The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1
III. Two Ways to Glory—Translation and Resurrection
The fifth chapter of Genesis, in which the taking away of the antediluvian prophet Enoch (seventh from Adam—Jude 14) is recorded, reads like a funeral hymn. Each strophe ends with the dirge “and he died.” But in the seventh recurrence the sequence is interrupted, and the usual refrain is replaced with the significant statement, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took. him” (Genesis 5:24). CFF1 92.2
Enoch, who was thus “translated that he should not see death” (Hebrews 11:5), became a type of the blessed destiny of the living righteous who, in the last days of earth, are likewise to be translated at the second coming of Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). Enoch’s translation was thus a living proof in antediluvian times of the wondrous provision that immortal life with God was still to be the destined portion of the righteous. And Elijah’s later translation to heaven similarly, and even more significantly, represented those to be translated at the Second Advent. CFF1 92.3
On the contrary, the bodily resurrection of Moses was a type of those who will be resurrected from the dead, but who rest in God in the “sleep of death” until the call of the Lifegiver (Psalm 13:3). Enoch, Moses, and Elijah were treated as exceptions—in that they were taken to Heaven early in Old Testament times. There is no Biblical hint of deliverance from death except through resurrection or translation, and this will commonly occur at the Second Advent. CFF1 92.4
The later appearance of the resurrected Moses and the translated Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2), talking to Jesus, made them the forerunners of the two categories. They constituted foregleams of the glory that is to come for the righteous. So there are just two ways to glory, as presented in the Old Testament—(1) bodily translation and (2) rest in God in the death sleep until the resurrection at the call of Christ the Life-giver. CFF1 92.5
Picture 6: Mount of Transfiguration:
The Resurrected Moses and the Translated Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration Prefigured the Two Ways to Glory-Resurrection and Translation.
Page 93
1. ENOCH AND ELIJAH TRANSLATED WITHOUT DYING
Enoch and Elijah, as just noted, were translated without passing through death. In the time of Enoch the tide of human guilt had reached such heights that destruction through overwhelming divine judgment was decreed. But righteous Enoch, who had walked with God on earth, was taken up through the gates of the Holy City—the first among men to enter there. As the Epistle to the Hebrews specifically puts it, he was “translated that he should not see death; ... for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5). CFF1 93.1
He was not permitted to fall under the power of death, and thus his life represents the state of holiness of the living saints who will likewise be “redeemed from the earth” (Revelation 14:3) at the time of Christ’s second advent, when gross iniquity will prevail, just as was the case before the Flood. And in this same way the saints of the last days, clad in the righteousness of Christ, will be translated just before the destruction of the world by the final deluge of fire (2 Peter 3:3-13). CFF1 94.1
2. MOSES’ RESURRECTION: FIRST TO BREAK BONDS OF DEATH
But death “reigned from Adam to Moses” (Romans 5:14) upon all who came under its power. Israel’s great leader Moses, greatest of all the Old Testament prophets (Deuteronomy 34:10), after viewing the Land of Promise from Mount Nebo and envisioning the future triumph of the faithful, died and was buried (Deuteronomy 34:1-6). But Michael 3 the Archangel (one of the many names applied to Christ in the Old Testament) called forth the sleeping prophet. Satan was angered and dismayed, for he had claimed him as one of his prize prisoners of the grave. CFF1 94.2
Christ, however, did not deign to enter into controversy with Satan, not even to remind him that it was he who, through enticing Adam and Eve to sin, had brought universal death upon the human race. Christ simply said, “The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 9), and Satan fled as Moses arose from the dead. This was the first instance of breaking the death power of the grave, and asserting the life-giving supremacy of Christ. Thus assurance was given of final resurrection to all who should “die godly” in Old Testament times. Translation and resurrection are therefore the two ways to glory. CFF1 94.3
Later, when Christ the Messiah had appeared among men to die in their stead, and soon to break forever the power of Satan over the tomb and give assurance of His resurrection power, the two ancient worthies appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses, prototype of the sleeping saints to be raised, was present along with Elijah, who had been translated without passing through death (Matthew 17:3), as an earnest of the living saints destined to be taken to Heaven without tasting death when Christ returns in power and glory (Matthew 24:30, 31). This episode demonstrated visibly both God’s power to raise the dead and man’s capability of life beyond the grave. This the apostle Paul amplifies in his description of that tremendous hour: CFF1 94.4
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we [the living] shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51, 52). CFF1 95.1
“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” (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17). CFF1 95.2