Enoch
lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch
walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the
days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with
God; and he was not, for God
took him. (Genesis 5:21-24)
‘Took him’
where?
By
faith Enoch was taken away so
that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for
before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)
I had always assumed that Enoch was taken to Heaven. I
understood ‘and he was not’ to mean
that he was nowhere on earth. Hebrews clarifies that ‘was not’ means ‘was not found’.
But Hebrews 11:5 does little more with regards to expanding upon Enoch’s story.
We are not told that Enoch was taken to Heaven. We are not told where he was
taken.
Irrespective of this lack of detail, one clear fact
established by the text is that Enoch’s pleasing testimony resulted in him not
seeing death. With others I would have automatically read this as ‘Enoch never
died’. But it is not just my suspicions of a pre-resurrection ‘afterlife’ that
cause me to now doubt this conclusion; it is what is said eight verses later:
These
all died in faith,
not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of
them, embraced them
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Hebrews 11:13)
I would take this to mean that, along with Abel, Noah,
Abraham and Sarah, Enoch died. Verse thirteen does not say ‘These all died in
faith, with the exception of Enoch’. The word ‘all’ is important for it seems to include Enoch within the category
of the dead. Up to this point there have only been five individuals mentioned,
and the sixth individual is not mentioned until verse twenty. Would we list the
names of five people, refer to a common trait in four of them and then say this
trait belonged to ‘all’ without
stating clearly that there is one exception?
Had the statement in verse five said, ‘Enoch never
experienced death’ it would be easier to accept that he is an exception to
verse thirteen (though it still would make verse thirteen strange in that it
doesn’t say ‘...except Enoch’). Instead we have an expression in verse five
which, though accepted by Christian tradition to mean he never experienced death, does not explicitly say so and can
be understood differently.
‘Enoch was
translated – not to see death’ (Young’s Literal Translation). The first
half of this clause refers to one moment in time: Enoch’s ‘translation’ was not
an ongoing experience but a single complete event (aorist). This is important
to recognise because it opens up an alternative to the common understanding of
the verse. The cause was instantaneous;
was the effect instantaneous also or permanent?
Yes, the common understanding of the verse is
consistent with such a statement (cause: Enoch was taken to Heaven at one single
moment; effect: he was in a permanent state of never seeing death) but this is
not the only possible interpretation. The only thing we can be absolutely sure
of from the verse is that, at one
moment, Enoch was ‘translated/changed’
in order not to see death. Effectively,
at one moment he escaped dying (cause: Enoch was ‘translated/changed’ at one single moment; effect: he escaped death
at that moment).
I wear a seatbelt so that, in the event of being
involved in a collision, I ‘will not see death’ but the seatbelt does not
rescue me from the assurance of eventual death. Could Enoch’s translation not
be viewed in this way? Why can Enoch’s story not include the detail of a miraculous
rescue from imminent death rather than a miraculous transformation into Heaven?
In my opinion, verse five by itself can prove neither interpretation, but verse
thirteen strongly implies the former rather than the latter.
Though some translations go into specifics by saying
that Enoch was ‘taken up’ or ‘taken up to heaven’ (NASB; NLT) the
Greek word used in Hebrews 11:5 – μετατίθημι (metatithemi) – can only mean
one of the following:
#3346
metatithemi – carry over, change, translate (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance)
None of these words carry the idea of being ‘taken up’ to Heaven. The same Greek word
is used in Galatians 1:6 to say the following:
I
marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the
grace of Christ, to a different gospel.
There is no suggestion of ‘going to Heaven’ in the
word’s usage here.
Enoch, it seems, was simply ‘translated’ – carried away from one particular place to another –
or ‘changed’. If I am asked to
specify where I think Enoch did go, or what change occurred, I have no
authority to comment; the Bible does not give us this detail. But it does say that he eventually died (Hebrews
11:13); the wording of verse five does not prove that he is an exception.
I assume
that Enoch was miraculously transported from a life-threatening scenario to a
safe place so that he would not experience death on one particular occasion.
The transformation presumably prevented there being any record in Genesis
chapter five of his death, or an idea of what age he eventually lived to (I
think this is what has led to the belief that he did not die at all).
I would
also suggest that such a scenario would most definitely still make Enoch worthy
of mention in Hebrews chapter eleven’s ‘roll of honour’. Whom else did God
rescue in such a way!
The dangerous situation in which he was found came
about, perhaps, on account of his pleasing testimony (in other words, his
faithfulness had created dangerous enemies). God rescued him by transporting
him to another place. This is speculation. But it is speculation which, I
believe, first allows the Scriptures to state the basic facts. The only reason
I state the speculation is to suggest that there are alternative
interpretations which do not contradict the statement in Hebrews 11:13 that
Enoch was among those who died.
For me, the common interpretation actually raises more
questions than answers. If Enoch was taken to Heaven without seeing death, in
what form does he now exist? Is he still in the same physical body? Would that
body not possess the curse of sin: death? Has he been transformed? If so, does
that not mean his old body is now dead? How can the curse of death be removed
except for death and resurrection? Where is Enoch’s flesh and blood? If it is
not yet dead then it has to die sooner or later because he cannot enter the
Kingdom of God with it (1st Corinthians 15:50).
Furthermore, were Enoch to have this claim to
continual existence how does this prove a general rule of soul/spirit
immortality? Within the common view he is seen as an exception (he continued
physically) so this cannot prove a general rule as to what happens to us immaterially.
It is, to me, more straightforward to understand
Enoch’s deliverance in the same way that the following biblical character ‘did not see death’.
So
all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with
wrath, and rose up and thrust [Jesus] out of the city; and they led Him to the
brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down
over the cliff. Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way. (Luke 4:28-30)
No comments:
Post a Comment