02 May Enoch, one of his
For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?
It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect.
Enoch lived on earth in deep antiquity, the seventh generation from Adam, before the flood, when men’s lifespans were measured by hundreds of years. His son was Methuselah, his great-grandson was Noah. Enoch lived roughly thirteen hundred years before Abraham, seventeen hundred years before Moses, and thirty-three hundred years before Jesus. He lived before there was such a thing as a Jew or Gentile, before recorded Scripture, before the cross. And yet The Narrative tells us that Enoch walked with God (Genesis 5:22,24). Do you walk with HIM?
Thirty-three centuries later, the writer of Hebrews would remember Enoch as an example of faith: the same faith attributed to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. (Hebrews 11) And Jude, Jesus’ half-brother, witnessed to Enoch’s authenticity, quoting him in the next to last book of The Bible, alluding to the formidable vision of the end of this age that this man had from almost the beginning.
What is God trying to show me? Enoch’s relationship with God has challenged my theological assumptions. No matter what lowest common denominator I have sought to explain him, I am brought back face to face with Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” I cannot deny this verse, but I cannot say that Enoch knew about Jesus, God leaves me no question that Enoch is one of HIS, but by the blood of Jesus alone is any of us saved. Of the many Scriptures describing those who will experience God’s pulling them back from destruction, two of my “lowest common denominator” verses are “the one who believes will never be shaken..” (Isaiah 28:16, Romans 9:33; 10:11) and “Whoever will call on the name of the LORD will be saved.” (Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21) But to advance these as my explanation for what made Enoch one of HIS feels like I’m stepping out on thin ice.
Then one day I heard, “Why are you looking for the lowest common denominator instead of embracing the all-encompassing reality of WHO I AM?“
With that question came an intuitive leap in my understanding. Is it possible that all Enoch had to do was to identify God as the LORD, and in doing that, he embraced not the smallest common denominator of what would save him, but he laid hold of everything GOD would ever do or be for him in time, which he had no way of anticipating or predicting? Does God’s saving activity wrest its way into our life the moment we rightly distinguish HIM from among all of the pretenders, from the made-up gods of our own imaginations and preferences, from every so-called “god” foisted on us? If I correctly identify WHO GOD IS, discriminating Him from among all others, does it matter how much I grasp, if in the smallest measure of my grasp of HIM, I have HIM ALL?
We see this in Israel’s crossing of the Jordan into The Promised Land.
“This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that He will surely drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go ahead of you into the Jordan… When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the LORD—the Lord of all the earth—touch down in the waters of the Jordan, its flowing waters will be cut off and will stand up in a heap.” So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carried the ark of the covenant ahead of them.
Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the flowing water stood still. It backed up as far upstream as Adam… while the water flowing toward the Sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed over the dry ground, until the entire nation had crossed the Jordan. Joshua 3:10-17
God caused the waters flowing down from Adam to build up in a heap, so that its flow to the Dead Sea was completely cut off. Not a single person crossing the Jordan had any idea of the redemption that had already been minutely worked out in eternity, that was being enacted for them in that crossing, and that was going to be accomplished thousands of years later, but they knew about sin flowing down from Adam to them… And as they fastened their eyes on the ark of the Lord of all the earth, trusting HIM, they crossed over. In that small measure of grasping HIM they grasped HIM ALL.
Not everything we call “God” is God. Many who call themselves “Christians” will be shocked when Jesus tells them to depart from Him, because He never knew them. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ (Matthew 7:23) They assume they belong to Him, but they walk with another god..
From eternity God has desired one thing: a people who uniquely belong to Him. From Genesis to Revelation, The Narrative echoes God’s promise to Himself: “They will be My people, and I will be their God, and I will dwell in their midst forever.” 1 Those that are HIS will differentiate HIM from all other gods, loving HIM and obeying HIM, and HE will make HIMSELF manifest to them, walking with them in what HE is working out.
1 Genesis 17:7; Exodus 29:45;Jeremiah 11:4; Jeremiah 24:7; Jeremiah 31:33; Jeremiah 32:38; Ezekiel 11:20; Ezekiel 14:11; Ezekiel 34:24; Ezekiel 37:23,27; Zechariah 8:8; Hebrews 8:10; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Revelation 21:3