There are some false teachings that do violence to God's word and amount to spiritual poison for those that accept them. Otherwise, some claims that people erroneously purvey about scripture are relatively minor, but all false doctrine results from some human being's own ideas. For example, some people have decided that Enoch wasn't translated bodily into heaven to spare him from having to die. The objective here is to refute each part of the argument for that view and therefore retain the traditional teaching of the plain sense of Genesis 5:21-24:
And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
Before dealing with any arguments to the contrary, though, it might be best to point out why the traditional interpretation makes sense.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive.
I Corinthians 15:22.
If we disregard all other pertinent comments in the scriptures, this one would cause us to reject as false any claim that a human being might depart this world without dying. However, in the same chapter, verse 51, we read:
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
By writing we shall not all sleep Paul doesn't mean that some people will
suffer from chronic insomnia. He uses the word sleep to refer to the deaths of
Christians because death won't have the hold on us that it has on unbelievers
that die. He means, of course, that some will receive glorified bodies without
having to die. God is not restricted by his just nature in the ways he can
show us mercy, because he has suffered the penalties of sin by dying
spiritually and physically in the person of Christ. And, besides proving that
not all of God's people have to die, those two verses demonstrate that all
doesn't always necessarily mean every single one.
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NO MAN HAS ASCENDED UP TO HEAVEN
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that
came down from heaven, even the Son of man which
is in heaven.
John 3:13.
This verse would appear to contradict
II Corinthians 12:2:
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
That is, it would appear to contradict if we don't pay careful attention to the
words. Ascending into heaven is not the same as being caught up or
translated. Paul was referring to himself and he didn't ascend under his own
power and authority. Also, he did not write that he had to be out of his body
because no man has ascended into heaven.
We could say that the rules changed after Jesus rose from the dead.
However, there is still a distinct difference between ascending and being
taken or caught up. And, that difference is sufficent to preclude our using
John 3:13 as proof that Enoch wasn't translated into heaven by the power
and authority of God.
It's instructive to note also that Jesus spoke of the Son of man that is
in heaven while standing next to Nicodemus. He was emphasizing the fact that
he is God and, though also being a man, he has the power and authority to
ascend into heaven and descend from heaven. He, as God, also exists in
heaven and on earth at the same time because he and the Father are the one
omnipresent God.
THEY ALL DIED IN FAITH
These all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them,
and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth.
Hebrews 11:13.
This is another case where the rule and an exception are cited in the same chapter:
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death;
and was not found, because God had translated him: for
before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased
God.
Hebrews 11:5.
The expression that he should not see death is highly significant when we
consider the later statement These all died in faith..... There is no indication here
or in the passage in Genesis that Enoch was preserved in one situation so that he
could die at a later time. And, since his life span was less than half that of other
men of that day, he would have died of illness or trauma if he did die. God would
have been cruel to transport him away from his family so that he could suffer an
unpleasant death later.
Note the statement for before his translation he had this testimony, that he
pleased God. By including before his translation, the Holy Spirit implies very
strongly that Enoch no longer pleased God as a mortal man. That implication
has nothing to do with God's assessment of Enoch after he was translated into
heaven, because all of God's people will please God in heaven.
Much has been made of the ways the Greek word that is translated as translated
or translation is used in other New Testament passages. Such references might
be in order if there is some doubt as to what the words of the Old Testament passage
meant; but, the Hebrew word translated took in Genesis 5:24 is the commonly used
word for take or possess or carry in possession. The meaning of the word allows
the possibility that a person being taken would be changed in some way or taken out
of this world as a result of the action.
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The Greek word in question is used only in four places other than in describing what happened to Enoch:
And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre
that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of
Emmor the father of Sychem.
Acts 7:16.
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you
into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Galatians 1:6.
For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity
a change also of the law.
Hebrews 7:12.
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before
of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the
grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only
Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude 4.
Note that in only the verse in Acts does the word mean physically carried or
transported. In the other three cases, no physical transportation is involved,
but a change of sorts has taken place. This we should expect because the
prefix of the Greek word is used to denote change. The English word
metamorphosis is a transliteration of a Greek word meaning change of form.
And, the word translated carried in Matthew 1:11 in the phrase carried away
to Babylon means literally a change of abode. In contrast, the word used to
describe Enoch's experience is a combination of the prefix meta, change,
and a verb whose general meaning can be to put in place or relocate; thus,
the entire word means change and relocate. The word is loosely
transliterated into English as metathesis and refers to a form change involving
movement. The classic examples are the transposition of parts of a word to
form a new word and the exchange of molecular parts to form other molecules.
Some that professed to be believers turned to legalism from grace
(appeared to change their minds) and others
demonstrated by their perversion of the doctrine of grace that God never knew
them. And, as indicated in Hebrews 7:12, God changed the rules for appointing
priests because it was his will that Jesus be born of the tribe of Judah when
priests under the Old Testament were descendants of a Levite named Aaron.
In that same verse, we are told that a change (same Greek word) was required
of the Law. In fact, the priesthood of Christ is so different from that of the
Levites that God abolished the Old Testament by replacing it with the New
Testament.
It might be sometime after the Lord returns when we know
why the more common Greek word for carried was not used in the verse in Acts.
However, Joseph's body had been embalmed and placed in a coffin (ark), as
indicated in Genesis 50:26, since coffins were used in Egypt. And, it may be that
his remains were removed from the coffin when placed in the tomb at Shechem.
That would be a change of encasement for his remains. Either way, the process
involved moving the mummy from a place where people worshiped the dead to
a place bought to entomb people that had worshiped God.
So, the Greek word used in reference to Enoch's being taken doesn't change
what we can surmise from the passage in Genesis, but does call attention to the
idea that he was changed in the process of being removed. It's reasonable to think
that a natural human body could not function or even exist in heaven and that God
changed Enoch's body to a spiritual body. We can't determine whether or not that
new body is exactly the same type as Christ's glorified body. In I Corinthians 15:20,
Paul refers to Christ as the firstfruits of them that slept, so Enoch could be the
firstfruits of those believers that will be physically alive at the time of the rapture
and will not have to die. God's translation of Enoch took place long before the
resurrection of Christ just as God's merciful dealings with his people started long
before the sacrifice of that same Christ.
CONCLUSION
A good rule to follow when interpreting scripture is that if the plain sense
makes good sense, then we should seek no other sense. This is not to say that
some Old Testament passages don't have more than one application typically or
symbolically. But, when an event is stated in well-defined terms and we don't
have other scripture indicating clearly that the event could not have occurred as
presented, then we must accept the original statements at face value. In the
case of Enoch, an unbiased reading would give ample reason to conclude that
God did take him out of this world. Furthermore, the New Testament reference
implies that a change took place as part of the removal.
Bob Freeman