Genesis Types: 3. The Translation of Enoch, A Type of the Translation of Believers

(Genesis 5:21-24) Enoch’s life pleased God because he walked with God in faith. "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). "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). Enoch, the greatgrandfather of Noah, walked with God by faith so that the Lord was pleased. Enoch was translated before the judgment of the Flood came upon the world. The Hebrews’ account has the significant words: "And was not found." Men of Enoch’s day searched for him but found him not. The reason they could not find him was because God had translated him without his having to go through the experience of death. It was not long until the great Flood was to devastate the world, but Enoch was gone to Heaven before this great event took place. What happened to Enoch was a type of the translation of believers at Christ’s coming. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (I Thessalonians 4:16, 17). "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Matthew 24:40, 41). Believers living when Christ comes will be translated without their seeing death, like Enoch was. Men shall look for them as they did for Enoch but shall not find them. When believers are caught up, then shall the judgments of the Book of Revelation begin to be poured out upon the earth. Thus true believers shall escape these judgments. "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man" (Luke 21:36). [Old Testament Types - FHW]