While I was visiting another Christian church, the pastor opened the pulpit to any person in the congregation to step up to speak for a few minutes. One elderly man stepped up and said that he was impressed with a question as to how we can return to God like Enoch in the Bible. He commented to the question saying, “I did not know how, I guess sin now blocks the way“. It was interesting to hear this, but the fellow Christian could not determine, by the Bible, as to how or why God took Enoch up into heaven without mortal death. This fellows Bible was no different than mine, but his only answer as to why translation does not occur was because of sin.

For some reason this spurred an interest in me, to reflect on the account of Enoch in the Bible and study the question. For some reason, for me, it became important to review the reasons why Enoch was raised.

After reading the scriptures, I saw these reasons why Enoch was translated or commonly called, “raised up”.  According to the King James Bible, his translation occurred because,

  1. He was a prophet of God (see Gen 5:24 / Jude 1:14) – means there was revelation
  2. Faith was perfect in him (see Heb 11:5 / Gen 5:24 “walked with God”)
  3. He led God’s people as a prophet, why be a prophet unless there were people to lead or prophesy toward.
  4. His testimony of God (Heb 11:5)

When looking at these things, it is important to note the following:

  1. Enoch lived before Christ came and the Atonement was not given to the Earth yet, but despite that, Enoch was translated irrespective of being born into sin, especially being the sixth son of Adam. (see Luke 3:36–38) If Sin was the hindrance to being translated (taken up by God), then Enoch would not have gone up to God. Therefore, sin was not the issue, faith and obedience was the reason.
  2. Enoch had great faith
  3. Enoch spoke with God, which is part of “walking with God”. This is not just prayer, this is receiving God’s voice, his Spirit and will through revelation and even speaking with God. If Enoch merely read the scriptures and prayed, his faith would not be as good as it was. Revelation is what raised faith and made him perfect in God’s eyes.
  4. Enoch led God’s people, was a prophet. All those translated were prophets/apostles.
  5. Enoch’s testimony was spiritual. There is no such thing as a testimony of God by merely reading the scriptures and believing. Enoch developed his testimony through revelation. Paul confirms this in Galatians 1:12

Conclusion:
According to the Bible, to succeed as did Enoch, we must have and receive revelation (receiving God’s will), exercising excellent faith, be a good spiritual leader or example and lastly, have and bear a spiritual testimony of God which is only gained from the Holy Ghost, which again, requires us to receive revelation. What I also found is that there is no scripture that claims revelation has ended with John the Revelator and since Jesus promised us the Holy Ghost, we can therefore receive revelation for our spiritual salvation and salvation cannot occur without it because salvation is what changes our carnal minds to spiritual minds (Romans 8:6–7).

The fact that revelation is an integral part of our salvation is really not a surprise. It was part of all events within the Bible and its absence or rejection of it is what lowered the spiritual state of Israel in the Old Testament and allowed apostate ideas to funnel into the membership during the New Testament Church.

The experience I had with this other Christian fellow is an example of how lost people have become without the Spirit of God, the gift of the Holy Ghost, especially when a person is among others who disbelieve in revelation or ignore it. It seems that sin, called ignorance of the Spirit, has blocked the way (Romans 14:23).

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