The faith of Enoch (Hebrews 11:5-6)

Enoch walked into God’s presence without dying. That’s inspiring. He’s the second example of faith in Hebrews 11.

Enoch’s relocation into the heavenly realm is intriguing. What did he see when he got there? How is that world different to this one? Where are the dead? Why is there so much evil in this world? How will God sort out the sufferings of his people and bring justice to the world? What can we learn from Enoch?

The Book of Enoch

Way back in the Persian period, some Jewish writers began writing imaginative answers to those questions. Over 300 years, more groups added to this apocalyptic work. This collaborative “Book of Enoch” (also called 1 Enoch) was a huge success. The audience of Hebrews would have been familiar with it, but Hebrews lends no credence to Enoch’s supposed visions.

1 Enoch takes the phrase “the sons of God” in Genesis 6:2 to mean angels. Bad angels could not control their desire for women, so the women ended up pregnant. Their hybrid children were meant to be drowned in the flood, but that didn’t work since spirits aren’t mortal. So bad spirits roam the earth craving to possess bodies.

This reinterpretation of Genesis arose in a Zoroastrian worldview where life is understood as the struggle between good and evil (dualism). The blame lies with the spirits who taught us to be evil. The solution should therefore be for God to step in and destroy all the evil.

Of course, that’s nothing like the gospel solution God provided in Christ. Ephesians says that God realizes his original plan for the world by enthroning his Christ (Ephesians 1). With his grace, God rescues and reunites all people through Christ’s kingship (Ephesians 2). The apocalyptic mystery is resolved as the nations find their place in Christ, as one family under one Father (Ephesians 3). So, Christ commissions his people to teach the Messiah’s life to the nations (Ephesians 4), modelling it in our personal and communal lives (Ephesians 5), with no other armour in this fight than what God wore in Christ (Ephesians 6).

Enoch in Genesis

1 Enoch did get one thing right though. It was a time of escalating violence. The violence began with the murder of the godly son (4:8), and grew until it corrupted God’s world (Genesis 6:11).

Enoch lived in Seth’s family, in the seventh generation. In the same generation in Cain’s city, Lamech was threatening to treat people worse than Cain treated Abel. Lamech’s revenge is not satisfied by a life for a life, or even seven lives for a life. He wants seventy-seven lives for a life (4:24).

So, what might Enoch’s situation have been when God intervened? Was he calling on God for help? After Abel’s murder, Seth’s family had begun to call on the name of the Lord (4:26) since God prevented them taking matters into their own hands (4:15).

God may have literally saved Enoch from death. That would have been a comfort to the family who couldn’t find him. It would make more sense than telling his children, “God wanted Daddy in heaven.” (Please don’t say that to grieving children.)

Maybe we could translate Hebrews 11:5 like this:

By faith(fulness), Enoch was removed to not see death, and “he could not be found because God had removed him.” Prior to his removal, he was described as “pleasing to God.”

Enoch’s faith(fulness)

Genesis never mentions Enoch’s faith, but there is a clear reason for asserting it.

We’re translating πίστις (pistis) as faith(fulness) to remind us it’s a relational word — faith and faithfulness. It’s faith in (relying on, trusting), and keeping faith with (loyalty, faithfulness to) someone. Since God was enjoying the relationship with Enoch (LXX), Enoch must have had πίστις — faith in and faithfulness to God. That’s how relationships work.

That’s exactly what the following verse says. The general principle (verse 6) is drawn from the specific case of Enoch (verse 5). Hebrews 11:6 asserts:

Without faith(fulness), it is impossible to please, for is it essential for the one approaching God to trust that God is there and becomes the remuneration of those who find him.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard preachers using that text to teach that you can get God to give you the reward you want. It doesn’t say that. Verse 6 comes out of verse 5. Note the overlapping verbs:

• Pleasing God is what Enoch did with his faith(fulness).
• Approaching God is what Enoch did, quite literally.
• Trusting God is what Enoch did, in contrast with Lamech who trusts in revenge.
• Finding God is what Enoch did, in contrast with family who could not find him.
  

Two principles of verse 6 are drawn from the God-Enoch relationship in verse 5.

First, any pleasing relationship requires faith(fulness).

Our translations usually say, “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” but “God” is not found until later in the sentence. χωρὶς δὲ πίστεως ἀδύνατον εὐαρεστῆσαι is literally “Without [and/but] faith(fulness) impossible to-have-pleased.” In other words, this first part states a broader principle: no pleasing relationship is possible without faith(fulness).

That principle is the basis for asserting that Enoch had faith(fulness) towards God. But that doesn’t only apply to God. In a day when people discard relationships like old underwear, we could really do with some messages on the broader reality that good friendships require faith(fulness), that loyalty and trust are the foundation for building the solid relationships that bring joy to our lives.

We need people who are not living the old Country laments of “somebody done somebody wrong” or the pop culture where “I can buy myself flowers.” We need a church that learns to embody the faith(fulness) that brings joy to relationships.

Second, to approach God we need to trust he is present and responsive.

If you’re struggling to pray, here’s something to discuss with your Heavenly Father. Talk with God about his presence and responsiveness. Include your own experience, and Enoch’s. Include some faithful friends if it helps.

Enoch approached God. I mean, literally! What do you think he saw? The throne, perhaps? That is what people tend to be aware of when they approach God.

But Enoch did not approach as a stranger. Enoch was accustomed to approaching God, walking with him in fact. Like others in his family, he was used to calling on the name of the Lord (4:26). He was probably approaching God’s throne in the moments before he avoided death (compare Hebrews 4:16).

Our faith relationship with God is the basis for approaching God and trusting him with our needs. We approach God because we trust God to be present and responsive, a sovereign engaged with his earthly realm and a Father caring for his child.

We present our needs because we trust his generous grace. But we don’t tell God what to do. Despite what some faith-teachers say, demanding a particular response from God is not faith.

God responds as he chooses. Sometimes, as with Enoch, the result is out of this world. But don’t try to turn God’s response into a law, something God must do in every case. God did not do the same thing for Abel. Or for Zechariah. Or for Jesus (Matthew 23:35).

Jesus’ faith(fulness)

Unlike Enoch, Jesus did not avoid death. You can’t tell me it was a lack of faith(fulness) on Jesus’ part:

Hebrews 3:2–6 (NIV)
² He was faithful to the one who appointed him … ⁶ faithful as the Son over God’s house.

It wasn’t a lack of faithfulness on God’s part either:

Hebrews 5:7–10 (NIV)
⁷ During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸ Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered ⁹ and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

God did something different for Jesus than he did for Enoch. In his faith(fulness), Jesus did not avoid death: he faced it, and dealt with the ultimate enemy — for us all.

The Messiah’s faithfulness was pleasing to God. Faith is like that. Through his faithfulness, the Christ has broken the power of death for all who obey him, all who please the Father through faith in and faithfulness to God’s anointed leader for the earth.

Conclusion

What was it that was so inspiring about Enoch’s faith?

Enoch was not a mystic, disconnected from the struggles of the world, so spiritually attuned that he found his way from this world into the next. He wasn’t living in sanitary bubble. He was living in turbulent times.

But in a world that brought God great grief, Enoch brought pleasure to God. You see, any pleasing relationship is based on faith(fulness).

Enoch’s family gave up the search because he could not be found. Enoch was with the God he knew by faith. Don’t give up the search to know God. Trust that he can be found and that he is the reward of those who seek him. The reward for knowing God is the relationship that comes by faith(fulness). There is no greater reward than being restored in the image of the one we were created to reflect.

Hebrews 11:5-6 (my translation, compare NIV)
⁵ By faith(fulness), Enoch was removed to not see death, and “he could not be found because God had removed him.” Prior to his removal, he was described as “pleasing to God.”
⁶ Without faith(fulness), it is impossible to please, for is it essential for the one approaching God to trust that God is there and becomes the remuneration of those who find him.

What others are saying

B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews the Greek Text with Notes and Essays, (London: Macmillan, 1903), 357–358:

Faith was the ground of the translation because his pleasing God is specially mentioned before this took place: and such pleasing implies faith. The circumstances under which Enoch lived gave prominence to his Faith. In a corrupt age he is said to have maintained that fellowship with God which is identical with pleasing Him. …

The simple notice that Enoch ‘pleased God’ (or ‘walked with God’) is a sufficient proof of his Faith. For Faith is an essential condition of ‘pleasing’ (or of ‘fellowship’).

Tom Wright, Hebrews for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2004), 129–130:

Enoch became a popular figure in Jewish writing of the last few centuries before Jesus, and for some while after. His strange apparent escaping of death seemed to lend him a special aura and mystique. Books were written as though by him, ‘prophesying’ events many centuries hence (in other words, in the time of the actual writers). But Hebrews turns away from such speculations and simply insists on what Genesis 5:24 says about Enoch (amplified, perhaps, by Wisdom 4:10): he ‘pleased God’. That’s a powerful thing to say about anyone, but again our writer simply anchors it to the point he wants to insist on: without faith, you can’t begin to please God.

Related posts

• The faith of Abel (Heb 11:4)
• What faith expects (Heb 11:1–3)
• Looking for a city (Heb 11:10)