Was Enoch raptured by God? And who cares anyway?
The other day I was reading through a commentary on Hebrews by R. Kent
Hughes. Enoch is one of the examples of faith modelled in that book and
one of the antediluvian patriarchs. While I'm familiar with some of the
conjectures surrounding Enoch, I'd never really given him much thought.
Hughes' commentary stirred my imagination - which is always dangerous.
And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. Gen 5:24
This pithy verse begs more questions. What does it all mean?
Most of us have seen theories postulating Noah and Lot as rapture types
etc. There are heated debates as to whether Noah prefigures the pretrib
rapture. Post-tribbers point out that his family was preserved within the
flood. Of course this is because the earth needed to be replenished.
Perhaps the Noah and Lot examples aren't great pretrib rapture types.
But Enoch appears to be different - at least to me. Aside from one or
two other passages, he is also mentioned in Heb 11:5 and Jude 1:14.
These give us a little more information to add to our picture of Gen
5:24.
Why did God take Enoch?
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was
not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that
before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. Heb 11:5
In his Genesis Commentary Arnold Fruchtenbaum says that the Hebrew word
"walked with God" in Gen 5:24 is "hithaleich." It's the same word used
of God walking around Eden. It emphasizes "fellowship and communion.
According to Hughes "walked with God" and "pleased God" means the same
thing. That was the point of the Hebrews writer - without faith it is
impossible to please God (Heb 11:6).
Hughes notes that Enoch served as a prophet for over three centuries
preaching future "unwelcome judgment" (Jude 1:14-15). Hold that thought!
Speaking of Enoch's "translation" Hughes writes:
Enoch's perishable body put on an imperishable body (1 Cor 15:52-53),
because it is written that that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable" (1 Cor
15:50). (p 305)
So was this Enoch's Pre-Cross rapture? I Don't Know. One inevitable
objection will be John 3:13 - “No one has ever gone into heaven except
the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man.”
Another likely objection will come from those who believe Enoch is one
of the witnesses of Revelation 11:3-7. How can someone with a glorified
body die again? What about Elijah? Of course all this presupposes the
identity of the witnesses. Nevertheless these are fair questions which I
don't have hard and fast answers to.
One very interesting side issue is the First Resurrection.
Amillennialists, postmillennialists and post-tribulationists insist it's
a one-time event. They object to the pre-tribulational concept of the
First Resurrection being a Category which occurs in stages. For
instance, Mike Licona and Craig Blomberg dispute whether the Matt
27:50-53 resurrection-saints event literally occurred.
In contrast, Historic Pre-millennialist of the 19th century Andrew Bonar
wrote:
These are all saints, and they are coming out of their graves to honour
the Holy One. Perhaps the reason Christ did this was to show a sample of
His power. These saints were the first-fruits of the resurrection, and
when He went up they would be His body-guard, nearer Him than the
angels.
More recently Andreas J. Köstenberger and Justin Taylor (The Final Days
of Jesus) wrote:
These Old Testament or inter-testamental believers receive resurrection
bodies (unlike Lazarus who came back to life only to die again), bear
witness to Christ's resurrection, and ascend to heaven sometime leading
up to Jesus' ascension. (p 163)
It's significant that these people aren't
pre-tribulationists yet their
position technically aligns with the pretrib concept of a First
Resurrection Category! You can call it First Fruits if you prefer.
What do we do with all this? While some of the above is speculation,
there are some concrete principles in the example of Enoch which we can
consider. We know he walked in faith and pleased God. He warned that
future judgment was coming to the world. He was removed so that he
wouldn't see death - an allusion to the future flood?
I see modern parallels...
Today there are many Enochs warning about imminent world judgment. And,
as in Noah's day, there are scoffers who go about their businesses as
usual (Matt 24:37-38; 1 Thess 5:2-3; 2 Pet 3:3-4).
The Philadelphian church was also promised removal from the hour of
trial which would overtake the world (Rev 3:10). This hour of trial is still pending.
John Niemelä contends that the expression in Rev 3:10a “because you have
kept my command to persevere” belongs to v 9. The rest of v 10 then stands on its own. In other words it should
read thus:
9 Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are
Jews and are not, but lie - indeed I will make them come and worship
before your feet, and to know that I have loved you because you have
kept My command to persevere.
10 I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the
whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. Rev 3:9-10
The significance of this, is that it excludes a so-called tribulation
test for exemption from the hour of trial.
Surprisingly, pre-wrath scholar Charles Cooper agrees with Niemelä's
grammatical proposition. Cooper also sees this as a rapture promise.
However, he claims it supports pre-wrath because he assumes the church is
on the earth during Antichrist's Great Tribulation.
The passage gives no such requirement. In fact in 2 Thess 2:7-8 Paul
declares that the Lawless One is God's judgment on those who have
rejected the truth. Likewise, there were no stipulations or a Catch 22
clause for Enoch's removal from this world. He was also taken up long
before Noah came into the scene.
So in conclusion I propose that Enoch could well be a type or precedent
for a pre-tribulational rapture. May we all cultivate the kind of faith
Enoch and the Philadelphian Church had, for the time is at hand!