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ENOCH AS A TYPE OF THE RAPTURED CHURCH“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.” (Gen. 5:21-24)This is what the word of God first says about this man named Enoch, and we don’t read much of anything else about him in the Old Testament. In fact, if not for the few New Testament comments on Enoch, we wouldn’t even know for sure what is meant by the words “God took him.” The words could simply mean that God took him in death at an earlier age than He took most people at that time. But Hebrews 11:5 further explains the text by saying, “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.” So Enoch never saw death. “God took him” from the earth as a living man, just as He will one day take millions of living Christians from the earth.Some teach that Enoch must return to the earth and die in the Great Tribulation as one of the two witnesses of Revelation chapter 11. Their reasoning for this is that Hebrews 9:27 requires the death of every man, therefore Enoch must also die. So, before moving on with Enoch as a type of the raptured church, please allow me to put this flawed theory to rest. There is no way that the two witnesses of Revelation 11 can be anyone other than Moses and Elijah. Please consider . . .(1) Hebrews 9:27 doesn't read the way that it's usually quoted and the way that I quoted it above. Hebrews 9:27 begins with two words that are almost always omitted, and it is connected with verse 28 by a colon, which is seldom mentioned. The whole passage says, "And AS it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: SO Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." The author of Hebrews never intended for PART of verse 27 to be used as an absolute rule for every person to ever live. The main context is the DEATH OF CHRIST (verses 1-28), not the required death of every human being.(2) The notion that the death of Enoch and Elijah would fulfill the demands of Hebrews 9:27 just won't work, even if Hebrews 9:27 WAS an absolute rule requiring the death of every person, because there will be MILLIONS of believers to be caught up in the first resurrection to never die (I Ths. 4:13-18; I Cor. 15:51-52; John 11:26).(3) SO! Rather than honoring the Scriptures by making Enoch one of the two witnesses, many of the brethren DISHONOR the Scriptures by destroying God's typology. Enoch CANNOT die because, since the last days are "as the days of Noah" (Luke 17:26), there must be someone from the days of Noah to picture the saints of the last days who are taken to heaven without dying before God's judgment falls, and that someone is Enoch: "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." (Gen. 5:24) Hebrews 11:5 further stresses this by saying, "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." What's the point in stressing the fact that Enoch didn't see death, if he has to return and see it in the Great Tribulation? He does NOT return to see death, just as raptured Christians do not return to see death. He lives forever without dying.(4) Claiming that Hebrews 9:27 is an absolute rule would also mean that every word in the verse is absolute, not just the ones you like. That would mean that the phrase "ONCE to die" is also absolute. That won't work because some people die MORE than once, such as Lazarus, the son of the widow of Nain, Tabitha, the son of the Shunammite woman, and even Moses (Rev. 11). Hebrews 9:27 is in your Bible to stress the fact that CHRIST died once to take away sin (since the wages of sin is DEATH); it is NOT in your Bible to establish an absolute rule on the death of every human being.(5) The descriptions of the two witnesses in Revelation 11 clearly match the works of Moses and Elijah, not Enoch and Elijah.(6) Moses and Elijah, not Enoch and Elijah, are the proper representatives of the LAW and the PROPHETS, and these are the words that Jesus used to sum up the Old Testament (Luke 16:16).(7) Moses and Elijah, not Enoch and Elijah, appeared with Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17:3: ". . . there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him."(8.) The last chapter of the Old Testament gives the names of Moses and Elijah in connection with the Second Coming of Christ (Mal. 4). Enoch isn't mentioned in ANY of the prophetic books. In fact, he's mentioned only four times in the New Testament while Moses is mentioned seventy-seven times.(9) Jesus said that two men will sit beside Him in the coming kingdom (Mat. 20:21-23), and all indications are that these two men will be Moses and Elijah, the proper representatives of "the law and the prophets," which find their fulfillment in Christ, thus making up a three-fold cord of witnesses (Deu. 19:15; Mat. 18:16; Ecc. 4:12). Enoch doesn't fit into any of this. It is true that Enoch WALKED with God (Gen. 5:24), but both Moses and Elijah STAND WITH GOD (I Kgs. 17:1; Exo. 34:5) as two prophetic witnesses and probably as the two prophetic anointed ones of Zechariah 4:14.Enoch just doesn't fit, and the only reason that he's even suggested is the fact that he didn't die. Sorry, that's just not enough. Besides, there’s a much greater reason for Enoch not dying, as we shall now explore. As mentioned above, Enoch is the one Old Testament character from the days of Noah who serves as a type of the raptured saints of God who are living when Christ returns. Please consider the following . . .I. ENOCH IS A MYSTERYAs previously stated, we know very little about Enoch. There is no recorded narrative in the Scriptures to tell us about the details of his life and ministry as there is with men like Noah, Abraham or David. All that we read of Enoch in Genesis is that he had a son named Methuselah, he reached 365 years of age, he walked with God and then God took him. The New Testament gives us a little more information, but not much. I know there are secular writings about Enoch, which probably contain some additional facts about the man, but in the Bible itself, Enoch is pretty much a MYSTERY man.That’s interesting because the raptured church itself is called a mystery. Paul writes in I Corinthians 15:51-52, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Paul also called the church a mystery in Ephesians 5:32, but this passage in I Corinthians says it in the context of the raptured church specifically. In fact, Hebrews 11:5 adds an interesting little slant: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was NOT FOUND . . . ” Not being found just adds to the whole mystery aspect of Enoch. His life and his leaving was a mystery, which makes him a type of the last day church militant that is “alive” and “caught up” when Jesus comes (I Ths. 4:16-17).II. THE PURPOSE OF HIS TRANSLATIONWe are specifically told in Hebrews WHY Enoch was translated. He was translated “THAT he should not see death” because he had pleased God (Heb. 11:5). Many other Old Testament saints also pleased God, according to Hebrews 11, but only Enoch was chosen for a special pre-flood rapture. The words “THAT he should not see death” seem to indicate that God had some special purpose in mind, some unique reason for taking Enoch as a living saint.God certainly knew at the time of Enoch’s taking that His own Son would one day promise NO DEATH to a special class of believers. Jesus said, in John 11:26, “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall NEVER DIE . . .” Those who have died in the Lord were covered in the previous verse, John 11:25 (“he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”), but he speaks of the LIVING saints to be raptured in verse 26, just as Paul does in I Thessalonians 4:17, when he says, “we which are alive and remain shall be caught up.” Knowing of this thousands of years in advance, it appears that God wanted one pre-flood saint translated THAT he should not see death so as to serve as a type of those living saints who are translated to Heaven when Christ returns. That is, for the purpose of fulfilling typology, it appears that God felt it NECESSARY for one pre-flood saint to never die: “THAT he should not see death.”III. NOT APPOINTED TO WRATHIn additional to not seeing death, Enoch also didn’t have to endure the wrath of the flood, a type of the Great Tribulation and the wrath that it brings. Like Enoch, “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Ths. 5:9), and, like Enoch, God has “delivered us from the wrath to come.” (I Ths. 1:10)The Great Tribulation itself is Daniel’s Seventieth Week (Dan. 9:24-27) and the Time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jer. 30:7). This is primarily a Jewish dispensation that does not concern the church itself, which is why the church appears in Revelation chapters 1, 2, and 3, but is totally missing during the Tribulation chapters of Revelation 6-19. The word “churches” appears in Revelation 3:22 and then not again until Revelation 22:16. The word “church” doesn’t appear at all after Revelation 3:14. In fact, Revelation 13:6 has the Antichrist blaspheming “them that dwell in heaven.” That, of course, would be the church that was taken from the earth before the Great Tribulation just as Enoch was taken from the earth before the flood.IV. WALKING WITH GOD DURING APOSTASYEnoch is a type of the last day raptured saints because it is specifically stated that he “walked with God” (Gen. 5:24) during very apostate times that ended with divine judgment. We are told that a great “falling away” will come in the last days (II Ths. 2:3) and that “there shall come in the last days scoffers, WALKING after their own lusts” (II Pet. 3:3), yet we are to remain focused and “WALK in the Spirit.” (Gal. 5:16, 25)It appears that the worldliness of the Cainites gradually overtook the Sethites in the days of Noah as the oldest generation died off and newer ones arose (Gen. 4-5). By the time of Genesis 6, “ALL flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (Gen. 6:12), and only Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Yet, in the midst of this ancient apostasy, one man, Enoch, is said to have found victory and walked with God.This is precisely the scenario that unfolds in the last days of the church age. While Laodicea (the very last of the church age) is loving herself for declining at rocket speed into politically correct apostasy, Jesus invites the INDIVIDUAL believer into the beauty and joy of true fellowship: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: ifANY MAN hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Rev. 3:20)As with Enoch, it is the responsibility of all true believers today to walk with God in accordance with His words and not be influenced by the ever-increasing apostasy that surrounds us.V. PREACHING THE SECOND COMINGA very strange thing is said of Enoch in Jude verses 14-15: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” We do not read of Enoch preaching this in the Genesis 5 genealogy, or anywhere else in the Bible, so Jude must either be receiving direct revelation from the Holy Spirit or he’s pulling from a secular source. Whatever the case, the Holy Spirit wanted this in the canon of Scripture. He wants us to know that Enoch specifically preached the Second Coming and divine judgment on the ungodly. In fact, God was so pleased with Enoch’s walk and preaching that he allowed him to escape death.Well, who in church history has said more about the Second Coming of Christ than those of us who still believe the Book and believe His return is very near and might happen in our own lives? Most of church history has been filled with ignorant replacement theology adherents who wouldn’t discern any signs of the times, if they had the opportunity, yet WE have been shown incredible developments in God’s prophetic plan over the past several decades, insomuch that we, more than anyone else in history, can preach with genuine confidence that Christ’s return is, indeed, very near. Enoch is our type, because he too preached the Second Coming.VI. ENOCH WAS NUMBER SEVENAnother interesting aspect to Enoch’s typology is his connection to the number seven. Before Jude tells us that Enoch prophesied the Second Coming, he chooses to inform us that Enoch was “the SEVENTH from Adam.” (Jude 14) That is, Enoch is the seventh in line in the oldest human genealogy.Any serious student of Scripture has probably taken note of the fact that the number seven is a special number to God. The word “seven,” for instance, is found 463 times in the Bible, yet its numeric neighbors “six” and “eight” line up far behind at only 202 and 80. “Seven” is found 54 times in the book of Revelation alone, a higher per chapter ratio than any book of the Bible, which is quite interesting since Revelation is THE prophecy book of the Bible that deals almost exclusively with events surrounding the Second Coming of Christ: Enoch’s prophecy!I’ll not go into a long thing on it in this study, but this preacher firmly believes that God has a 7,000 year plan for humanity with the seventh millennium being the one thousand year kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth (Rev. 20:1-7; The prophet Enoch’s number seven rank in the Genesis genealogy fits all too well into this to be mere coincidence, especially since the global flood, a type of the Second Coming, according to Jesus (Luke 17:26), strikes the earth in the SEVENTH chapter of Genesis. To further stress the seven factor, God sent the flood SEVEN days after Noah and his family entered the ark (Gen. 7:10). And if that’s not enough emphasis, the Holy Spirit records for us in Genesis 5:31 that the last man in Noah’s ancestry lived “seven hundred seventy and seven years.”So, Enoch was number seven, and he preached the Second Coming and then was taken from the earth without dying. Sound familiar? Of the SEVEN churches listed in Revelation chapters two and three, WE are number seven, and it is the faithful remnant within the Laodicean church period that, like Enoch, faithfully walks with God and preaches the Second Coming! After that, a voice from heaven says, “Come up hither” (Rev. 4:1)VII. IF NOT ENOCH, THEN WHO?If Enoch is not to be viewed as a type of the raptured living saints, then who fills that role? There’s just too much in the word of God about typology for the serious student of Scripture to content himself with the idea that no one from the pre-flood days is meant to typify the raptured saints, especially since (1) Enoch prophesied the Second Coming and (2) Jesus said that the last days preceding His return would be “as” the days of Noah (Luke 17:26)! If we ignore the typology of Enoch, or if we allow that he return to be killed as one of the Great Tribulation witnesses (!), then who from the days of Noah serves as a type of the raptured living saints? Who, other than Enoch, was taken from the earth without dying? NO ONE! There’s only ONE who was taken without dying because there’s only one group of people who are taken without dying in the rapture: last day church-age saints just before the Tribulation starts. “My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair ONE, and come away.” (Song. 2:10)Enoch (from the Hebrew “Chanokh,” meaning "dedicated") is the ONE and the ONLY one who can fill the typical role. Without dedicated Enoch, God’s typology puzzle has a missing piece.