WWUTT 330 Q&A Virgin Birth, Christmas Carols, and the Nephilim?

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How important is the virgin birth to the Christmas story? What sort of criteria should we be using when it comes to what

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Christmas songs we sing? Who were the Nephilim? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. It is Friday and we are reaching into the e -bag, taking questions from the listeners.

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If you would like to submit a question, whether it's about a what video or something you heard on the broadcast or any theology question you would like to have answered, send it to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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I've got one more Friday next week that I'll be taking some Christmas questions. So if you want to submit a

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Christmas question, I still need those. I'm realizing now I probably started answering those questions about a week too early.

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There's only so many Christmas questions that you can ask and we covered a lot of the myths about Christmas in some of our what videos.

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So anyway, I've got to save a few of these for next week, but I've got a few I'm going to look at here.

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This first one is a Christmas themed email, but actually not a question. This is a comment that comes from Joseph in the

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UK. He says, Hi, I have found your videos to be helpful in many ways, inspiring and praising the

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Lord for the truth of his word. I am a Filipino pastor here in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

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I have been watching your videos for months now. Last Sunday was my first time to use one of your

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Christmas related videos. The church appreciated it so much that they gave it a round of applause.

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That's great. I certainly praise God for your ministry. God is working through it. May you continue to serve our loving and holy

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God. We will donate to your ministry. God bless you all. Brethren. Well, I appreciate that so much,

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Joseph, and I'm going to share that with with our church elders as well. Joseph actually sent a follow up email after that and said that you can only donate online if you live in the

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United States. Maybe that's so. I don't know. I've never checked that out. But if you would like to give online, you can go to www .utt

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.com and you'll see the give tab there in the top right corner of the page. Joseph will find a way for you to get us a donation and we thank you so much for your heart, brother.

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All right. This next question comes from Landon in Milwaukee. Landon says, hey, Pastor Gabe, did you get the chance to catch

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Andy Stanley's sermon Who Needs Christmas? What did you think of that introduction? Yeah.

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Yeah, I heard it. I probably wouldn't have known about it if it wasn't for James White covering it on the dividing line.

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And and so then I went to North Point's website and I listened to the sermon boy, that intro.

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Here's here's what I'm talking about. Here's the clip. This is the way that Andy Stanley introduced this sermon entitled

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Who Needs Christmas? This is his opener. Hey, one of the the challenging things about the

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Christmas season and one of the challenging things about the Christmas story is, in fact, the Christmas story, the Christmas stories that relates to the birth of Jesus, because there's so much miraculous.

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There's so much amazing. There's so much that's really unbelievable about it. And a lot of people just don't believe it.

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And I understand that. And and maybe, you know, the thought is, hey, they had to come up with some myth about the birth of Jesus to give him street cred, you know, later on.

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Maybe that's where that came from. It's interesting because Matthew gives us a version of the birth of Christ. Luke does.

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But Mark and John, they don't even mention it. And a lot has been made of that. So before we jump in, I just want to say one thing about that whole thing.

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You know, and you've heard me say some version of this a million times. So this this will be old if you've been around for a while. But see, if somebody can predict their own death and then their own resurrection,

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I'm not all that concerned about how they got into the world, because the whole resurrection thing is so amazing.

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And in fact, you should know this, that Christianity doesn't hinge on the true truth or even the stories around the birth of Jesus.

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It really hinges on the resurrection of Jesus. And yet as unbelievable as this birth narratives are and as unbelievable as the accounts are that we find in Matthew and Luke, when you get the backstory, when you get the whole story, this unbelievable story actually becomes a remarkable story because the story of Christmas doesn't begin with a couple who's trying to figure out how in the world they got pregnant.

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The Christmas story actually begins with a couple that are worried that they'll never get pregnant. OK, and so where he goes from there is back to the story of Abraham and Sarah.

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And his whole sermon is basically the Old Testament story, a summary of the

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Old Testament, all the events leading up to the birth of Christ, which is fine. The problem is that statement that he made introducing the sermon.

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Stanley has this thing about the doctrine of the resurrection that he almost cherishes that doctrine to the exclusion of all others.

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And it creates this completely incoherent theology like the statement that he makes about.

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I'm angry. I'm actually mad about this and I'm trying to contain myself short of falling on the floor and flopping around in frustration.

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This is the closest to charismatic that I get. I don't flop on the floor rejoicing in the

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Holy Spirit. I flop on the floor because I'm mad that somebody is preaching borderline heresy, which is exactly what

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Stanley is doing here. He he says that if a guy can predict his own death and resurrection, then

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I'm not really concerned with how he got here. Well, if you're not concerned with how he got here, the doctrine of the resurrection doesn't mean anything either.

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Because, I mean, is the incarnation not important every time we read in the scriptures that Jesus was without sin or that Jesus was the last

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Adam or that he was the pure spotless lamb, as Paul says to the Corinthians, that when when

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John the Baptist says, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, any time these statements are made, it is referring to Christ's incarnation that he was conceived of the

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Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. That doctrine is inherent every time

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Christ is proclaimed as sinless because and we went through this when we were studying through the book of Romans.

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If Jesus was not virgin born, then Adam is still his federal head. And Jesus is therefore a sinner because he was born into sin, born by the seed of man.

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Jesus could not be the spotless lamb who would take away the sins of the world if that was the case.

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So his crucifixion and his resurrection mean nothing. And that's about as much as I can say without blowing my top.

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Lord, help me to patiently endure evil, correcting opponents with gentleness. I do want to play the close of his sermon here.

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This is just another example of how miserable his teaching can be. And the thing that makes the

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Christmas story so believable is the fact that the entire story is so remarkable.

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No one would have made this up. No one could have made this up. This stretched out over so many years that the thread was not always evident.

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And people lost track and people lost sight. But during that entire period of time, God was behind the scenes working, getting the world ready for the thing that he ultimately decided to do.

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Once sin entered the world, the Christmas story really did begin 2 ,000 years before the first Christmas.

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And the Christmas story continues to unfold 2 ,000 years after that first Christmas morning.

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So Stanley's argument for why the Christmas story is believable is that nobody could have come up with this.

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That's his argument. You know how I know the Christmas story is believable because the

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Old Testament predicted it and then it happened. The scriptures were fulfilled with Christ.

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That's how I know. That's how I know it's true, because the Bible says it is. When Stanley tries to make a claim, he will say stuff that will dismiss doctrinal inerrancy.

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But then when he gets criticized for it, he'll go, no, I believe in the inerrancy of the scriptures. I believe in the in the perfect word of God.

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Don't believe him when he says that he's lying to you because he does not exercise it in his preaching.

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It's all over his preaching that he he just rejects the truthfulness of the scriptures and instead tries to reason it out with really lame arguments like that one.

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The reason why I know the Christmas story is correct is because nobody could have come up with this. Nobody could have made this up.

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You know, really, all Stanley has to say is because the Bible says so. But he knows he would undo all the teaching that he did three months ago if he were to say something like that.

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Instead, he wants to appeal to reason and logic, even though the scriptures tell us that the natural man cannot discern spiritual things.

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For they are spiritually discerned. All right, let's go to let's continue on the questions here.

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I'm done with Andy Stanley. This comes from Jenny in Rochester, New York. Pastor Gabe, I know that singing theologically accurate songs is important to you.

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So how do you handle using traditional Christmas carols in your church? So many of the lyrics are unscriptural at best.

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A great example is the first Noel, in which only the first and last verses line up with scripture.

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You know, it's funny that Jenny mentioned that I had to go back and look at the first Noel because the last several

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Christmases that we've sung that song, we're only singing the first verse. That's that's it. We do it during our carol sing on Christmas Eve, our candlelight service that we do traditionally at our church.

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And so everybody's lighting candles. You know how that goes. It goes all the way around in the sanctuary. And so we're singing

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Christmas carols as we're doing that. But we only do one verse of the first Noel. So I had to go and look. And yeah, apparently and I totally forgot this about the about the first Noel, but the shepherds follow the star to Jesus in addition to three wise men following the star to Jesus.

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There are also songs like We Three Kings, you know, that one's not that's not biblically accurate.

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You have We Three Kings from Orient are there wasn't just three of them. There was a whole caravan.

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They also weren't kings. They were Magi, because there are only three gifts listed in Matthew chapter two.

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We've narrowed that down to there being three of them. One was carrying gold. One was carrying frankincense.

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One was carrying myrrh. But it actually would have been significantly more than that. There were only it's just that there were only three types of gifts.

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But the the verses to that song are actually quite good. You know, one of the kings bringing gold, born a king on Bethlehem's plain gold,

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I bring to crown him again, king forever, ceasing never over us all to reign.

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So tying in gold with Christ's kingship. And then you have frankincense to offer.

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Have I incense owns a deity nigh prayer and praising all men raising worship him,

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God most high. So the very gift of frankincense tying that in with Jesus being

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God. And then the last one, the last verse, myrrh even gets a little bit prophetic because it talks about Christ's death and being buried in a tomb, which is not something that we typically talk about in most

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Christmas songs. Myrrh is mine. It's bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom, sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone cold tomb.

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You get a little bit of Isaiah in there as well. So in that respect, I really like the song. But there are some songs that just they clearly don't fit.

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I saw three ships on Christmas Day. That's a that's a really ridiculous song. I think it talks about like Mary and Joseph are piloting a couple of those ships or something.

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I can't remember. Can't remember how the song goes. But anyway, then there is songs like Little Drummer Boy.

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And do you hear what I hear? It's fine if you like those songs. Just don't sing them in church when it comes to deciding whether or not a

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Christmas hymn fits in worship in church congregational worship.

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We need to have the same criteria judging our Christmas carols as we do for any other song that we should be singing needs to be it needs to be grounded in sound theology, sound doctrine, giving praise to our

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God. And there are some Christmas songs that do a great job of that. Hark the Herald Angels sing.

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We just sang in church this past Sunday was written by Charles Wesley. And some of these Christmas songs even are more

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Trinitarian than most of the hymns we sing the rest of the year. Oh, come all ye faithful. You have the line word of the father now in flesh appearing in the song.

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God rest ye merry gentlemen. There's a whole verse that's kind of dedicated to the Trinity from God, our heavenly father, a blessed angel came and unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same.

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How that in Bethlehem was born, the son of God by name, oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

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So there are some beautiful Christmas hymns. And I love the Christmas carols because of how theologically rich they tend to be.

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I kind of wish that we wouldn't sing them just at Christmas time. We could even, you know, kind of sneak in a Christmas song any other time of the year, because aren't we celebrating the birth of Christ always not just at Christmas time?

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So anyway, I hope that's that's helpful to you, Jenny. And I appreciate your question. We're going to shift from the

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Christmas questions to talking about some things that we reviewed on the broadcast this past week in our study of First Peter and also

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First Samuel. I got a question from something that we read yesterday. This first one comes from Luke in Dade City, Florida.

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He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I've always been interested in the section of Genesis six that references the

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Nephilim, sons of God, and how they are closely connected with God's destruction of the earth with the flood.

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I've also explored the book of Enoch a bit. And while I recognize that it is not to be regarded as inspired scripture,

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I've heard it described as a synchronized, biblically endorsed extra biblical text.

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I believe that to be a fair characterization of the book of Enoch. But I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject. I'd also like to hear your thoughts on the nature of the origin of the

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Nephilim and who you believe that they were. Well, thank you for your question, Luke.

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Yeah, the book of Enoch does not belong in canon. The Jews did not consider it part of their canon.

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And you've got to remember that the entire Old Testament was finished by the time that Christ came. So Enoch was among the apocryphal books.

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They were religious texts, but they were not part of the inspired scriptures inspired by God.

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The problem with the book of Enoch in particular is that it wasn't written by Enoch and yet claims to be.

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And that's also been kind of a source of contention of certain from certain theologians. When it comes to the book of Jude, there are there are some people that I've read from who believe that Jude should be excluded because he makes a reference to the book of Enoch, which was an apocryphal book.

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I think Luther, correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe Luther was one of them that didn't want

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Jude to be considered part of canon. I know that Luther didn't like the book of Esther either. He wanted Esther booted out.

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But in Jude verses 14 and 15, we read the following. This is Jude's quote from the book of Enoch.

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It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying,

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Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

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Now, what's being said there is true. There's nothing that's said there that that's false. It's absolutely prophetic that Christ is going to come with his holy ones to execute judgment.

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But it's the fact that Jude references it as coming from Enoch, the seventh from Adam.

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Now, I tend to hold a view of that reference is that Jude was referencing something that would have been recognizable.

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He's not necessarily saying that the book was written by Enoch. He's just identifying that people who are familiar with the book of Enoch know

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Enoch as being the seventh from Adam, but not actually making the claim that it was written by Enoch. Anyway, again, not to be considered part of canon.

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And for that reason, it's kind of like the Midrash, which is which are made up religious stories from the

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Jews. They kind of expound upon things that are true. And I feel that way about the book of Enoch and some of the things that are mentioned there, particularly,

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I think it's like the first 60 chapters, which is called First Enoch, have to do with the

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Watchers who were the angels that that slept with the daughters of men and then gave birth to the

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Nephilim. But I don't think that that's necessarily how we should interpret

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Genesis. At least this is my view of it. If you are interested in the Nephilim, if you want to study more about that, that's fine.

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A teacher that I greatly respect, Dr. Albert Moeller. He actually holds the view that we're talking about angels who left heaven and slept with the daughters of men and gave birth to very powerful men referred to as the

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Nephilim. Dr. Moeller believes that way. I can't say that I do. I don't really think that that's what's going on here.

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So let's look at the statement that's made there in Genesis, chapter six, right at the beginning of the chapter.

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We read when man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any that they chose.

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And the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.

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His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them.

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These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Right before chapter six, we have genealogy.

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In chapter four, we have the genealogy of Cain. In chapter five, we have the genealogy of Seth.

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Now, Seth is the promised seed. The line of Cain is cursed. It's from the line of Seth that we are going to have the

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Messiah. One of Seth's descendants is Noah, a righteous man. And it is

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Noah who builds the ark. God saves him and his wife, his sons and their wives.

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And then it's from the line of Shem, one of Noah's sons, that we will continue this line of the promised seed.

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So the line of Seth, again, is the promised seed. The line of Cain is cursed. So after we read through these genealogies, we get to chapter six where it says, when man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive.

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The sons of God are the line of Seth. The daughters of man are the line of Cain. And so what has ended up happening is that they've started to intermarry.

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So instead of the purity of the line of Seth, we now have both lines beginning to intermingle with one another and sin is starting to permeate the entire human race.

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No longer do you have a distinguishing line of Seth and a distinguishing line of Cain.

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Rather, they're all just kind of getting together and enjoying the passions of the flesh and sin is continuing over the whole face of the earth.

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This is what has grieved God into wiping out all of mankind, save for the righteous man,

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Noah, and his sons, who he will save on the ark. Now, the Nephilim were just very powerful men.

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They were those that were born of the sons of God and the daughters of man, and they just became these very powerful, conquering men.

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And God was grieved about the wickedness of man, that it was great on the earth, that every intention of his heart was evil continually.

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And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said,

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I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.

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But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. The earth was corrupt in God's sight.

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This is verse 11. And the earth was filled with violence. So that's how we understand the

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Nephilim. They were conquering men. They were violent men. And so in this way, they were giants.

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It's not that they were literally giants. They were just really powerful, renowned men who every time they went to war, they succeeded.

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And violence was covering the face of the earth. So that's the way that I understand

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Genesis chapter six, not talking about angels who came down from heaven to sleep with human beings, but rather that the promised seed, the line of the promised seed was intermingling with the cursed line.

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And therefore, you had sin starting to spread all the more. And this is perfectly in character with how

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God considered his people. The Israelites were not supposed to take the daughters of the pagans and marry them.

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Rather, they were supposed to remain pure sons and daughters of God. And so anyway, so you see that in the book of Genesis, in the early portion of Genesis prior to the flood, even before you get to the later books and you're talking about the purity of the line of Israel.

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All right. So one more question, one more question that I've got here. And this one has to do with what

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I read yesterday. And for Samuel, this is from Marcus in Illinois, says Pastor Gabe. And you're reading a first Samuel 21 on the podcast today.

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I'm surprised you didn't tie it in with Jesus conversation with the Pharisees in Mark two, where he specifically referenced this story.

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You know, being the what guy and all, I was waiting for an explanation for why Jesus recollection of first Samuel 21 was so different than the actual text.

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You let me down. I'm just giving you a hard time. But if you could still answer that, maybe on tomorrow's

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Q &A, I would appreciate it. Well, thank you for giving me a hard time, Marcus. I'll forgive you for that. So let's go to let's go to first Samuel chapter 21.

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I'll read the beginning of that chapter again, and then we'll go to Mark chapter two. So in first Samuel 21, then

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David came to knob to a Himalayan, the priest and a Himalayan came to meet David trembling and said to him, why are you alone and no one with you?

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And David said to a Himalayan, the priest, the king has charged me with a matter and said to me, let no one know anything of the matter about which

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I send you and with which I have charged you. I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place.

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Now, then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here. And the priest answered,

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David, I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread. If the young men have kept themselves from women and David answered the priest, truly, women have been kept from us as always.

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When I go on an expedition and remember, there's nobody with David. He's talking about men that he's going to go meet with, but aren't actually there.

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The vessels of the young men are holy, even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?

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So the priest gave him the holy bread for there was no bread there, but the bread of the presence, which is removed from before the

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Lord to be replaced by hot bread on the day that it is taken away. OK, so there's that story, the first six verses of First Samuel 21.

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Now let's go over to Mark chapter two. I'm in Luke, so I've turned too far.

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Mark 11, my pages are sticking together. Mark chapter two, and it's toward the end of the chapter here.

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Verse twenty three. One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields and as he made their way, as they made their way,

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Jesus with his disciples, his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain and the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the

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Sabbath? And he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry?

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He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which was not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him.

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And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is

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Lord, even of the Sabbath. Now, this is really odd because it looks like Jesus doesn't know the story.

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He mentions the wrong priest. He mentions that men were with David when they really weren't. But here's what's going on.

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And here's why Jesus recalled the story the way that he did. Abiathar was the son of a

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Himalaya and Abiathar is the one who survives the attack at Nob when when

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Saul comes against the priests who are there, suspecting them of conspiring with David.

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And so he wipes out all the priests. Only Abiathar survives, who is the son of a

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Himalaya, and he flees with the ephod to David. It was something that needs to be understood about the way that a line is considered.

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The Jews did not really care all that much if the name was accurate, as long as the line was represented properly.

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So Abiathar is fine. It's fine that we reference Abiathar. It's not it's not incorrect.

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It's not that Jesus got the wrong name. There is no Hebrew word for grandfather. So this is why you will have occasions in the

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Old Testament where somebody is described as a father who's not really a direct father. He's actually somebody's grandfather.

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That comes up quite a quite a lot. In fact, particularly in the books of first and second kings.

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So here in this case, when Jesus is referencing Abiathar, it's the house of a

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Himalaya. And he's not being inaccurate there. He's not referencing the wrong guy. This is perfectly in line with how

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Jews considered the house of a person. It is the house of a Himalaya or the house of Abiathar.

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And so anyway, in that case, it was accurate. But then you get to this part where it says, have you never read what

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David did when he was in need and was hungry? He and those who were with him. Now, Jesus is actually telling this to the

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Pharisees from their perspective, because they would have been considered they would have considered themselves with a

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Himalaya or with Abiathar, not with David. And so from their perspective,

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David was in need and he had some men with him. And so when a Himalaya was giving

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David the bread of the presence, he was giving it not just to David, but also to the men who were with him. And the point of the story is the point that Jesus is drawing out of this is that mercy is more important than ceremonial law.

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So even though it wasn't lawful for David to eat the bread of the presence, the priest was generous toward David and gave it to David because mercy was what was important to him, more important than the ceremonial law.

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And so that was what Jesus was drawing out of that particular story for the Pharisees, that mercy was greater than sacrifice.

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The disciples are hungry, so they're plucking the heads of grain, just like David was hungry and he needed the bread of the presence and Ahimelech gave it to him.

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And so if you wouldn't say that Ahimelech is wrong or Abiathar in this case is the name that Jesus uses, if you wouldn't say that Abiathar was wrong, you can't say my disciples are wrong for plucking the heads of grain because we're hungry walking through the grain fields.

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Furthermore, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is

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Lord even of the Sabbath. This is Jesus also saying they're with me and I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, so it's all right.

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Anyway, so I hope that that that fills in the blank that I left yesterday in our study of first Samuel 21.

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And once again, Marcus, appreciate you giving me a hard time. If anybody else would like to give me a hard time, the email address is when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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I appreciate you listening in to the broadcast. We'll be back again on Monday, continuing our study of first Peter.

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God bless. This is a protection of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find us on the