Genesis 5, verses 21 to 24, Enoch is raptured

 

Genesis 5:21 ¶  And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: 22  And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23  And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: 24  And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

Here is a foundational verse, number 24, for belief in the Translation of the church, popularly called ‘The Rapture’ since the 1800’s. The Bible uses Interpretation for our modern thought of translating one word in one language into a word in another language, much like we use the word “interpreter” for someone at the UN with headphones on translating what the Russian ambassador said into English. This definition it uses as well as the interpreting of dreams.

John 1:42  And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

John 9:7  And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

Acts 9:36  Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.

Translation is to move something from one place to another, as Enoch was removed by God from the earth alive, missing the judgment on the earth to come. In the Middle Ages there was a phrase “Relic Translation” for the moving of a saint’s relics from one location to a better location.

Hebrews 11:5  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.

Much of the belief in the translation of the church is founded based on verses in Paul’s letters and in Revelation. The doctrine begins here with Enoch, however.

In the Revelation at the end of the Bible the apostle John is brought to heaven for the express purpose of being shown things he nor you and I can see from earth. These are not visions from a trance. This is a forceable removal from one place to another, a translation, as one definition of that word is.