The language of the apostle seems to give me my answer, and so does all the analogy of Scripture. He "was not found, because God had translated him." This sounds as though man had been a stranger to that glorious hour. The world seems to have inquired and searched after him, like the sons of the prophets after Elijah; but in vain. 2 Kings ii. 17; Heb. xi. 5. And this tells us that the translation had been a secret to man; for they would not have searched, had they seen it.
All scriptural or divine analogy answers me in like manner. Glory, in none of its forms or actions, is for the eye or ear of mere man.
Horses and chariots filled the mountain; but the prophet's servant had to get his eye opened ere he could see them. Daniel saw a glorious stranger, and heard his voice as the voice of a multitude; but the men who stood with him saw nothing--only a terror fell on them. The glory on "the holy hill" shone only in the sight of Peter, James, and John, though the brightness there at that moment (night as it was) might have lighted up all the land; for the divine face "did shine as the sun." Many bodies of saints arose, attendants on the Lord's rising; but it was only to some in the holy city they showed themselves. The heaven was opened over the head of the martyr of Jesus, in the very midst of a multitude; but the glory was seen only by him. Paul went to Paradise, and Philip to Azotus; but no eye of man tracked either the flight or the journey. And beyond all, when Jesus rose, and that, too, from a tomb of hewn stone, and from amid a guard of wakeful soldiers, no ear or eye was in the secret. It was a lie, that the keepers of the stone slept; but it is a truth, that they saw no more of the resurrection than had they done so. Silence and secrecy thus mark all these glorious transactions. Visions, audiences, resurrections, flights, ascensions, the glory down here, and the heaven opened up there, all these go on, and yet mere man is a stranger to all. And the translation of Enoch takes company with all these, I assuredly judge; and so, I further judge, will another glorious hour soon to come, in which "they that are Christ's" are all to be interested.
I have now reached and closed the fifth chapter. The first part of the Book of Genesis will be found to end here. For these chapters (i.-v.) constitute a little volume.
I. This chapter opens the volume with the work of creation.
II. Creation being complete, the Lord, the Creator, takes His delight in it; and in the midst of it, and over it, places the man whom He had formed in His own image, with all endowments and possessions to make his condition perfect.
III. Man, thus made perfect, being tried and overcome, we see the ruin which he wrought, and the redemption which God provided.
IV. V. These chapters then show us one branch of this ruined, redeemed family choosing the ruins, and another branch of it delighting in the redemption.
This is simple, and yet perfect. The tale is told--a tale of other days; but in the results and sympathies of which we live at this hour.
It is the sight of the elect, believing, heavenly household, which we get in this little volume, which has at this time drawn my thoughts to it. They walked on earth as we should walk; but they were, by their faith, hope, and destiny, all the while, very near heaven, as we are.