Those of us who can remember hearing the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach can never forget the sense of occasion it produced. One particular sermon, on Psalm 8, stands out in my memory almost forty years later. Lloyd-Jones had a way of preaching that made it feel as though God himself were speaking.  Shivers run down my back even now as I think of him, slowly building up to an overwhelming climax . Was it his distinctive voice? Was it the inevitable sense of logical progression in his train of thought? Was it his ability to quote verses of Scripture from memory?  Whatever the human characteristics that Lloyd-Jones demonstrated, when he preached it felt as though God was present. He could have asked us to do anything, and most of us listening to him would have done it; such was the sense of divine authority behind the words we heard.  -Derek Thomas

  Genesis 6:2 sons of God. These have been identified as Sethites (the traditional Christian interpretation), as angels (the earliest Jewish interpretation; cf. Job 1:6), and as royal tyrannical successors to Lamech who gathered harems (proposed by rabbis of the second century A.D.).  All three interpretations can be defended linguistically.  The first interpretation best fits the immediate preceding context (a contrast of the curse-laden line of Cain with the godly line of Seth).  If “sons of God” denotes Seth’s line, then “daughters of man” probably refers specifically to Cainite women. The intermarriage of the two lines easily explains why Noah is the sole righteous offspring of Seth after nine generations.  Luke’s genealogy of Jesus provides a basis for understanding how Seth’s lineage may be viewed as “sons of God” (Luke 3:36–38).  The second view has ancient support, but seems to contradict Jesus’ statement that angels do not marry (Mark 12:25) and d...