The eternal purpose of God, as revealed from the beginning, is to dwell forever with His beloved Son — who is the resurrection and the immortal expression of the Father bodily — and with redeemed of humanity raised to bodily immortality in likeness to Him, in a new heaven and new earth where death is no more. This is the highest good God could achieve through creating mankind in His image: in bringing forward the voluntary conformity of many sons to the likeness of His one and only uniquely begotten eternal Son, to the everlasting praise of the glory of His eternal grace and sovereignty.
At the time of His conception in Mary's womb, God prepared a uniquely formed body for Jesus Christ, who remains immortal in the same body, resurrected and indestructible, but let's keep talking about the period before that happened.
A uniquely formed body did not yet exist for Him, even though He was preordained to exist forever after in the body God formed for Him in Mary's womb, He was preexisting in God's glory, Spirit, and power to invest in Him alone without measure and make Him manifest as His eternal and immortal Son forever, the "firstborn of many brethren". This word "conformed to"means that we actually have to become Christ-like, just like He became the captain of our salvation.
As we explore the auto biography of His influence among us, we see the first one that became so much like Him, one like the Son of God, that as Enoch, walked with God, and became more and more like Christ, he was taken into the preservation of God, without ever dying.
He was no longer constrained by the body of death, nor subjected to it, being removed from risk to death, advanced to a greater preservation by God, and no longer remained present among us in the same form as he was from his birth in the body and all 365 years with us, so he has never died at all, because God "took him". God received him into the glory of His instant preservation from death, based on what Christ Himself would do in the generation of His first coming. Gen 5:24
From his birth record and recorded activity of life, as he did exist naturally birthed into the world, among us as one of us, in the 7th generation, and long before the manifestation of Jesus, we are given to understand he became so Christ like, God took him, and he is still existing as having never died at all, he is not immortal yet, but being secured for the change to immortality at the consummation, safe and sound in heaven with the immortal Christ who paid the full price and died the death at first demanded for a man once to die, and Enoch has been retained by God in His glorious presence without ever dying. It was, and is, God's pleasure to keep him!
Enoch who walked with God and 'was not' for God took him, and Elijah who was carried to heaven in the whirlwind. Are both, along with all who believed in Him, prior to His coming, preserved now in the glory of the cloud of witnesses we know this because in the light of Christ's glory that shined manifest on Mount of transfiguration reveals it. Moses and Elijah were in the same state of preservation in His glory revealed, though Moses had died, and Elijah had never died. They are not yet immortal, but rather He gave witness of them each in their generation, of Christ's power to deliver from death, and we are encouraged to know when Christ comes and they come with Him a whole generation of believers will rise to meet Him in the air, and never die in the body at all, but will be changed together with all of them at the consummation of redemption in our bodies to immortality!
This is our blessed hope and the universal consummation of all creation.
It can be understood, that they have been removed from the realm of the earthly and kept safe, and secured in the heavens, awaiting with all of us the final redemption in the body to immortality when Christ appears from heaven and commands it at the end.
Enoch was not with them on the Mount of transfiguration but here is the testimony given of him that he is ascended and part of the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11. Enoch is mentioned among the cloud of witnesses, specifically mentioned as having never died. Later in the same chapter when there is a reference for all who did die, he is obviously not included in that number of those who died, for he is an example of premature deliverance from death, and sustained alive in the heavens, until the universal promise of redemption in the body to immortality is fulfilled. Rather than being included among those who died without receiving a deliverance from death awaiting the transformation to immortality with him until the end, he is given specific mention that he did NOT die.
There is no biblical reference anywhere in the new testament or old, whereby anyone can return to the earth from where Jesus is, having ascended to join Him there where He is seated immortal, until He who empowers them to be with Him, brings them with Him when does at the end.
In fact the prophecy of Elijah's coming as we explore and discover it, has been fulfilled in the way God intended when He said it to Malachi and explained it with His own mouth.
The occasion of the Spirit of Elijah coming before the Lord has already happened and not because Elijah came down from heaven, other than his short visitation with Jesus and Moses on the Mount of transfiguration, but because John the baptist was filled with the same Spirit of the Lord, for the purpose given by the Lord, in his mother's womb he fulfilled that prophecy as Jesus explains it without contradiction in His own words. Luke 1:17, Matt 11:14
Anyone who says otherwise is in contradiction with Jesus Himself as self explained with His own mouth, case closed on all interlopers.
Again, there is no place in the whole of the Bible that says, anyone who has been taken up to heaven, will return to the earth, until the Lord comes with ten thousands, and thousands of thousands of saints and angels. Amen!
1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 and 18 Amen! Enoch, is secured in heaven, Elijah is secured in heaven, Moses is secured in heaven. Until the end.
They are alive forever, according to my understanding of God's will to deliver all of us from death, and change us immortal, it is death that will be put to a complete and total end!
Enoch and Elijah, have never died, and there is nothing that compels their death nor biblical exegesis that allows for their entrance back into the natural environment of humanity once having been ascended to where Jesus Christ is now, as preserved forever from death. Death is the last and final enemy of Christ to be destroyed in it's entirety.
Jesus, is the only human being who preexisted Himself, and every other human being is saved through Him, and in Him, not through their own agency whatsoever. Not even Enoch was so endowed with the agency of Christ's sole power, that he could deliver himself from death or be changed immortal by his own agency or inherent power.
And therefore we can affirm that no one has ascended to heaven immortal in the body but Jesus Christ Himself alone who came down from heaven in the Spirit and ascended in the immortal body, together with those whom he brought up with Himself to begin population of that Holy and Eternal City where Abraham now dwells.
Even so, all who are in heaven are not made immortal yet, but are waiting to the same end, and consummation to be changed to the body of immortality together with us who are alive and remain in the earthly body to that moment.
Words like became, and begotten, are used to describe Christ's own majesty, and God uses this language to honor Him as having inherent agency for His own resurrection, and for the sake of commanding the same over all the rest.
He alone is the first and only begotten immortal son of God, birthed in natural body, like ours, crucified, resurrected, ascended and enthroned in heaven, then all the saved are invested for inclusion in the family of faith, as sons and daughters, through Him; we must be born again by the voluntary acceptance of His word, Spirit, and testimony in eternal truth.
1 Cor 15:22 He is the Lord invested bodily from heaven, exalted, and enthroned immortal with the power to command the subsequent resurrection of all. And to save from among them, [meaning the resurrected] those who will dwell together with Him in the new heaven and new earth, after the first death in the body has been destroyed completely. There will be a second death that refers to the eternally burning fire of torments in the resurrected body, at the resurrection to judgment.
This is the truth, that all men will be resurrected bodily to either reward with Christ, or punishment with Satan and his angels in eternal burning.
The first resurrection refers to all who are regenerated in Christ, from the moment of new birth, by believing, to the moment of change at His appearing, first being secured in heaven with Himself, ascending in absence from the body, after death, alive in Spirit and soul, and the saved as remaining bodily present on earth, to be changed at His appearing. When He comes He will put an end to all mortality, meaning a death destruction of the rest along with the present heavens and earth sustaining the body of mortality. The whole environment will collapse. And only those born-again changed in the moment can survive it. For in that moment, they will be changed immortal and never die, forever at all thereafter.
Both those who have already been secured with Him where He is, and those of us who are alive and remain in the mortal body to His coming at the consummation will be changed immortal together.
In order to end all death, the environment created for the sustenance of the mortal body must be collapsed so that no other person is reproduced in the body of mortality from that time forward and forever. The final number of all those saved from humanity beginning to end has arrived at that moment to be certified and remained immortal forever.
The wicked destroyed by death rather than changed without dying, in the passing away of the entire environment built to sustain all mortality, must be resurrected to final judgement.
Please prayerfully consider this:
Every creature under heaven reproduces after its own kind. And you are a created being, reproduced after the kind of Adam.
You don't have a choice that you presently exist, or that God has created you with a death surviving soul.
You don't have a choice that you will be resurrected by the power and glory of God to stand before Him.
But you do have a choice about whether you will be reconciled to God and enter into Christ's Kingdom now, through His blood shed for you at the cross, and His body broken in death, in full payment for your sin, you must only believe that He is the Son of God and God has raised Him from the dead.
If you want to receive His offer and gift of eternal life, to live in His favor and blessing, from this moment forever after and ascend to where Jesus is, after your death in the body, or at His appearing from heaven at the consummation, to be with Him forever, in the greater body of immortality, "you must be born again". John 3:3
Father I ask you to open the eyes of the longing heart as the reader considers these things, and give understanding, give wisdom and revelation, draw people to You in Your desire that none would perish but rather that all would be saved! Let every reader consider and call upon your name and turn their thoughts and meditations to You, as You draw them near. In Jesus name Amen!
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