The "sons of God" in Genesis 6 are the descendants of Seth, not fallen angels. Seth, whose name means "appointed," took the place of the exiled Cain and the slain Abel and became chief over Adam's family. In the days of his son Enosh, men began to call on the name of the LORD, and Seth's line grew into families that joined in public worship, in contrast to Cain's line, which built a godless society on physical accomplishment. Cain's descendants, "the sons of men," included the polygamous and murderous Lamech and his talented sons. The phrase "sons of God" is used elsewhere for angels, Israel, converted Christians, and even unconverted men and Adam, so it can refer to a particular line of descent. Angels cannot marry or reproduce, and a spirit being cannot produce offspring with flesh-and-blood women, so the offspring of these unions were fully human. The Nephilim, "giants" or "fallen ones," were mighty men of renown, and later Nephilim such as the sons of Anak were human, too. Seth's descendants saw the beauty of Cain's daughters, married them, and bore children who became powerful men in an evil world. Their wickedness grew so great that God destroyed that world in the Flood, sparing only eight people, all of Seth's line, including Noah. Through Seth's line the Savior came. None of Cain's descendants survived. Seth's descendants' intermarriage with the ungodly is a warning that God's people must not be unequally yoked with unbelievers or absorb the culture of sinful society.

Seth's line, set against Cain's, is one plausible reading of "the sons of God" in Genesis 6:2. Adam's seed divided into two lines: Seth's descendants followed God, while Cain's went east, built their own cities, and left God out. Then Seth's men took wives from among Cain's beautiful women, and the godless influence corrupted the righteous line. The children followed their wicked mothers, and the whole world became corrupt. Genesis 4 and 5 support a split. God took Cain's line down to the evil Lamech, then took the godly line of Abel/Seth through Enosh, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, the good Lamech, and Noah. Genesis 4:26 says men began to call on the Lord's name after Enosh was born, though that phrase may instead mean men put the Lord's name on idols or in their own names, so it does not prove the line was good. Seth's line was better by degrees, since it produced Enoch and Noah, who needed a foundation of good family life. Yet it was not truly righteous, because Genesis 6 says everyone became corrupt. Cain's line was probably worse, but Seth's line was bad too. The sons of God cannot be confidently limited to Seth's line, and this view may have worked together with demonic influence and corrupt rulers in driving mankind to the depths of evil.

God gave Eve Seth to replace the murdered Abel, both to ease her distress and to establish a different, better-informed, set-apart line of Adam's descendants who would share the earth with the seed of Satan, represented by the Cain-Lamech line. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and Lamech followed the same anti-God "way of Cain," yet that line produced nobody noteworthy for righteousness. The Seth line produced Enoch and Noah, who walked with God, meaning they were converted and sanctified. Every person God sanctified by name in Scripture came from this holy line. The "sons of God" in Genesis 6:2 are men of the Seth line, not angels. Angels cannot reproduce, kinds reproduce only after their own kind, and Elohim is used of human beings in Psalm 82. These sons went astray by marrying women from the Cain-Lamech line, which led up to the Flood. Noah, sanctified by God's act alone, was separated from the whole earth, and only he and his family survived. Descendants of Adam and Eve through Seth carry a God-given fear of Satan, which protects them, much as animals fear mankind. Sanctification draws the boundary between the converted and the unconverted, and it sets up the us-and-them division that tests faithfulness.

Seth's line is the "holy line" leading eventually to Christ: Enosh, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, who is the tenth and last named. These ancestors were named for a reason, and they were converted, sanctified men who had God's Holy Spirit. The "sons of God" in Genesis 6:2 are this line, since the only human beings called sons of God in the Bible are converted people. Angels cannot reproduce with human women, because each kind reproduces after its own kind. By Genesis 6 these men were beginning to go astray by marrying women they should not have married. Except for Noah, all of them were dead before the Flood, so no converted person was killed by it, for God protects His own. Ten signifies the end of one order and the beginning of another, so Noah's place as tenth marks a new beginning, and as father of mankind after the Flood he is a second Adam. The line knew of God's unfolding purpose. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, preached and prophesied of the Lord's coming with His saints, as Jude records, and his naming of Methuselah probably pointed to the Flood, since the name means "when he is gone then it will come." Lamech named Noah with the curse on the ground in mind, expecting comfort and relief through him. Noah, like Enoch, was a preacher of righteousness, and God was working in him from birth.

The common Church of God explanation holds that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6 were Seth's line and the "daughters of men" were Cain's line, and that the two lines began to intermarry. This explanation fails. The argument from II Corinthians 6 against being unequally yoked assumes that all of Seth's children were called by God, yet nothing indicates that. Nothing shows that Seth's line held a covenant with God, as Israel did, that would bar intermarriage with other families. Apart from a few exceptions, Seth's progeny were no better than Cain's; they were all carnal. Genesis 6 makes no exceptions and says man is flesh, all men. Only Noah is singled out as finding grace, and he may have been the only converted person of the pre-Flood world. All the other descendants of Seth died in the Flood, and every line was wiped out except the eight persons in Noah's household. The phrase beni-elohim elsewhere in Job refers to angels, and Seth's line cannot account for it. Yet Jesus teaches that angels do not marry, and angels and humans are different kinds that cannot reproduce together. Instead, Satan and his demons possessed or heavily influenced men, becoming heads of households through them, and corrupted the values of the next generation, the Nephilim. So Seth's line was swept into this corruption of the entire pre-Flood population.

Seth was given by God as a replacement for Abel, the righteous son whom Cain killed, and through him a new line of Adam and Eve's descendants arose. This is the line that carries the seed of those who fear Satan. Genesis 3:15 puts enmity between Satan's seed and Eve's seed, and the enmity is a fear of Satan placed on Eve and passed to her descendants. What began as a curse on Satan became a blessing, because those who fear him stay away from him and do not entertain him. Cain's line shows the opposite. Cain walked away from the Lord's presence, and his son Lamech took two wives and killed a man, so that his physical father was Cain and his spiritual father was Satan. Seth's line is different. Virtually every righteous person comes from it, and Jesus Christ is a descendant of Seth. Enoch and then Noah follow from Seth, and through them God controls His operations through humans. The line is the means by which the seed is carried until the singular Seed, Christ, crushes Satan's head. God sets apart, or sanctifies, those He wants in His Family. He set apart Seth and Noah, and only the sanctified, the eight people who lived through the Flood, survived. The same holds for the church today.

Two family lines developed from Adam and Eve almost immediately, one through Cain and the other through Seth. Genesis 4 and 5 trace them, and by the Flood in Genesis 6 the division is plain. Seth's line, which includes Enoch and Noah, is the more righteous, while Cain's line, headed by the first murderer, is made up of rascals. This division fulfills the enmity God placed in Genesis 3:15 between Satan and the woman, and between Satan's seed and her seed. That enmity curses Satan but blesses Eve and her descendants, because it gives them a God-imposed fear of Satan, much as animals fear humans. It acts as a protective wall that preserves their innocence as long as possible. The division never ended. After the Flood God worked through Noah's family, then Shem, and then Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the nation of Israel. The rest of the world, the Gentiles, remains under Satan's sway without that protection. The two lines show a constant antagonism between them, seen in the hatred directed at the Israelite nations. The line continues in the church, the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16), which shares the family of the Messiah, the seed of the woman, who will crush Satan.

God began a new line of descendants from Adam and Eve through Seth, separating certain individuals to carry out specific responsibilities within His purpose and plan. This line, often termed by some as 'the holy line,' reflects a process of sanctification, where God sets apart people for His divine use. Through Seth's descendants, God continued to guide His purpose, as seen in the lineage that includes Noah, who was sanctified and found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah's family was protected through the Flood, demonstrating God's personal oversight and the effectiveness of sanctification. The enmity established in Genesis 3:15 between satan and Eve's descendants created a division, continuing through Seth's line. This enmity acted as a spiritual hedge or shield, providing a measure of protection against satan's influences, though not perfectly, as God tests His children. This line of Seth also includes Job, who was blameless and upright, further illustrating God's consistent involvement in the lives of those He sanctifies. Tracing the genealogy, God deliberately chose individuals from Seth's line through Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, and Terah, leading to Abram. From Abram, God selected Isaac over Ishmael, and Jacob over Esau, continuing the sanctified line. From Jacob's twelve sons, God set apart Levi for the priestly line, Judah for the governing line of Israel, and Joseph to prepare for the Exodus. This meticulous selection process extended to Moses, a descendant of Levi, whom God used to form the descendants of Jacob into a nation, sanctifying the entire nation of Israel as a holy people to Himself, a special treasure above all others on the face of the earth.

With Abram a new biblical era begins in a manner somewhat similar to the gifting God provided Adam and Eve through Seth. Seth was given so that a faithful person would survive them and remain loyal both to them and to God. Genesis 5 therefore marks the start of a new family whose notable descendants include Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, and Shem. The announcement of Abram's calling introduces another line that is not intended to erase or neglect the line of Seth. Instead the Sethite line is gently set aside while a fresh family begins with Abram, who himself descends from Seth. Over time that earlier line fades from prominence as the Abrahamic line receives emphasis from Genesis 12 onward. This shift establishes Abram as the father of the faithful and produces lasting effects on the definition of the church and the Israel of God. The change continues through the remainder of time, culminating in the Messiah's birth within Abraham's family through David and thereby opening salvation to every people regardless of ethnicity. In this way the movement from Seth's descendants to Abraham's line forms part of God's ongoing work of selecting and shaping those who will trust Him and participate in His covenant purposes.

After Abel was murdered, God's plan continued as He picked up His purpose through the family of Seth. The genealogy in Genesis 5 traces this family not to show that all its members were converted but to identify the distinctive grouping through which God chose to advance His work. This selection established a recurring pattern in which God exercised sovereignty by directing the line forward through specific individuals rather than allowing events to unfold randomly. From Seth the thread passed to Noah, then to Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Joseph, Ephraim, Moses, David, and the prophets, always remaining within the same family line until the time of the apostles. Throughout these generations God permitted the chosen ones sufficient freedom to exercise moral agency, sometimes making grave errors, yet He continued to guide the overall direction of His purpose. The pattern of working exclusively through Seth's descendants ended when God called Cornelius and his household, thereby opening the way for Gentiles to enter the church on the same basis as those previously selected. This development illustrates that God's choices remain personal and deliberate, requiring each individual to respond in faith while recognizing that the calling originates entirely with divine initiative rather than human merit.