Bible Study Were Enoch And Elijah Raptured?

[iLOVE]

Q. Before Jesus paid for all of our sins on the cross, no one could be with God in Heaven. Therefore the Old Testament saints went into Abraham’s Bosom to await their redemption which happened at Jesus’ resurrection.
But what about Enoch and Elijah as it is generally believed that they were translated, without dying, into heaven. Is heaven where they went?

 

[farouk]

The word for Enoch's departure is 'translated'.

If one speaks of 'rapture', then this properly would refer to the future rapture of the church (1 Thess. 4).

 

[iLOVE]

Genesis 5:24 says that Enoch walked with God and was no more because God took him. 2 Kings 2:11 says that Elijah went up into heaven in a whirlwind.

Using the Biblical injunction of Deut. 19:15 that a matter is established on the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses, the experiences of Enoch and Elijah can be cited to prove the validity of the Rapture of the Church. Both went directly into the presence of the Lord without dying first.

 

[reba]

Call it any name ... Raptured translated. beam me up scotty... God is God and can do what He wants.. He took them home... They are in Paradise. I believe they are in heaven or using different words In His presence. We can get too hung up on words

 

[Sinthesis]

Words are important, but they are also ambiguous. I don't believe Enoch and Elijah were raptured because I don't believe in the typical definition of rapture. I believe they both died physical bodily deaths, but well after their lives were fundamentally changed by God to some purpose of God's. A change analogous to, but ultimately somehow also inferior to, the redirection a Christians life takes upon their conversion.

 

[reba]

HUH?

 

[jasoncran]

jewish though on that whirlwind is well wierd. most caballistic something like because they understood the torah they become so god like that they ascended into heaven.

 

[Lloyd]

Sinthesis,

There is zero evidence to suggest they both died physically, so how have you come to that conclusion?

 

[Sinthesis]

Sinthesis,

There is zero evidence to suggest they both died physically, so how have you come to that conclusion?

You kind of have to piece it together, but the evidence is there.

Jhn 3:13 - And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, [even] the Son of man which is in heaven.

Hbr 9:27 - And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Hbr 11:4 ¶ By faith Abel...
Hbr 11:5 - 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.
Hbr 11:6...
Hbr 11:7 - By faith Noah...
Hbr 11:8 ¶ By faith Abraham...
Hbr 11:9...
Hbr 11:10...
Hbr 11:11 - Through faith also Sara...
Hbr 11:12...
Hbr 11:13 ¶ These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

2Ch 21:12 ¶ And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah,
2Ch 21:13 - But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, [which were] better than thyself:
2Ch 21:14 - Behold, with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods:
2Ch 21:15 - And thou [shalt have] great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day.​

 

[Lloyd]

I understand where you're coming from, not sure I agree with it, but certainly John 3:13 makes a good point. I will do my usual and go study some more

 

[netchaplain]

The word for Enoch's departure is 'translated'.

If one speaks of 'rapture', then this properly would refer to the future rapture of the church (1 Thess. 4).

When "the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven", their will be a resurrection (anistēmi - to rise from death) of the dead and a translation (harpazō - caught up - same as Enoch and Elijah) of the living (1 Thes 4:16, 17).

The two resurrections are depicted in Revelation 20:5, 6 (first resurrection) and vs 12, 13 (last resurrection). The last resurrection involves "the rest of the dead" who "lived not again until the thousand years were finished" in v 5, which are those who were not in the first resurrection in v 4.