Study in the Epistle of Jude # 78: Verse 14

by Chris McCann

EBible Fellowship (http://www.ebiblefellowship.com)

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are currently going through the book of Jude. We have been looking at verse 14, which deals with Enoch, the seventh from Adam. We have seen that Enoch’s life span of 365 years (that is at the age at which God took him and raptured him) can be related to the 365 days that are in a year. Therefore, Enoch’s period of living upon this earth—the 365 years—is connected to the acceptable year of the Lord.

In observing that, we went back to Leviticus 23 and to some places in Exodus. We saw that there were three feasts that the Israelites were to observe and keep in the year in which all their males were to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem—the feast of Passover, the feast of Pentecost, and the feast of Ingathering which was in conjunction with the feast of Tabernacles. We took a quick look at all three of these feasts, and we saw how each one is related to the Gospel and to some area of God’s salvation plan. According to the reference in the Old Testament, the final feast of Ingathering comes at the end of the year and points to God’s final harvest period that comes at the end of time.

What happens then? Then comes the end of the world. Once God has finally saved the last of His elect and once the spiritual dimension of the feast of Ingathering has been fulfilled, there is no more purpose for this world to continue on. The world will have served its purpose. Suddenly, Christ will appear upon the clouds of glory; He will return and He will come as the judge to destroy the world and the universe. Let us turn to 2 Peter 3:10-12, which says:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

It is the end of the world; God will simply speak a word, just as He did in the beginning when He created the world and the universe. How did God, in Genesis 1, bring all this into being? Let us turn to Genesis 1:3, which says:

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Then in Genesis 1:6, we read:

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

In verse 9:

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together…

In verse 11:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass…

In verse 14:

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

In verse 20:

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life…

God said, He spoke, He declared the Word of God with full power and force. God spoke the Word, and suddenly it came into being. God said, “Let there be lights in the heavens,” and the sun and the moon and the stars appeared. God spoke, and all of this vast universe that we can see came into being and into existence. It is a universe so vast and incredible in its scope that mankind has never been able to reach the end of it. We have tried to by developing the most powerful telescopes possible. We have made huge telescopes that have reached into deep space. Man has even placed some of these super-powerful telescopes on spacecraft and launched them into deep space to get a vantage point that mankind has never had upon earth. These telescopes are positioned in the farthest reaches of the galaxy and they look farther beyond, yet they can never come to the end; they can never reach the end of this whole universe. It goes on and on, testifying to the glory and the character of God. He is an infinite God who has no beginning or end, and the universe has been a witness to the fact that this is the nature of God (Psalm 19:1-4).

On the Last Day, this universe will melt; “the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” God is going to speak a word; He will say, “It is time.” He will speak however He will do it. He could say, “Universe, be rolled up as a scroll. Earth, it is time for you to melt and be destroyed.” God will say the word, and it will be so. It will be done; it will be accomplished in a moment, in “the twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15:52). That is how the Lord Jesus Christ will return, the Bible indicates. There will be the resurrection, and all these things will be happening simultaneously. The children of God who are upon earth will be raptured and caught up to be with the Lord in Heaven.

Let us keep in mind what 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 says. We read there:

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

God will come; the Lord Jesus Christ will come. He is going to come upon the clouds of glory. Those who have been in the graves will rise up—some to a resurrection of damnation; it will be Judgment Day—and some to a resurrection of eternal life, where they will receive their resurrected bodies. They had been dwelling in Heaven in their spirit existence, in their soul existence; but now, they will be joined with a new resurrected body, a spiritual body, that will match and complete their salvation. They will be one whole personality.

“We which are alive,” if we happen to be upon the earth when Christ returns, will then be “caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” At the same time, the world is gone; it is taken away. All the things of the world that man has so cherished and that mankind has sold his soul for will be removed in an instant. Man has loved the things of this world—the “lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). His house and his car, his gadgets, his toys—all these things that men have killed for and died for and spent their lives upon will be taken away and will perish with the world. The world will be gone, and all the things of the world with it.

God has warned us; He has warned mankind that this is the fate of this world and that this is what is coming for this earth. That is why God said in 1 John 2:15-17:

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

God is very straightforward with us; He is very clear and exact and matter-of-fact. “Love not the world,” because all that is in the world “passeth away.”

We are thinking of that time; we are looking at that day when the acceptable year of the Lord will come to a close. We are thinking about this, actually, because of Enoch. Is it not interesting that he lived 365 years, and then what happened to him? Genesis 5:23-24 says:

And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

God took him. We know from Hebrews 11:5 that this means God translated him. It says there:

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.

He was changed; he was translated from his physical body into a new resurrected body. He was one of the very few souls whom God saved and completed the salvation of. Elijah was another one who was taken up into Heaven, as well as the saints who arose at the time when Christ went to the Cross. At that point, many bodies of the saints rose up and went into the Holy City to show the people there (Matthew 27:52-53). This is a reference to some of the saints of the Old Testament, of whom many, God says, rose up and went into Heaven, the Holy City. They were a testimony to all those who were there that God would certainly complete His salvation plan and most definitely fulfill His Word. He is the faithful and true God. He is the God that cannot lie. He is the God who has told His people that this is what will happen.

On the Last Day will come the end of this world. There will be an ushering in of the new heavens and the new earth. There will be an equipping of the saints of God with new resurrected bodies. There will be a time when the people of God will look forward to an eternity with God in Heaven—they will have eternal life. This will come to pass; these things are guaranteed to happen by God. He promises—He has vowed through His Word and He has sworn upon Himself, and there is none greater—that these things will certainly and definitely happen.

Therefore, God has saved men at certain periods—like Enoch or Elijah or those saints at the Cross—in order to witness to the fact that He will one day save all His people in this manner. The salvation of mankind will be completed and perfected as God will, on the Last Day upon the return of Christ, resurrect all those in the graves and change those who are alive upon the earth.

Enoch is a testimony to this fact. God picked Enoch for a special purpose, and that is to show and to demonstrate in the life of Enoch what will come to pass for all the children of God. Enoch is a representative, a picture, of the whole body of believers—he walked with God and he pleased God. It is by faith and only by faith that someone can please God; all those whom God saves ultimately please Him because they have the faith of Christ (Galatians 2:16).

Enoch is a representative, a figure, that God is using to typify the body of believers, especially those believers who will minister the Gospel to the world during the acceptable year of the Lord. That is why Enoch was 365 years old when God took him. He completes the year; he finishes the year. At the end of this year is the final harvest—the last of God’s elect will become saved. Following that comes the rapture, the time when God will simply take His people out of this world. He is going to remove them from this world at the same time that He is destroying the earth and the universe, and then man will stand for judgment. Yet just as Enoch did not die, so all who are alive upon the earth will not die when Christ returns; rather, they will be changed and translated, just as Enoch was translated. That is what 1 Corinthians 15:51-57 says. We read there:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…

Enoch was changed—that is what the word “translated” means. The passage continues:

…In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump…

The Lord Jesus Christ returns with the trump of God and with a shout. It continues:

…for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the culmination of all things, the climax of all history. The fulfillment of God’s great and grand salvation plan is when Christ returns; it is when the acceptable year has come to an end. Now it is the time for the translation, the changing, of the people of God. God is going to fashion them new resurrected bodies and spiritual bodies.

How wonderful that is going to be! How glorious and how tremendous it will be for each child of God who has pleased God by the faith of Christ! By God’s saving work as Jesus has done everything in their salvation, they are able to please God immensely. Now the things of this world will be forgotten; they will be in the past. This world will no longer come into remembrance. It will be something behind us. How wonderful we will be as the body of believers! We will be individuals, those of us who have been saved by Christ, and we will be able to turn our eyes upon Jesus and look full in His face and look towards this incredibly beautiful future of living with God in Heaven.

God speaks of Enoch in Jude 14, and He says:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

We can see why God reveals to us that Enoch, the preacher who lived so long ago, over nine thousand years ago, prophesied of the return of Christ and of Judgment Day itself. He prophesied of Christ coming in judgment with all his saints, the ten thousands representing the completeness of all the children of God, all the saints of God who have ever come before. We can see how Enoch is so intimately involved in this return of Christ, as God has written about him in the Bible.

For now, we are going to end our study. Next time, Lord willing, we will pick up back where we started in verse 14, and then we will move into verses 15 and 16 of Jude.