1912 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

the sake of helping and instructing mankind--they misusedthis power and took to themselves the daughters ofmen for wives.Thus these angels came gradually to prefer to live asmen amongst men and to rear earthly families rather thanto abide in the condition in which they were created--spirit beings, higher than humans. Not only was thiswrong in the sense that it was taking a course in oppositionto the Divine arrangement, but it was wrong alsobecause the thing was done for the cultivation and gratificationof lust, and it led to their own moral defilementas well as having a baneful influence upon humanity; forwe can readily see that for the angels, of superior powersand intelligence, to become leaders in lustful practiceswould mean a great influence upon mankind toward sinand defilement of mind and body.We are particularly told that the offspring of thisimproper union between the angels and the daughters ofmen were giants, both physically and mentally superiorto the fallen human family--"men of renown." And thisstatement, that they were "men of renown," was at atime when manhood's estate was reached at a hundredyears, and implies that God did not interfere to hinder orstop the progress of sin for perhaps several centuries.In the meantime the race had become so corrupt thatapparently only Noah and his family were uncontaminated--all others had more or less come under the influence,R5043 : page 192directly or indirectly, of these fallen angels or theirgiant sons. Hence, of Noah it was written (not that hewas a perfect man, but), "Now Noah was perfect in hisgeneration" (uncontaminated) and his family apparentlythe same. Hence these alone were saved in the ark, whileall the remainder, more or less contaminated, were destroyedby the flood."IN CHAINS OF DARKNESS"It was then and there that God imprisoned thosespirits, angels, who kept not their first estate, and aretherefore called fallen angels, devils, demons. They werenot imprisoned in some far-off world called hell, nor arethey engaged there in stoking fires for the torture of poorhumanity. Following the leading of the Scriptures wefind that when the flood came they were not destroyedbecause, while their fleshly bodies which they assumedmight indeed perish, yet they would merely dematerialize,or assume their spirit conditions again.The record is that God cast them down, that He condemnedthem to an overthrow--that they might not anylonger associate with the holy angels, but must be reservedin tartarus--our earth's atmosphere. Here they wereimprisoned, not in a special place, but in the sense ofhaving their liberties restrained, "in chains of darkness."