Enoch–Walking with God (5:12-27)
People like Kenan, Mahalalel, and Jared may not seem important to God’s great story of salvation, but they are important, for they were “living links” in the great generational chain that reached from Seth to the birth of Jesus Christ. God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 could never have been fulfilled were it not for the faithfulness of many undistinguished people who to us are only strange names in an ancient genealogy.
When Enoch was sixty-five years old, his wife gave birth to a son whom they named Methuselah (“man of the dart”). This was a turning point in Enoch’s life, because he then began to walk with the Lord (5:22, 24; see 6:9). Did the responsibility of raising a son in such a godless world so challenge Enoch that he knew he needed the Lord’s help? Or when the baby was born, did God give Enoch insight into the future so that he knew the flood was coming? We don’t know, but we do know that the arrival of this baby changed Enoch’s life.
The meaning of Methuselah’s name isn’t significant, but his long life of 969 years is significant. In the year that Methuselah died, the flood came! Perhaps the Lord told Enoch this news after the baby was born, and it so gripped his heart that he began to walk with God and do God’s will. “Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness” (2 Peter 3:11 nkjv). The fact that Jesus is coming again to judge the world ought to motivate God’s people to lives of holiness and obedient service (1 John 2:28–3:3).
The sobering phrase “and he died” isn’t used of Enoch, because Enoch is one of two men in Scripture who never died. Both Enoch and Elijah were taken to heaven alive (2 Kings 2:1-11). Some students see in Enoch’s pre-flood “rapture” a picture of the church being taken to heaven before God sends tribulation on the earth (1 Thess. 4:13–5:11).
It was “by faith” that Enoch was taken to heaven (Heb. 11:5). He believed God, walked with God, and went to be with God, which is an example for all of us to follow. Imagine how difficult it must have been to walk with God during those years before the flood, when vice and violence were prevalent and only a remnant of people believed God (Gen. 6:5). But Enoch’s life of faith wasn’t a private thing, for he boldly announced that God would come to judge the world’s sins (Jude 14-15). In his day, the judgment of the flood did come, but the judgment Enoch was announcing will occur when Jesus Christ returns, leading the armies of heaven and condemning Satan and his hosts (Rev. 19:11ff.). Enoch’s life and witness remind us that it’s possible to be faithful to God in the midst of “a crooked and perverse nation” (Phil. 2:15). No matter how dark the day or how bad the news, we have the promise of our Lord’s return to encourage us and motivate us to be godly. One day sin will be judged and God’s people will be rewarded for their faithfulness, so we have every reason to be encouraged as we walk with God.