“So Joshua conquered the whole region—the hill country, the Negev, the foothills, and the slopes, together with all their kings—leaving no survivors. He devoted to destruction everything that breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.”
[Joshua 10:40]
What does the flood of Noah, the conquest of the Canaanites, and those who take the mark of the beast all have in common?
God devoted all of them to total destruction, leaving no one alive.
This leads us to a more pressing question. Did God commit genocide?
Why would the God of the Bible commit genocide by directing the total annihilation of entire people groups, including the men, women, and little children? Does not this fly in the face of the true nature and character of God?
As a matter of fact, one of the most popular indictments against the God of the Bible is that He is a genocidal maniac, especially referring to the military exploits of the Conquest under Joshua, in which God commanded the utter destruction of certain Canaanite tribes. Skeptics and opponents of the faith use this argument to invalidate the Bible and disparage the character of the God.
Sadly, most defenders of the faith are ill prepared to answer this objection and provide weak and insufficient responses, further emboldening the atheist to remain justified in his unbelief and his hatred of God.
When posed with the question of how God could order the direct genocide of entire people groups, including “innocent” women and children, most apologists squirm in their seats and offer some unconvincing excuse about the sovereignty and justice of God, while ignoring the obvious conflict between genocide and the nature of God.
Genocide does not align with God’s nature. It is not in God’s character to arbitrarily devote certain ethnic groups to destruction while sparing others. So there must be a better explanation.
Fortunately there is, and we must go all the way back to the beginning to find the answer.
The Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman
There is a plausible answer to this apparent conundrum. There is a valid reason why God commanded the total destruction of certain people groups, including the global flood of Noah’s day. There is a clear and common thread that runs throughout Scripture that provides the answer behind the merciless and resolute judgment of God.
Sadly, most believers miss this thread because they are either ignorant or afraid of one of the most essential themes in all of redemptive history — a theme tracing all the way back to beginning.
I am talking about the the SEED WAR!
So the Lord God said to the serpent …
“And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall crush your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
[Genesis 3:15]
Interestingly, the Hebrew word for seed is zera (זֶרַע), which literally refers to the genetic material contained within plants, animals, and men that God designed as the natural mechanism of producing offspring. In pronouncing judgement upon the Serpent in the garden, the LORD God predicted a cosmic conflict that would play out upon the stage of human history in which the genetic offspring (seed) of Satan would perpetually be at war with the godly offspring preserved by God through Israel. The Seed of the woman eventually would culminate in the virgin birth of the Chosen One — namely Jesus the Son of God.
What we discover in the gospel accounts is that the Holy Spirit supernaturally (not sexually) infused the “seed of God” with the seed of the woman (Mary), conceiving the One and Only (unique) Son of God. I am convinced that this supernatural conception involved the literal union of God’s genetic material — His divine DNA — with the human genes contained in the virgin’s 23 chromosomes. This implies that Jesus did not inherit the corrupted Y chromosome passed down from our first father Adam but instead received perfect and pure genetic material from God Himself, which is why Jesus is the greater Adam — the last Adam.
It is implied in Genesis 3:15 that just as the virgin supernaturally would conceive and give birth to God’s Son, the Serpent would also produce his own illicit genetic offspring, conceived in the image and likeness of the Dragon himself. Satan’s offspring is called the man of lawlessness — the son of destruction. The culmination of Satan’s seed, of course, will be realized at the end of this age when the Dragon finally is cast down to earth, only to concentrate all of his power, throne, and authority into one individual known as the Beast (Revelation 12-13).
While the emergence of the Beast may be Satan’s final desperate attempt to rule the earth through his own progeny, it certainly was not his first. The powers of darkness have a long history of attempting to corrupt the human race through unsanctioned and often grotesque genetic aberrations that the Bible calls the Nephilim. The Nephilim are the degenerate spawn of a forbidden union between rebel angels (or watchers) and human women.
These genetically modified hybrids — which also happened to be giants — once filled the earth in the days of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and David (i.e Goliath). Jesus further warned us that similar genetic corruption will be reintroduced in the last days. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be before the coming of the Son of Man.
To get the bottom of God’s apparent “genocide” of entire people groups, we must first understand the Nephilim connection. Each and every time God has been resolved to utterly destroy an entire “race” or “tribe,” it has always been connected to the eradication of the corrupt seed of the Serpent and the illegitimate hybrid race called the Nephilim.
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown.” [Genesis 6:4]
So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had spied out: “The land we explored devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there are great in stature. 33We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!” [Numbers 13:32-33]
“Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens. 2The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them, and you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?’ 3But understand that today the LORD your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly, as the LORD has promised you.” [Deuteronomy 9:1-3]
God had good reason to exterminate the corrupt seed of Satan in ancient times, which also explains why Jesus will utterly destroy those who take the mark of the Beast when He returns at the end of the age.
Mankind Bears the Image of God
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it…”
[Genesis 1:27-28]
When God created mankind, He did so in His own image and likeness. Man bears the unique resemblance of God, which means that man is both spiritually and physically endowed by God with specific traits and genetic parameters that remain at the core identity of the human race. Any aberration or perversion of God’s original design is an abomination and automatically disqualifies hybrids from redemption.
Remember, only the human race is eligible for salvation, as Jesus did not come to redeem the angels who sinned, but only the offspring of Adam and Abraham (Hebrews 2). This is precisely why the Son of God became the Son of Man, permanently taking on human form to save mankind.
In other words, if you aren’t truly human, then you are no longer eligible for redemption.
Now we are one step closer to understanding why the LORD devoted the Nephilim and other giant clans to utter destruction. As unsanctioned hybrids, the Nephilim are the illicit offspring of angelic fathers who acted on their unnatural desire to procreate with human wives (Genesis 6:1-4, Jude 1:5-8). These giants were of strange seed and a violation of the created order. As an unholy mixture the Nephilim did not bear the image of God. Therefore, the Nephilim are not human but rather bastardized mutants imbued with a demonic spirit.
Not only are the Nephilim disqualified for redemption, but also they are inherently wicked and profane, whose sole purpose is to spread like a cancer and devour mankind, eradicating the sons of men from the earth — a feat they almost accomplished several times. Now we can begin to see why God was so resolute in the utter destruction of this corrupt “race.”
The Nephilim were a threat to the survival of the human race, and Satan’s primary means to prevent the birth of Messiah. There could be no remnant of the Nephilim left alive. All of them — even the children — had to be eliminated in order to prevent potential repopulation. So God was not committing genocide. On the contrary, He was saving the human race from the cancerous spread of Satan’s seed.
Transhumanism and the Mark of the Beast
Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”
[Revelation 14:9-11]
Finally, I would like to circle back to my initial question. What is the common denominator between the flood of Noah, the conquest of Canaan, and the destruction of those who take the mark of the beast?
All of these extreme cases of divine judgment are directed at genetically modified hybrids, who are not human and therefore ineligible for redemption. God does not deal with humanity in this way. He is dealing with something other than human, and therefore He is relentless in His judgment.
The only time in Scripture when God devoted entire populations to destruction is when genetically modified hybrids were in view.
Consider the flood of Noah’s day.
Right after describing the infiltration of Nephilim on the earth in Genesis 6, the Bible says that Noah was “blameless” in his generation. This is the Hebrew word tamim (תָּמִים), which means to be without physical defect or genetically pure. The implication is that Noah and his family likely were the only genetically uncontaminated humans left on the earth at the time of the flood. All of humanity had almost certainly been consumed by the giant Nephilim, which means that if God had not intervened to save Noah and his family, then no human life would have survived.
“Noah, however, found favor in the eyes of the LORD. 9This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.” [Genesis 6:8-9]
Now fast forward to the conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Moses and Joshua. Once again, the Nephilim show up in full view. These giant clans were deliberately planted in the Promised Land for one purpose. To destroy God’s covenant people Israel and thwart God’s plan to redemption.
So now it makes perfect sense that the LORD would have commanded Joshua and the Israelites to totally annihilate these giant clans that had established a stronghold in Canaan. They were not human! They were hybrids, and therefore devoted to destruction.
As a matter of fact, the LORD specifically told the Israelites to only treat the giant clans in the land of Canaan in this extreme manner; however, they were not to harm the women and children of other nations outside the land. This distinction is not without reason.
“But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city. 13When the LORD your God has delivered it into your hand, you must put every male to the sword. 14But the women, children, livestock, and whatever else is in the city—all its spoil—you may take as plunder, and you shall use the spoil of your enemies that the LORD your God gives you. 15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. 16However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes. 17For you must devote them to complete destruction —the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you, 18so that they cannot teach you to do all the detestable things they do for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the LORD your God.” [Deuteronomy 20:12-18]
And finally, that leads us to the final battle at the end of the age when Jesus comes to wage war against the Beast and his armies and pour out His wrath in flaming fire upon those who have taken the mark of the beast. The mark of the beast is Satan’s final attempt to offer mankind the opportunity to genetically transition into something else altogether. Transhumanism is man’s attempt to use technology and genetic modification to evolve into a new species — humanity 2.0 and beyond.
The mark of the beast is the genetic signature of the Beast — the seed of Satan being given to mankind with the false promise to become as gods and be recreated into the image and likeness of Satan himself.
The reason there is no redemption for those who take the mark of the Beast is because they have made a conscious choice to transform themselves into something other than human, passing the proverbial point of no return. And once they are genetically modified with Satan’s DNA, there is no going back and no hope for redemption. They will have gained the whole world by losing their very own soul.
We are living in a day and age that for the very first time in millennia mankind has the technology to manipulate and engineer our genetic sequences, which means that the transhumanist movement to create a entirely new species altogether is not just possible but certain.
When Jesus comes in flaming fire, He is targeting the Beast and his followers. Not every human will take the mark, and we know that some will survive and enter into the Millennial kingdom as mortals (Zechariah 14:16-19).
God is no genocidal maniac.
He is the Creator of heaven and earth and the righteous Judge of the living and dead. And as Judge, God must purge all evil from this earth in order to establish His kingdom of peace and righteousness, just like He did with the flood and the conquest of Canaan.
Days of Noah 