Is it not logical to think that Satan also devised a plan, but with complete opposition and counter-action to everything in God’s plan? He knew of his eventual end, and that his expulsion from heaven was only a temporary judgment. Did he imagine that he could possibly change his destiny by reassembling his angelic forces here on earth, and win his war of independence on this battlefield? Did he convince himself that if he seduced God’s image creature, man, into joining his campaign that he could surely win? Did he think that man, God’s new and beloved creation, would be God’s Achilles’ heel?
We cannot know these answers, but we must surely suppose that his evil genius devised a plan of action. It appears that man was first involved at the tree, in the garden. When man sinned, he became an ally with Satan in the fallen state. Having been seduced once, man would join with Satan in an affair that would span millenniums. Considering these things, it is not surprising that Satan used his supernormal brilliance to foster confusion and frustrate the plan of God. One of his first strategies was to have the “sons of God” choose wives from among “the daughters of men” (Genesis 6:4), and have aberrant, mutated offspring that would control the affairs of men. These incarnate spirit beings (Nephilim) grew into giants in stature and presumably of mind. The flood of Noah didn’t bring an end to the Nephilim, for they surfaced again with Nimrod after the flood, Nimrod was a Nephilim that continued the anti-God rebellion. He was the father of cities that served as magnets to attract people into unspeakable sin. It was true in the time of Babylon, as it was later with Sodom and Gomorrah. It is the same today, except the cities are larger. It was in Babylon that organized paganism began. Here we affirm that Satan was the author of organized, corporate religion. It was, however, long before the flood and the tower of Babel that God not only recognized but reacted to the constant orgy of sin on the earth. It is not difficult to diagnose the cause or the guilty clientele of sin’s abomination.
Genesis 6:4-5 tells the Nephilim story:
4 – 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.
5 – And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 – And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
“Man” is listed as the culprit in verses five, six, and seven. What we must quickly add, is that the “giants” in verse four were accounted as “man”. The Hebrew word used for “giants” in Genesis 6:4 is nephilim (cast down ones), and refers to the angel-human mutated progeny that is listed here. God acted, early on, to thwart Satan’s plan for man, by sending a deluge of destruction that would literally wash away sin from the earth by washing away sinners. The chief sinners and leaders in rebellion were the giants (Nephilim). The Bible tells us that only eight people, Noah’s family, survived the flood. Yet, we find that Nephilim popped up again after the flood. How could this happen? How and in whom did they manifest?
James R. Spillman, in his masterful book, A Conspiracy of Angelsii, presents the persuasive possibility that the scapegoat is not actually a type of Christ. In English the goat is called scapegoat and in Hebrew he is called Azazel. Spillman describes this event and its meaning perfectly.