Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. (Genesis 5:24)
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)
In the ancient genealogy in Genesis 5, right at the beginning of biblical history, there’s a conspicuous break in the regular pattern: “This fellow lived and died. The next fellow lived and died. And the next. And the next. One fellow had a uniquely good relationship with God, so that God just took him right out of the world, presumably into his very presence.” He was the seventh from Adam (probably significant!), and he was the first prophet of Christ (Jude 14-15)—and not just through his teaching, but by his means of departure from this world. It’s intriguing, mysterious. Somewhere in the back of your mind you wish that you could have a relationship with God like that, to be whisked away bodily into glory like Enoch. When you bring that thought to the front of your mind, you realize that, if bodily ascension is a possibility for Enoch, it’s a possibility for us (however unlikely).
In Jesus Christ, bodily ascension is more than a possibility, it’s a historical reality. After his death and resurrection as our representative, God took him bodily into heaven—also as our representative. We have not “walked with God” like Enoch, but Jesus always did, and he pleased God. On the Cross, he was treated as one who did not walk with God, so that we would be treated as if we did. And because bodily ascension is a reality for him, so it will be also for us. One day we will have a resurrected, glorified body in the immediate presence of God in the New Heavens and New Earth. There really is a glimpse, a hint of this, even way back in Genesis 5.
