Part II — The Mingling and the Flood

The two lines before the union — pilgrims and the world-worshiping class — Gen. 2:24; 4:19; Deut. 14:1-2:

• Gen. 2:24. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" — Eden's marriage institution: one man, one wife, one flesh. This is the standard against which the ruin of this section is measured; the attack falls not on a human custom but on a gift from before sin.
• Gen. 4:19. "And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah" — polygamy begins in Cain's line, the fifth from the fugitive who "went out from the presence of the LORD" (Gen. 4:16; see “Cain and Abel — the Two Worships”). Before the mingling, the corruption of marriage is confined to the serpent's seed; the mingling is how it crosses the line.
• Deut. 14:1-2. "Ye are the children of the LORD your God... For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth" — Scripture's own idiom: "children of the LORD" names the professed covenant people, and their calling is PECULIARITY — set apart above the nations. This is the very thing the mingling dissolves.
• WitnessPP 81.1. White: "thus standing at the head of that great class of men who worship the god of this world.... To the crime of murder, in which Cain had led the way, Lamech, the fifth in descent, added polygamy.... the descendants of Seth... counting themselves 'strangers and pilgrims on the earth'" — the two lines drawn before the union: Cain's, the world-worshiping class with polygamy already in it; Seth's, the pilgrim people.
• WitnessGSAM 40.1. Loughborough: "Afterward Seth was counted in the line of descent from Adam.... Cain, the real first-born, is not counted in the pedigree.... after the birth of Seth, men began to call themselves by the name of the Lord" — the pioneer witness to the historical fact of two genealogical streams: Seth counted in the covenant pedigree, Cain excluded, the Sethites bearing the Lord's name (see “The Two Lineages — the City and the Name”).

Scripture defines its own phrase — who are the sons of God? — Gen. 6:1-2; Luke 3:38; Matt. 22:30:

• Gen. 6:1-2. "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose" — the text of the ruin. Two classes, one act: the sons of God SAW, judged by the sight of the eyes ("fair"), and TOOK "wives of all which they chose" — choice unbounded by God's counsel, and in "all which they chose" the plural liberty of Lamech now practiced in the faithful line.
  • the sons of God = the covenant line of Seth, the professed people of God. Scripture defines the phrase in this very genealogy: Adam is "the son of God" (Luke 3:38), and the covenant people are "the children of the LORD your God," a "peculiar people" (Deut. 14:1-2) — read literally, per Miller's Rule, not angels, "for in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. 22:30) (Gen. 6:2; Luke 3:38; Deut. 14:1; Matt. 22:30).
  • the daughters of men = the Cainite line, the world — the daughters of the "men" who "began to multiply on the face of the earth" (Gen. 6:1), the class descended from the man who "went out from the presence of the LORD" (Gen. 4:16), into which polygamy had already entered (Gen. 4:19) (Gen. 6:1-2; Gen. 4:16; Gen. 4:19).
• Luke 3:38. "Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God" — Scripture's own definition, planted in the antediluvian genealogy itself: "son of God" is covenant language for Adam and his faithful line. The Bible defines its own figures; no angel-mythology is needed or allowed.
• Matt. 22:30. "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" — Christ's own testimony closes the door on the angel reading of Gen. 6:2: angels do not marry. The widespread "sons of God = angels" interpretation is excluded on Scripture's own terms — the sons of God are men of the covenant line, and the tragedy of Genesis 6 is a CHURCH tragedy, not a monster story.
• WitnessCTr 39.2. White: "The worshipers of God called themselves the sons of God," and "there were two parties in the world then, and there always will be" — the most direct inspired confirmation of the Sethite reading: the phrase of Gen. 6:2 is the self-designation of the worshipers of God, and the two-party division it records is universalized — "there always will be." The Genesis 6 division is the division of this whole study (see “The Enmity — Two Seeds from One Fall”).

The mechanism of ruin — saw, chose, took — Gen. 6:2; PP 81.2; AH 121.3:

• Gen. 6:2. "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose" — mark the verbs: SAW (attraction), CHOSE (alliance), TOOK (descent). Not one word of persecution, compulsion, or heresy — the peculiar people were not conquered; they married.
  • the mingling = the alliance of the two classes by which the peculiar people lose their peculiarity — the standing mechanism of apostasy. The sons of God chose by sight and took "wives of all which they chose" (Gen. 6:2), and the end was that "all flesh had corrupted his way" (Gen. 6:12); the abiding law is one-directional — the yoke of light with darkness is forbidden (2 Cor. 6:14), "evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33), "the friendship of the world is enmity with God" (Jas. 4:4) — the church descends, the world never rises (Gen. 6:1-5; Gen. 6:12; 2 Cor. 6:14; 1 Cor. 15:33; Jas. 4:4).
• WitnessPP 81.2. White: "For some time the two classes remained separate.... the latter, in order to escape from their contaminating influence, withdrew to the mountains, and there made their home.... But in the lapse of time they ventured, little by little, to mingle with the inhabitants of the valleys.... The children of Seth, attracted by the beauty of the daughters of Cain's descendants, displeased the Lord by intermarrying with them.... they lost their peculiar, holy character" — the load-bearing anchor, and the section's title in her own words: the separation held, the descent came "little by little," the attraction was by beauty, the act was intermarriage, and the loss was exactly "their peculiar, holy character." The same paragraph converts two inferences into cited fact: "the restrictions of the seventh commandment were disregarded, 'and they took them wives of all which they chose'" — Lamech's plural liberty (Gen. 4:19) now practiced in the faithful line — and the mingled Sethites went "in the way of Cain" (Jude 11; see “Cain and Abel — the Two Worships”).
• WitnessCTr 39.2. White: "The descendants of Seth went up into the mountains and there made themselves homes separate from the sons of Cain.... But after the exhortations and the influence of Enoch were removed from them, they commenced to unite with the descendants of Cain" — the timing: the separation held only while Enoch's voice held; when the living witness was removed, the union began. Distinction is not self-sustaining; it must be kept.
• WitnessAH 121.3. White: "There is in itself no sin in eating and drinking, or in marrying and giving in marriage. It was lawful to marry in the time of Noah, and it is lawful to marry now.... But in the days of Noah men married without consulting God or seeking His guidance and counsel" — the sin located precisely: not marriage, which is Eden's own institution (Gen. 2:24), but marriage by the sight of the eyes without God — "wives of all which they chose." The lawful thing, taken out of God's hand, became the instrument of ruin.

The result — the distinction dissolves, corruption is total — Gen. 6:5, 11-12; 1 Cor. 15:33:

• Gen. 6:5. "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" — the sons of God "saw" and took; now GOD saw. Once the distinction dissolved, corruption ran without remainder — "every imagination... only evil continually" — thought itself apostate.
• Gen. 6:11-12. "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" — "ALL flesh": the two classes have become one class. The union did not lift the Cainites; it erased the Sethites.
• 1 Cor. 15:33. "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners" — the apostle states the one-directional law the antediluvian record demonstrates: corrupt association corrupts good character, never the reverse. "Be not deceived" — the deception is precisely the hope that the mingling will run uphill.
• WitnessAH 460.1. White: "It was by associating with idolaters and joining in their festivities that the Hebrews were led to transgress God's law.... So now it is by leading the followers of Christ to associate with the ungodly and unite in their amusements that Satan is most successful in alluring them into sin.... God requires of His people now as great a distinction from the world, in customs, habits, and principles, as He required of Israel anciently" — the law confirmed across every age: association allures the faithful downward, and the required distinction is undiminished now.

The remnant of the unmingled — Gen. 6:8-9; 1 Pet. 3:20:

• Gen. 6:8-9. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.... Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God" — against "all flesh," one "but." Noah is "perfect in his generations" — his family line unmingled, the distinction kept — and he "walked with God" as Enoch had. When the class dissolved, the enmity survived in one house.
• 1 Pet. 3:20. "when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water" — the arithmetic of the mingling: the covenant line, once a class filling the mountains, is "few, that is, eight souls." When the church marries the world, it is the church that is lost — the world remains, eight souls come out of it.

The lesson codified into law — no yoke with darkness — Deut. 7:3-4; 2 Cor. 6:14-17; Jas. 4:4:

• Deut. 7:3-4. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me... and destroy thee suddenly" — God writes the antediluvian lesson into covenant statute, and gives the reason: "for they will turn away thy son." The reason IS the mechanism of Genesis 6 — Infinite Wisdom legislating against the mingling because its direction never varies (the statute Israel broke; see "Israel Mingles — 'Like All the Nations'").
• 2 Cor. 6:14. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" — the New Testament form of the same law. The five questions of vv. 14-16 all expect the answer NONE: no fellowship, no communion, no concord, no part, no agreement — the two classes admit no yoke.
• 2 Cor. 6:16-17. "ye are the temple of the living God... Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" — the remedy for the mingling is separation, and God's reception is conditioned on it. The "come out" that closes this study is already sounding here (see “Come Out, My People — the Pilgrim Call”).
• Jas. 4:4. "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" — the Genesis 6 sin transposed to the church and named ADULTERY: friendship with the world is the marriage of the sons of God to the daughters of men in its spiritual form. There is no third class — to befriend the world is to change seeds.
• WitnessCCh 120.3. White: "The Lord commanded ancient Israel not to intermarry with the idolatrous nations around them: 'Neither shalt thou make marriages with them.'... Infinite Wisdom, foreseeing the result of such unions, declares: 'For they will turn away thy son from following Me.'... In the New Testament are similar prohibitions concerning the marriage of Christians with the ungodly" — Deuteronomy 7, the peculiar-people calling, and the unequal-yoke command bound into one continuous law flowing out of the antediluvian ruin.
• Witness8MR 108.1. White: "All combinations with unbelievers that bind as a yoke must be broken. These words apply not only to making a marriage covenant with an unbeliever, but to the making of all unions where the worldly element can have a prevailing influence over believers" — the principle widened beyond marriage: EVERY alliance in which the worldly element can prevail is the Genesis 6 mechanism in another dress.
• WitnessEv 617.4. White: "The Lord's injunction, 'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,' refers not only to the marriage of Christians with the ungodly, but to all alliances in which the parties are brought into intimate association, and in which there is need of harmony in spirit and action" — the same confirmation: wherever the two classes are brought into intimate association, the unequal-yoke command stands guard.

The type stamped on the last days — Matt. 24:37-39:

• Matt. 24:37-39. "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away" — Christ Himself seals this section as prophecy: "marrying and giving in marriage" — the very engine of the antediluvian apostasy — is named as the sign-condition of the generation that meets Him. The mingling is not ancient history; it is the last-day mechanism, walked in full at "As in the Days of Noah — the Last Mingling."

The three gifts before sin — the institutions of Eden — Gen. 2:24; 1:29; 3:18; 2:1-3:

• Gen. 2:24. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" — the FIRST institution of Eden: marriage, spoken before sin; one man, one woman, one flesh. This is the marriage law the serpent's seed will attack.
  • the institutions of Eden = the three gifts God established before sin, each rooted in Eden: MARRIAGE (Gen. 2:24, one man and one woman made one flesh), the APPOINTED DIET (Gen. 1:29, the seed-bearing herbs, fruits, and grains given for meat), and the SABBATH (Gen. 2:1-3, the seventh day blessed and sanctified). All three predate the fall; all three are assaulted by the serpent's seed running down through Cain's line — polygamy strikes marriage (Gen. 4:19; Gen. 6:2), indulged appetite strikes the diet (Matt. 24:38; Luke 17:27), and self-appointed worship strikes the appointed worship (Gen. 4:3-5; see “Cain and Abel — the Two Worships”), the last war meeting the Sabbath at the end (Rev. 13-14). Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Gen. 1:29. "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat" — the SECOND gift, touching appetite: the original diet. Fruits, grains, herbs, the seed-bearing bounty; flesh is conspicuously absent from the grant.
  • the original diet = the Gen. 1:29 grant — "every herb bearing seed... and every tree... yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat" — fruits, grains, and (after the fall) the herb of the field (Gen. 3:18). Flesh was NOT granted in Eden and was not granted until after the flood (Gen. 9:3); therefore through the whole antediluvian age the vegetable grant still stood, and the days-of-Noah eating and drinking was appetite indulged against, not within, God's appointed diet. Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Gen. 3:18. "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field" — after the fall the diet is enlarged to "the herb of the field" (vegetables), but still no flesh; the vegetable grant of Gen. 1:29 continues even under the curse.
• Gen. 2:1-3. "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day... And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it" — the THIRD institution: the Sabbath, blessed and sanctified before sin — God's own memorial of creation, the appointed rest and the appointed worship.
• WitnessAH 340.4. White: "He referred them to the blessed days of Eden when God pronounced all things 'very good.' Then marriage and the Sabbath had their origin, twin institutions for the glory of God in the benefit of humanity" — names two of the three outright: marriage and the Sabbath, "twin institutions," born in Eden before sin, corroborating Gen. 2:24 and Gen. 2:1-3.
• WitnessEd 250.2. White: "The Sabbath and the family were alike instituted in Eden, and in God's purpose they are indissolubly linked together. On this day more than on any other, it is possible for us to live the life of Eden" — Sabbath and family "indissolubly linked," both Eden institutions; to keep them is to live the life of Eden.
• WitnessCD 81.2. White: "Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables constitute the diet chosen for us by our Creator" — the diet confirmed: the Creator's chosen table is the Gen. 1:29 grant, flesh absent — the last of the three gifts to receive its witness.

The first blow — marriage struck in Cain's line, then in Seth's — Gen. 4:19; 6:2; Luke 3:38; Deut. 14:1:

• Gen. 4:19. "And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah" — the serpent's seed strikes marriage first: Lamech of Cain's line is Scripture's first polygamist, breaking the one-flesh law of Gen. 2:24. The attack begins in the city-building line (see “The Two Lineages — the City and the Name”).
• Gen. 6:2. "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose" — the attack crosses into the covenant line: marriage debased into appetite, choosing by the eye, "all which they chose." The two classes merge (the mingling itself is walked in "The Mingling — How the Peculiar People Lost Their Peculiarity").
• Luke 3:38. "Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God" — Scripture's own key to Gen. 6:2: the "sons of God" are the line of Seth, traced through Enos to Adam who "was the son of God." The Bible defines its own figure — the covenant line, not angels.
• Deut. 14:1. "Ye are the children of the LORD your God" — the idiom confirmed by usage: God's covenant people are His sons; "sons of God" names the faithful line, sealing the Sethite reading of Gen. 6:2.
• WitnessPP 81.2. White: "For some time the two classes remained separate... So long as this separation continued, they maintained the worship of God in its purity. But in the lapse of time they ventured, little by little, to mingle... Mingling with the depraved, they became like them in spirit and in deeds; the restrictions of the seventh commandment were disregarded, 'and they took them wives of all which they chose'" — the confirming witness names "the two classes," quotes Gen. 6:2 as the covenant line's fall through intermarriage, and states outright that the seventh commandment was disregarded: Lamech's plurality now the practice of the professed people of God, the first institution debased and the distinction dissolved with it.

The second blow — appetite made the horizon of life — Matt. 24:38-39; Luke 17:27; Gen. 9:3:

• Matt. 24:38. "For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark" — Christ names the mark of the heedless class: not scandalous crime but lawful things — eating, drinking, marrying — made the whole of life; appetite made the horizon.
  • eating and drinking = Christ's mark of the heedless class before the flood: lawful appetite made the whole of life, so that the ordinary swallowed the eternal and men "knew not" until judgment fell (Matt. 24:38-39; Luke 17:27) — the sign of a world that has erased the distinction between the holy and the common. Defined in full in the Symbol Dictionary.
• Luke 17:27. "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all" — Luke piles the verbs: eat, drank, married — the tempo of a life wholly given to the permitted, right up to the shut door. The same class Christ warns will be present at His coming (see “As in the Days of Noah — the Last Mingling”).
• Gen. 9:3. "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things" — the proof-text of the whole appetite argument: only AFTER the flood is flesh granted. Through the entire antediluvian age the Gen. 1:29 grant still stood; the world "did eat, they drank" in violation of, not permission for, the original diet.
• Witness3SM 289.1. White: "The flesh of dead animals was not the original food for man. Man was permitted to eat it after the Flood because all vegetation had been destroyed" — confirms the grant-boundary exactly as Gen. 1:29 against Gen. 9:3: flesh was no part of the Eden table, and the permission is post-flood.
• WitnessDA 636.2. White: "The crisis is stealing gradually upon us... Men are still eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying, and giving in marriage... yet probation's hour is fast closing" — the heedless-class pattern of Matt. 24:38 carried to the end: the same absorption in the lawful while the door swings shut.

The third blow — appointed worship: the way of Cain runs to the end:

• The war on the third institution was already open when Cain brought his self-appointed offering and God refused it (Gen. 4:3-5 — the ground walked in "Cain and Abel — the Two Worships"). Scripture records no antediluvian Sabbath-breaking, and none is claimed here; what it records is the principle — worship on man's terms against worship on God's terms — and that war does not close with the flood. It runs down the whole controversy and meets the Sabbath of Gen. 2:1-3 at the end, where the appointed rest becomes the visible line between the two classes (Rev. 13-14; see “The Seal or the Mark — the Distinction Made Visible”).

The fruit of the threefold assault — one apostate mass — Gen. 6:5:

• Gen. 6:5. "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" — the fruit of the threefold assault: with marriage debased, appetite enthroned, and worship self-appointed, the whole earth becomes one apostate mass — save one household.

Noah — the distinction kept, and remade by God's own hand — 2 Pet. 2:5; Gen. 6:3; Heb. 11:7; Gen. 6:22; Matt. 24:39; Gen. 7:16:

• 2 Pet. 2:5. "And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly" — the one preserved witness: "a preacher of righteousness," the peculiar line that would not be absorbed. Eighth person: the remnant few against "the world of the ungodly."
• Gen. 6:3. "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years" — Scripture dates the window itself: 120 years of striving Spirit before the judgment, the measured probation of the mingled world.
• Witness4T 308.3. White: "Noah preached to the people of his time that God would give them one hundred and twenty years in which to repent of their sins and find refuge in the ark, but they refused the gracious invitation" — the Gen. 6:3 window preached: 120 years of warning refused, so the world's "knew not" (Matt. 24:39) was willful; they had Noah's preaching and rejected it.
• Heb. 11:7. "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith" — the ark itself, built by faith, "condemned the world": Noah's obedience redrew the line the world had blurred, and his righteousness is the righteousness of faith.
• Gen. 6:22. "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he" — the obedience that condemned the world stated plainly: ALL that God commanded. The peculiar people are marked by keeping the commandments the mingled world neglected.
• Matt. 24:39. "And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" — the mingled world's ignorance is willful ignorance; the judgment remakes the distinction they had erased. Christ fixes the pattern on the last day.
• Gen. 7:16. "And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in" — "the LORD shut him in": the distinction the mingling dissolved is remade by God's own hand at the judgment. Probation closes by divine act, not human choice — the shut-in faithful, the shut-out world.
• WitnessEP 55.4. White: "Noah and his household were within the ark, 'and the Lord shut him in.' The massive door, impossible for those within to close, was slowly swung to its place by unseen hands. Noah was shut in and the rejecters of God's mercy were shut out" — confirms Gen. 7:16 as the close of probation dividing the two classes: one door, two sides, God's hand on it.
• WitnessEW 284.1. White: "When the rain descended and the flood came, Noah and his family had entered the ark, and God had shut them in... God would not suffer the wicked to destroy those who... would not bow to the decree of the beast or receive his mark" — the inspired bridge to the end: the shut-in distinction of Noah's day is the very deliverance of those who refuse the beast's decree — the last mingling and the last separation (see “As in the Days of Noah — the Last Mingling”; "The Seal or the Mark — the Distinction Made Visible").