Hebrews 11:5 is pretty darn clear, man.
And if he didn't die, where indeed could he have gone? Not to heaven. He didn't have his sins forgiven because Christ had not yet been sacrificed. And scripture doesn't say he went to heaven. Anywhere. Scripture says that he was taken by God. "The Lord took him" is still today a euphemism for death.
Are you saying that the Creator of the Universe is bound by time - time that He created? Are you saying that Jesus didn't know what the future held, even though He invented the future? BTW, don't the folks who use that particular phrase believe in immortal souls?
There are any number of explanations that can be postulated without resorting to a notion that just ONE or TWO people in the whole bible went to heaven at the exclusion of everyone else.
One is that they are examples for how we should live in order to attain the same reward.
1Th 4:17 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.
And again, you have made my point. The folks who perserve in the end times won't see death, either. Ever. They ain't gonna die. Enoch and Elijah are examples of things that will happen large scale.
His statement is that they "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."
The fact that he mentioned that they all died is part of a larger thought.
Are you saying that the Creator of the Universe is bound by time - time that He created? Are you saying that Jesus didn't know what the future held, even though He invented the future? BTW, don't the folks who use that particular phrase believe in immortal souls?
If we don't "really" need the death and resurrection of Christ as an atonement then his incarnation must have been nothing more than a magic trick, a demonstration, a show. I don't believe that.
One is that they are examples for how we should live in order to attain the same reward.
There's not much examples from Enoch on how to live contained in scripture.
And again, you have made my point. The folks who perserve in the end times won't see death, either. Ever. They ain't gonna die. Enoch and Elijah are examples of things that will happen large scale.
We know that the bible speaks over and over about death being a sleep. That the dead know nothing. That there is nothing until the resurrection. Enoch and Elijah are one of the few scriptures that are misinterpreted in an attempt to overthrow this clear biblical teaching. I suspect that this was done in order to prove the doctrine of the immortal soul and also to justify the doctrine that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven.