Pretty good background piece provided below by Tim McHyde. I would say that the term "demon" as used in scripture infers a much larger background origin than he lists here, but it's a good article all the same. Few realize how prevalent the "gigantes" have in last days prophecy.
The "mighty" nephilim giants of Genesis 6 are gone, but Revelation describes their reappearance to play a major role in the end times. Despite this, few Christians know anything about the Nephilim—nor would they want to given the scary details of these actual monsters. Without facing this shocking level of evil and abomination that God has chosen to allow, you can’t fully understand end time prophecy or even God’s ways. If you are brave, it’s time to understand the Nephilim in the Bible and conquer your fear of monsters.
Real Monsters: Giants, Demons, and Fallen Angels
Most of us stopped being scared of monsters once we left childhood and learned that, like Santa Claus, these scary creatures are fantasy. They exist only in children's imagination, legends, Greek mythology and movies like Poltergeist—not reality. However, if you (as a believer) stop to read the entire Bible, you may be forced to reconsider that reassuring thought. The OT and NT have accounts of several varieties of these real life monsters:- Giants: Even casual Christians are aware that David fought a nine foot giant named Goliath. Probably only a minority realize that the Promised Land was filled with giants, the bad news of which made up the the "evil report" thta the ten unfaithful spies of the land scared the children of Israel with.
- Demons: Most Christians also know that the New Testament tells of how Jesus and the apostles had to contend with demons, also known as ghosts or poltergeists. The NT gives no explanation as to their origin and purpose. They are just treated as an everyday part of life, responsible for as much as one quarter of the sicknesses that Jesus healed.
- Fallen Angels: Let's not forget Satan. He's an evil or fallen angel who cast one one third of the angels to earth in revolt against God (Rev 12:3).
Who Are the Nephilim?
The nephilim are one of the more mysterious and disturbing topics of the Bible. The word nephilim only appears twice in the Bible. Here are the two passages:Genesis 6:1-4 (HCSB) — 1 When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. 3 And the LORD said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.Nephilim literally means "fallen ones." But what are they and what made them powerful and famous? Early interpreters believed them to be giants. Nephlim was translated as "giants" (gigantes) by most ancient Bible verions such as the Greek Septuagint ("gigantes") and Latin Vulgate ("gigentes"). The other occurrence of nephilim bears that conclusion out. It is found in the "evil report" that the ten unfaithful spies gave of the Promised Land. Note that unlike the first account:
Numbers 13:32-33 (HCSB) — 32 So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. 33 We even saw the Nephilim, there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.”The Nephilim are said to be the source of the Anak. As the context indicates, the Anak were one of the races of giants in the Bible who could view the Israelites as ants in comparison. Quite fittingly, "anak" (ענק) is the word for giant in modern Hebrew. Just as with the rapture timing question, not everyone agrees on what the Nephlim were. Just as the majority of Christians believe in a pretrib rapture, I'd bet the majority of Christians doubt the nephlim reallly are giants or that the "sons of God" who parented them are angels. Just like the idea of a post-trib rapture, it's too scary for the average Christian to believe that God would allow such ghastly horrors as evil angels to roam freely and create freakish monsters. But as we shall see, just as God is allowing us to be on the earth for the Great Tribulation, he is allowing us to be on the earth with living, breathing monsters.
Who Are "The Sons of God?"
The identity and nature of the nephilim is indeed greatly complicated by the ambiguous term used for their procreators, the "sons of God." Just who are they? It's helpful to recognize that in the biblical usage, the term "sons of God" (benei HaElohim) refers to only direct creations of God such as Adam (Lk 3:38) and the angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). You and I have not yet "become the sons of God" (John 1:12). When we are rebirthed by God into glorified spirit bodies at the rapture or resurrection, then we shall be at last (Rom 8:19). The following passage makes it crystal clear that we become sons of God "like the angels" in the resurrection:Luke 20:36 (HCSB) — For they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection.Since glorified humans did not exist in the time of Genesis 6, that means the sons of God referred to there must be the angels. This, by the way, is just how the Greek Septuagint translators rendered the term before Christ. Angels there makes perfect sense in context because of how the "sons of God" is a term of contrast to the "daughters of men. It's describing something different from and much more noteworthy than "the sons of men" and the "daughters of men" mixing as they do every day since Adam and Eve. That is not noteworthy. Finally, angels mating with humans is the best explaination for why the offspring were so "powerful" and "renown."
How Can Angels Have Sex if They "Don't Marry" (Mt 22:30)?
Now that you can see from the Bible that the sons of God are in fact the fallen angels, there are many questions and objections that may come to mind. Is such a thing even possible? Would God allow it? If so, why? A frequently raised objection to this idea of how the nephilim came from sex between angels and women comes in these word of Jesus:Matthew 22:30 (HCSB) — For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.If you analyze it carefully, you can see that Jesus' statement has nothing to do with evilangels on earth having sex. It's talking about holy angels in heaven marrying. It is proven every day on earth that sex without marriage is possible. The Bible has plenty to say on angels. One theme is that angels can appear in various forms. Satan appeared as a serpent. Paul said Satan also appears as an angel of light. Angels also appear as humans, completely convincing ones, at that. For example, Paul said we may entertain angels unbeknownst to us (Heb 13:2). The wicked men of Sodom were so convinced they wanted to have sex with Lot's angelic guests after seeing them. They obvious took them for human, maybe even attractive at that. Abraham apparently took the three angels who visited him as "men" (at first) and offered them to a meal. And most interestingly, the angels ate the food (Gen 18:8)! If angels look like humans, pass completely for human and are even able to eat food like humans, what else can they do? More importantly, how can we doubt that they can have sex like humans, too? I personally have no doubt that an angel could pass a complete physical if they ever submitted to it.
What Exactly Are the Nephilim? (Wasn't Jesus Technically Nephilim?)
An important point to draw from this understanding of how angels can manifest physically as they wish is that their offspring with women are not "half-angel and half-human". Nor are they part-spirit and part-human. If that were true, then one could argue that Jesus was a nephilim, too, since the Holy Spirit was said to have come upon Mary his human mother to conceive him. However, Jesus had only a human parent and only human DNA from her (Mary). (Ron Wyatt claimed that Jesus had only 23 chromosomes instead of the full set of 46 chromosomes that one would have from having two human parents.) He was completely human, "the second Adam" (1Co 15:45). Unlike Jesus, nephilim are not produced by a spirit (in this case, of an angel) causing a woman to conceive miraculously. Nephlim are produced through two physical bodies mating just like normal humans are. It's just that for nephilim offspring, one of the parents is, let's say, an "angelic human" instead of a normal human. The key difference is that the sperm produced by the angelic human is not normal human DNA but must have the genetic modifications for creating giants. The angels can apparently manifest in their sperm whatever genetic code is needed for the creature they desire to create (not just giants as we'll see later). This produces a humanoid, not a human, nor an angelic/human hybrid. In other words, the fallen angels were able to do genetic engineering through their God-given ability to manifest flesh as they wished. By the way, since this offspring is not human, but humanoid, it can no more receive salvation than a gold fish can. This is important to consider for the answer below on what happens when a nephilim dies.Read the rest of this article at - http://www.escapeallthesethings.com/nephlim-bible-prophecy.htm
