Reply To: Week One DQ – Enoch

[Anonymous]

The Hebrews 5 account is key. Make sure you read verse 6, don’t just stop at 5! Enoch seems to be taken by God because God was pleased with Enoch. Why?!! What did Enoch do that pleased God? If your attention span lasted and were able to make it through verse 5 and 6 it seems that to please God is in direct relation to whether or not a person draws near to God.

Before I continue, keep Gen.3 in the back of your mind (besides you just read it ). What do Adam and Eve do after they have sinned? Do they draw near to God? What about Gen. 4 after Cain kills Abel? Does he draw near to God? Nope. In both instances, they hide (3:8) and Cain “went away from the presence of the Lord” (4:16). Back to Hebrews.

So, Enoch pleases God and he fulfills God’s pleasure by drawing near. What does that mean? Did he get gold stars in sunday school? Did he read his scrolls everyday? Did he hang out in coffee shops trying to start gospel conversations with the local heathens? I picture Enoch as a cappucino guy, I have no idea why. What ever it was he was buying the guys drink next to him because thats what God would do. Seriously, what did it mean to draw near to God? to act like him? talk like him? drink coffee like him?

If I go back a few chapters in Hebrews we are reminded that Jesus is our great high preist. We no longer need to go to a priest to be cleansed from our sins! But to draw near to God one must be clean. In fact, spotless. We can’t do that on our own and so to draw near means that we look to somebody to clean up our mess so we can draw near to God! We can’t do that, a priest can’t do that, only Jesus can do that for us!(Heb 10:21-22) so to draw near is a direct acknowledgement of our need and dependence for Him.

I used to think God was pleased with Enoch because of something Enoch did. You know, he said all the right answers and did all the right things. I think it is more likely that, like all the rest of the screw ups in Hebrews 5, Enoch was not a morality giant but he understood Hebrew 4:16. He knew his only hope to obtain mercy from God was to recieve grace from God. Let us then have confidence as well.