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The view that the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2 were fallen angels who mated with human women leads to the view that their offspring, the Nephilim, were a human/demonic hybrid. Accepting that theory as true, another question arises: what happened to the spirits of the Nephilim after they were killed in the flood?
Some speculate that the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim remained on the earth and became what we now refer to as demons. The presumption is that, as a hybrid, a Nephilim spirit would be different from a disembodied human spirit, which does not have the ability to remain on earth without a physical body. In Scripture, demons seem desirous of occupying a physical body of some kind (see Luke 11:24–26 and Mark 5:12). This desire would make sense if demons are Nephilim who, having lost their physical bodies in the flood, are seeking to regain that state of existence.
The idea that demons are the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim is also drawn from the book of Enoch, which says this:
And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. . . . And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble. (1 Enoch 15:8–9, 11)
While the book of Enoch contains some truth (Jude 1:14), it is not the inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Word of God. We should not base a belief exclusively, or even primarily, on extra-biblical literature. So, with no need to explain the existence of demons apart from the fallen angels, and with no evidence in Scripture for the spirits of the Nephilim continuing on the earth, we have no solid reason to associate demons with the spirits of the Nephilim.A better explanation, in our view, for what happened to the spirits of the Nephilim is that they are part of the “spirits in prison” mentioned in 1 Peter 3:19 (ESV; see also Jude 1:6). These imprisoned spirits cannot comprise all of the fallen angels who rebelled against God—after all, Satan, the leader of the rebellion, is not himself imprisoned. So, the “spirits in prison” should be understood to be fallen angels who participated in an additional rebellion, viz., the sons-of-God/daughters-of-men incident. Only those fallen angels who mated with human females—and their Nephilim offspring—are currently imprisoned.
