"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. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him" (Hebrews 11:5-6).
"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).
IDEA: In some ways we can be like Enoch.
PURPOSE: To help listeners understand that it was not in the way that Enoch left the earth but it was his faith that is commended.
Let's talk about how stories work. Listen to these two stories:
• Margaret departed last week. It was very sudden and unexpected. Harriet and Lucy miss her very much. Henry can't stop weeping.
• Enoch walked with God; then he was no more because God took him away.
I. Genesis doesn't say explicitly that Enoch did not die.
Would you agree that the statement "God took him" has a vague quality about it? It simply states that Enoch walked with God and in God's good time and for His own purposes God took him from the earth.
Would it surprise you that there were two interpretations of the account of Enoch from famous Jewish books that assumed that he actually died?
The Book of Wisdom draws a lesson from what is assumed to be his early death (365 years) compared to his father, Jared (962 years) and his son, Methuselah (969 years). The Book of Wisdom guesses that God took him while he was still young to save him from the contamination of his society. Death would be a "reward."
It would be an example of a famous saying, "The good die young." God loved Enoch so much that He wouldn't allow him to be contaminated by the wickedness of the world.
How does that interpretation strike you?
Philo, another Jewish interpreter from Alexandria, regarded Enoch as an example of repentance. He was changed from living a life apart from God to a life that walked with God. God saved him from a long life on earth so Enoch could be with Him.
II. The writer to the Hebrews takes the passage in Genesis to mean that Enoch did not die at all, but in some mysterious way God took him to Himself, Hebrews 11:5-6.
Where is the focus of the passage?
It is not on the how of "translation" but on the why.
When we focus on the "how," we end up with questions that neither the writers of Genesis nor Hebrews bothered to answer.
How was he translated? What did it look like?
Did his family miss him? Could they have "closure"? Did they spend a lot of time searching for him?
How did they explain his departure?
The focus of the passage is that Enoch "walked with God" within a vile and wicked generation.
When others were walking away from God, Enoch walked with Him. When the end came there was no interruption, no shock. He was simply taken into God's presence.
What was true of Enoch in a dramatic way can be true of Christians when they go to God in an ordinary way.
If we have lived with Christ, then we can also die with Him knowing that in dying we will go to be with our Lord. "Sudden death means sudden glory."
For people of faith, death is merely the last step into the presence of God with whom they had always walked.