The Sword of the Spirit: Whom the Flood Judged, and Dividing Spirit from Soul

The view that “the sons of God” in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4 were fallen angels is widely held today. Yet it leaves a serious question hanging over the justice of God and the consistency of the sixty-six books of Scripture. This is exactly where the word of God does what it was given to do.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the intentions and attitudes of the heart.

The word pierces “to the division of soul and spirit” (Hebrews 4:12). It separates what belongs to the soul from what belongs to the spirit and judges between them. When this sword is laid to the flood account of Genesis 6 through 8, two things become clear.

First, consider the justice of God and the target of His judgment. If the events of Genesis 6 had been a crime committed by heavenly beings who joined themselves to human women, then the righteous God would have called the ringleaders to account somewhere in the judgment of chapters 6, 7, and 8. When the serpent deceived the woman in Eden, God did not judge only Adam and the woman. He pronounced sentence on the serpent that had deceived them, and He did it at once.

Genesis 3:14 And the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the cattle and above every living thing of the field; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

Yet in the whole account of the flood there is not one word that rebukes or punishes a heavenly being.

Second, consider whom the judgment falls on: man and all flesh. From Genesis 6:1 onward, every lament and every sentence of God is aimed at adam, man, and at the living souls on the earth.

Genesis 6:3 And the LORD said, “My spirit (ruach) shall not abide in man (adam) forever, in that he also is flesh (basar); and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.”

“He also is flesh (basar)” (Genesis 6:3). The one God holds to account is man, a creature of flesh. The verses that follow keep the same aim: “The LORD saw that the evil of man (adam) was great in the earth” (Genesis 6:5), and “I will blot out man (adam) whom I created from upon the face of the ground” (Genesis 6:7). Those whom the flood actually destroyed match these words exactly.

Genesis 6:17 And I, behold, I am bringing the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh (basar) in which is the spirit (ruach) of life from under the heavens; everything that is in the earth shall expire.

Genesis 7:22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit (ruach) of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

The flood account names its targets: “man” (Genesis 6:3; 6:5; 6:7), “all flesh” (Genesis 6:17), and “all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was in the dry land” (Genesis 7:22). No being of heaven is mentioned anywhere in it. Scripture does record heavenly beings appearing in human form, as the next section will show. Even so, the flood narrative never once names a heavenly being as the object of judgment. From beginning to end, its words point to men and to flesh on the earth. When the sword of the word divides the beings of heaven from the living souls of the earth, it becomes clear who acted in Genesis 6.