no evidence for any Nephilim living today, nor will there be. Please continue on to the next article in this series.
