Do you think the struggle in Genesis 6 is only about giants and mythical beings?
What if this story actually reveals everything about the battle that is taking place in your heart today?
Genesis 6: The Great Revelation of Flesh and Spirit
Do you think the struggle in Genesis 6 is only about giants and mythical beings?
What if this story actually reveals everything about the battle that is taking place in your heart today?
Picture this: a world where people have forgotten their true identity.
Chaos everywhere, violence, war, people led by pride, ego, and fear.
Sounds like today’s headlines, doesn’t it? But this is the backdrop of Genesis 6.
Traditional teaching often presents Genesis 6 as a history lesson about a world long gone—about “fallen angels” and literal giants called the Nephilim.
But the Bible is not about the past, or about someone else.
The Bible is about you!
The story in Genesis 6 is written as a mirror.
A mirror that shows you who you are right now, where you stand, and where you need to go.
Let’s look at Genesis 6 again, not with the eyes of a historian, but with the eyes of someone seeking deep, personal, spiritual truth. For as Jesus Himself said:
Luke 24:44
Everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Everything in the Old Testament.
When we discover Him in this text, we also discover ourselves,
1 John 4:17
because as He is,
so are we in this world.
That’s how you uncover the fundamental struggle between living from the flesh and living from the Spirit—and how to overcome it.
The Great Drama: The Nephilim and the Flood
In Genesis 6:4 we read:
Genesis 6:4
There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward,
when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men
and they bore children to them.
Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
However, the original Hebrew text for the word ‘giants’ reveals a much deeper meaning.
It is the word ‘Nephilim,’ which means ‘fallen ones.’
The Bible adds that these fallen ones were mighty men.
In Hebrew, the word is ‘Gibborim,’ which means ‘mighty ones’ or ‘heroes.’
Traditionally this is seen as a physical description, but when we look at the spiritual meaning, an entirely different picture is revealed.
Though the Bible does mention literal giants, the primary meaning here is of spiritually fallen people.
The Nephilim are those who have abandoned their true identity in God and live from their fleshly nature.
The Gibborim are the “mighty ones” who exercise influence and dominance from the flesh, not from the Spirit.
This story is an unveiling of human nature apart from God—a nature filled with violence, ego, pride, and moral corruption.
It is both an example and a warning for all people in all times, including you today.
The Source of the Conflict: Living from the Flesh
The “earth” is a picture of your heart and your being.
Judgment on this earth begins in Genesis 6:3, where God says:
Genesis 6:3
My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is flesh.
This is the key to understanding the entire chapter.
It describes the inevitable result of a life rooted in the flesh.
This directly connects to Genesis 3:22, where God prevented man from living forever in his fallen state by eating from the tree of life.
Genesis 3:22
And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life,
and eat, and live forever…
It shows that God mercifully set a boundary: the old, fleshly man cannot exist forever.
His Spirit will not endlessly contend with those who choose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This is the very principle Paul later explains:
living according to the flesh ends in death,
but living according to the Spirit brings life and peace.
The “old, fallen man,” who is guided by his senses and earthly logic, cannot endure forever.
What Paul says here is found in Romans 8, among others, and can also be found in Deuteronomy 30:19, Proverbs 14:12, Ezekiel 18:4, John 3:6, John 6:63, Romans 6:21-23, Romans 7:5-6, Romans 8:5, 2 Corinthians 3:6, Galatians 5, Galatians 6:8, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:3-5, James 1:14-15, 1 John 2:16-17, Jude 19-21
The meaning of Genesis 6:4 is perfectly reflected in Adam.
He ate from the knowledge of good and evil, not from the tree of life.
The fruit of Adam was therefore not life, but good and evil, clearly seen in Cain and Abel.
And as that example perfectly shows, this always results in death.
Judgment and the New Creation
God says:
Genesis 6:13
The end of all flesh has come before Me,
for the earth is filled with violence through them.
And behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
This may sound like brutal punishment, but when read with spiritual eyes, it is anything but.
The flesh is the old creation, the “old man,” which must die in your life.
The judgment of the flood is not the revenge of an angry God, but a cleansing process making way for the new creation: Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17
For whoever is in Christ is a new creation.
a new heaven and a new earth
The water of the flood is no coincidence.
In the Bible, water is a powerful symbol of the Word of God, which washes and purifies.
It is God’s Word that cleanses our hearts from lies and carnal thought patterns.
Sailing on the Word: Noah, the New Man
In this flood of the flesh, we see Noah.
Genesis 6:9
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
Noah walked with God.
Noah is a picture of someone who lives by the Spirit; he shows us what it means to be “in Christ.”
Not by his own strength, but through faith and obedience, he rises above the chaos.
His generation were people who lived entirely from the flesh.
Verse 5 tells us that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
All flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth!
Genesis 6:5
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:12
All flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth!
Peter powerfully explains the spiritual depth behind these natural images.
The antitype of the flood in the days of Noah, baptism, now saves us as well.
Not as a removal of the filth of the flesh—a baptism into John with water—but as an inner appeal to God for a good conscience—a baptism into Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (Matthew 3:11).
The Truth That Sets You Free
Genesis 6 teaches us a universal and timeless principle that applies directly to you and me!
It is filled with images that point directly to the reader.
They are never about someone else!
If you read the Bible and think, “My neighbor should really read this,” then you’d better put the Bible down.
The Bible is only about you and your growth in Christ.
Noah, his generation, the sons of God, and also the daughters of men all are about you.
Even Ham, the son of Noah, shows the same story.
Ham grew up in the righteousness and integrity of his father; a son of God.
Genesis 6:9
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
Noah walked with God.
But he abandoned that wisdom and embraced the wisdom of the world.
The picture Genesis 6 uses is
“marrying a daughter of men.”
Genesis 6:4
There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward,
when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men
and they bore children to them.
Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Ham, the son of God, marries a daughter of men, and the fruit they produce is their son Canaan; a mighty one, a man of renown.
Later we read that the land of Canaan was filled with giants (Numbers 13:33) who committed abominations, causing the land to become defiled.
Leviticus 18:27
They committed abominations, causing the land to become defiled.
This explains why God later gave the people of Israel such a radical command when conquering Canaan.
He says in Deuteronomy 20:
Deuteronomy 20:16–17
In the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance,
you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive.
But you shall utterly destroy them!
This is a picture of the cleansing of your heart.
It is the flood that washes the world clean.
It is the destruction of your old, fallen identity, so that your identity in Christ can come into being and grow into fullness.
Your heart is the promised land!
This is the land God wants to take possession of.
As Paul writes:
Romans 6:11
Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
This is the essence of Genesis 6.
It is not a story about mythical beings, but about your deliverance from the flesh.
The real battle is not outside you, but in your mind.
The old man does not die on his own; only the Truth can put him to death.
It is the Spirit of Truth within you that releases a flood of Truth and makes everything new (1 John 2:27).
Only then will you grow up in all things into Him who is the head (Ephesians 4:15).
Only then will you grow into the fullness of who you have always been: Christ, the Anointed One (Ephesians 4:13).
God is love.
That love runs throughout the entire Bible, even in Genesis 6.
Are you willing to let go of the old and embrace the love of God?
Let His Truth wash your heart clean.
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