THE TESTIMONY BEFORE THE TRANSLATION
Neil C McKay
Genesis 5: 21-24
Philippians 2: 19-30
1 Timothy 6: 11-16
We have read of three men as representative of those who have their part in the testimony in the period immediately prior to the rapture, the translation - they represent features and principles that are to mark those who have part in the testimony of our Lord just before He comes again to receive us to Himself. Enoch was one who was translated, “he was not, for God took him”, and therefore is a type of us - the saints of the assembly. Timothy represents the truth, the testimony, continuing in the last days - Paul passed the baton on to Timothy, and he represents that element of what would continue. Epaphroditus represents that feature of making up what is lacking, in having a brotherly spirit and affection for the saints. These things are all needed and important, that the testimony should continue, and we should be here as living in it in the last days of the dispensation.
Enoch does not need much introduction, and we see in the progression of the teaching in this section of scripture that after Enoch begets Methuselah he walked with God for three hundred years, and then “he was not, for God took him”. Consequent on Enoch's translation mankind began to multiply on earth and evil became worse and worse. The translation of the saints will result in that - there will never be a time on earth such as will exist after the saints are raptured. Noah is introduced at that point, a righteous man, and his history shows the salvation of the remnant through the tribulation, Gen 6: 9.
As far as we know Enoch was the only man at that time who walked with God; there would have been quite a large population by that time, men “began to multiply on the earth”. So, in the midst of a very large population and with evil waxing worse and worse, he began to walk with God, day after day, for 300 years. Hebrews tells us that “he has the testimony that he had pleased God”, chap 11: 5. You may ask, ‘Why are things so small and so weak, why is the world so evil? Why are things prevalent now that were not so in my young days?’. Enoch was one man in the midst of a generation that was going on without God, when, seven generations prior to this, man had known God. He was seventh from Adam, Jude records (v 14); seven generations earlier, God sought to walk with Adam in the cool of the day (Gen 3: 8), but in Enoch we have God giving testimony that He would have victory over death. What a man - he had no Scriptures, he did not have the indwelling Spirit, he did not appear to have the benefit of godly company, it does not seem that he had any help, but he walked with God; Enoch and God, enjoying communion together. What communications he must have received, because in Jude we learn that he prophesied. There is not much, if anything, said about what Timothy says, or what Epaphroditus says, but we do have a little of what Enoch said. Jude tells us, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied also as to these, saying, Behold, the Lord has come amidst his holy myriads, to execute judgment against all; and to convict all the ungodly of them of all their works of ungodliness, which they have wrought ungodlily, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him”, v 14,15. He could not have gained such knowledge without walking with God; he got God's judgment on the whole scene. He was with God in every matter, and God took pleasure in his company. You might ask, ‘What was it worth having Enoch, one man in the midst of all this evil?’. If it was not for Enoch, God would have had to remove the whole scene; God never leaves Himself without a testimony on earth, and Enoch was that man: he had a judgment of everything here.
‘Where were all these holy myriads, Enoch, where are they? I do not see them’, you might ask too. But Enoch had faith. He did not have the indwelling Spirit, but he had faith. He had been born anew, and had the work of God in him, and he knew from his walk with God that God was going to meet every form of evil on this earth. What a judgment he had of things! I do not suppose that was all that Enoch enjoyed with God. I suppose they must have been wonderful days, every day Enoch being in communion with God, not just regarding the state of things here, but having God's approval, His approbation of all that he went on with. Enoch represents what a believer is to be, what a man of faith is to be, immediately prior to the translation, and as it says in Hebrews, God was pleased with him. Before his translation, he has the testimony that he had pleased God. What a thing! How would you like that testimony, dear brother and sister, that you please God? What a testimony that is to have. I do not know who understood it of the people that were there, but some persons saw that: ‘There is a man that pleases God’. He did not please himself; he did not go after the ways of this world; He pleased God.
And so he prophesied: “the Lord has come amidst his holy myriads”. He says to all, ‘You can go on in your evil if you will, but God will secure holy myriads’; the Lord will come and with Him there will be persons entirely in sympathy with God, and He will clear the whole scene of evil. He derived a knowledge that God could not abide for ever in the scene which He had created, but had turned to evil. He represents what we can arrive at and understand through experience with God. We value the ministry, we value the Scriptures, we value the brethren, but Enoch walked himself with God; how needful that is.
The brethren in Thessalonica were concerned about that. Paul had taught them while he was with them, and they understood that the Lord was coming again. They had that burning brightly in them, because he says that they had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens”, 1 Thess 1: 9, 10. In every chapter in the first epistle Paul mentions the Lord’s coming, to ensure that he does not belittle that truth, so as to keep them brightly awaiting it. It keeps believers bright and vital, to know that the Lord could come at any time. Paul was at pains not to lessen that desire among the Thessalonian saints. But then some among them had died, and they thought, ‘Well, if the Lord is coming again, and we are going to be with the Lord when He returns again, what of these ones that have died? Where are they going to be when the Lord comes again with His holy myriads?’. They had some clouded understanding of what was going to happen when the Lord returned with His own to establish peace in the earth, and reign in righteousness and clear the earth of evil. What they did not understand was what Paul proceeded to tell them in 1 Thessalonians 4, which we know was a special revelation for Paul to give to the saints: “But we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are fallen asleep, to the end that ye be not grieved even as also the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus has died and has risen again, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus”, v 13, 14. He said, ‘You believe that Jesus died, and God raised Him from the dead. Do you think that God has raised one Man and is going to leave everyone else in death? Of course He is going to raise them all. Everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus who has died will be raised’. He says, “we … are in no way to anticipate those who have fallen asleep; for the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel's voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven”, v 15, 16. He will come to receive us Himself personally. “And the dead and Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds”, v 16, 17. That would settle the Thessalonians! It gave them to understand the two parts to the Lord's coming: the rapture (or translation), and the appearing. The vast part of Christendom is unclear as to what is going to happen. Yes, the Lord is going to come again, and yes, He is coming with His holy myriads. But the order is that the dead in Christ shall rise first, and then all the saints will be taken together to a personal, private, meeting with the Lord before He comes again to the earth with His saints. Enoch had no understanding of that; he could not know how this was all going to transpire. But he knew that God was God, and that God was going to meet the whole matter to his own glory and satisfaction.
It has been said that there is, in every epistle, some brother or sister who sets out the truth of that epistle, and Epaphroditus is a brother who sets out somewhat the truth of Philippians; he embodies the truth, gives it personality. In Philippians, we see the state that is true to believers. We see Paul's exercise that the Philippians should be bright believers, and have the light burning within them. He speaks firstly about Timothy, and then, “but I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-workman and fellow soldier, but your messenger and minister to my need”. The context to this is given in chapter 4: 15, “And know also ye, O Philippians, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I came out of Macedonia, no assembly communicated anything to me in the way of giving and receiving save ye alone; for also in Thessalonica once and even twice ye sent to me for my need”. That is, they had given him gifts, whether it was money or goods, because he had ministered to them. He had been in Philippi, and he had left them for Thessalonica. As I understand, he was only in Thessalonica a short time, around three weeks, and twice within that period of time the brethren in Philippi had sent him gifts - because they appreciated Paul's service so much, and he credits them with that.
Now, that was an obligation they had. Paul did not always work; he had no steady income. He gave his life to the gospel, and to the ministry of the assembly. Paul might have expected to live on account of the brethren's giving. It is not clericalism; it is simply a principle that he could have expected those brethren to whom he ministered and who owed the gospel of their salvation to him to provide for him, 1 Cor 9: 14. And they had done so very well; they ministered to him twice within three weeks. But it says at the end of chapter 2 that Epaphroditus ventured “his life that he might fill up what lacked in your ministration toward me”, v 30. Paul knew how to be in privation, how to be in need, chap 4: 12. That is, following their initial gifts, they had lacked in their ministration towards Paul, and consequently he had suffered privation. It was a lack, and Paul does not ignore it; he proceeds to show them how this worked out in testimony. Epaphroditus comes in at this juncture, most remarkably in the ways of God, to make good the whole matter.
It was a very dangerous journey to go from place to place in those days, with robbers and bandits common. No doubt he would be carrying money and goods and material wealth to maintain Paul - it would not have been an easy journey, and at some point Epaphroditus became sick, and that sickness was close to death. You might ask, ‘Well, Paul healed many people. Why did Paul not heal him?’. Paul could have healed this man, no doubt - he had apostolic power. “For he was also sick close to death, but God had mercy on him, and not indeed on him alone”. The Philippians lack had to be made up, and God allowed that it was made up by Epaphroditus, not only by his coming and giving a gift, but by showing personally what Paul meant to the Philippians, and giving Paul opportunity to express what they meant to him, showing personally that the love and grace which the Philippians had towards Paul necessitated that Epaphroditus should go as far as to draw near to death. God determined that this was an important matter, and the Philippians were such a fine company that there was a filling up to do, and Epaphroditus was a brother that was able to come in and fill up what was lacking, suitably to God and suitably to Paul and to do so he ventured close even to death. What a matter; you may think, ‘but this is just a gift’, and ‘the Philippians were not well off’, but this was a matter of importance to God, that the link between Paul and the Philippian saints should not at all be changed or diminished. Can you see the glorious ways of God in that?
So Epaphroditus represents a brother who will do everything he can to make up what was lacking in a company. He represents someone who is Paul's fellow-workman and fellow-soldier; he represents someone in the locality who values Paul's ministry, who is prepared to do everything to maintain all that is due to Paul. He represents someone who loves the saints so much that the reason he is happy when he is well again, is that the Philippians are not vexed about it - are not distressed that that he was ill; he represents a link between Paul and the Philippian saints. “He had a longing desire after you all”. It is open to us all, dear brother and sister, to bring in the wonderful ministry of Paul, and bring in the truth and make up whatever is lacking. It was a distribution of love between Paul and the Philippian saints, and he maintained the brotherly link between Paul and the Philippian brethren at great expense himself, involving great suffering.
Paul speaks elsewhere of his own sufferings. In Colossians, “I rejoice in sufferings for you, and I fill up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh, for his body”, chap 1: 24. There are sufferings that are needed in the testimony, and if we do not fill them up then someone will fill them up. It is important to be prepared to do whatever is needed for the testimony, and Paul was prepared to make up all that was required. He would not hold the Philippians to account but, now that the matter has been made good, he shows the wonderful ways of God to maintain the brotherly link between Paul and the Philippian saints. It has been said that the fact that Epaphroditus is introduced in this chapter, when such lowliness of mind is expressed in the Lord Jesus Himself, shows the kind of brother Epaphroditus was. The Lord Jesus was “obedient even unto death”, Phil 2: 8. Well, Epaphroditus could not do that, but he would go as far as he could. Later on when there was an issue in the locality with Euodia and Syntyche (chap 4: 2, 3), who were not of the same mind; having written this epistle, most likely by the hand of Epaphroditus, Paul says, “I ask thee also, true yoke-fellow, assist them, who have contended along with me in the glad tidings”. He does not write them down, he says, ‘You assist them, and you are the kind of brother that is going to be able to help in these situations, a brother that loves your brethren, and a brother who would venture your life; go to the full extent to help your brethren’. Well these things are needed, dear brethren, to maintain life among the brethren, to maintain the brotherly covenant, to maintain the testimony.
Timothy is well known, and the scriptures that relate to Timothy are often referred to. We read one of them in Philippians 2: “I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on”. Now Timothy became one of Paul's company, and Paul speaks of him as his “child” (1 Tim 1: 2), and somewhere also as his “beloved child”, 2 Tim 1: 2. He has a genuine link with Paul, and he represents the continuation of Paul's ministry to the end, the continuation of the testimony in dark days; because in 2 Timothy Paul writes to him when things publicly in the church were broken down and Paul saw that the great departure had already begun. He speaks in chapter 3 of “in the last days”, that is, the last days of Christendom, that “difficult times shall be there; for men shall be lovers of self … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God”, v 1, 4. It is striking to think that these features in 2 Timothy 3 relate to apostate Christendom and not to the world. Timothy was a brother who was used of Paul: Paul was a great general in the battlefield, the testimony, and he disposed of Timothy with regard to the needs of the testimony. Paul was hoping to send him to Philippi shortly; he had also sent him on another occasion to Corinth; and he had left Timothy in Ephesus too at one point: “Even as I begged thee to remain in Ephesus”, 1 Tim 1: 3. He must have been quite a brother to have in a locality - “who shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ”, 1 Cor 4: 17. We speak of him as a young man; I presume he maybe was in his thirties, but he was able to go to Corinth in the midst of such wrongdoings that were happening there, and he was there as Paul would be there. He was there as representing Paul, Paul's ministry, and Paul's line in Corinth, in the midst of big men, who thought themselves to be spiritual and wanted to rule in the local assembly. Paul sent to them Timothy, to “put you in mind of my ways”. Left at Ephesus, in that company which represents the height of Paul's ministry, he was to help maintain the great truths which Paul expounded there. You would have loved to have heard Timothy in the service of God.
Paul is now beginning to pass off the scene, and he sees the need for the testimony to continue, and he enjoins Timothy, “But thou, O man of God, flee these things”: that is evil things: love of money, and temptations, and so on, “and pursue, righteousness, piety, faith, love, endurance, meekness of spirit. Strive earnestly in the good conflict of faith. Lay hold of eternal life”. Then he says, “I enjoin thee before God who preserves all things in life, and Christ Jesus who witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession, that thou keep the commandment spotless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”. He says, ‘The Lord is coming back; the rapture is imminent, and then the appearing’. He says, “keep the commandment spotless”: ‘maintain the truth; teach the brethren these things; pass them on to faithful men. Maintain all that is due to the Lord Jesus’. I do not know that there is any injunction in scripture quite so solemn or sober as this one that was given to Timothy. If a brother said to you, “I enjoin thee before God … and Christ Jesus”, would that not be a sober injunction to you? This was not written to a rebellious person - Timothy was a fine brother. It has been said that he would go to Corinth and exemplify subjection and obedience - the Corinthians would have learned subjection and obedience in that young man. We are not told what the commandment is, but it must involve faithfulness to Christ in His absence, what we have to do in the absence of Christ in a world which crucified Him. We are left here in the will of God, and we have to maintain all that is due to the Lord Jesus.
Well, none of us feel that we are able for these things, but these men represent us; they represent the features that are to be found in us just before the rapture: to keep the commandment, to maintain the truth, and to help the saints and to minister to them, to maintain brotherly love and make up what is lacking, and to walk with God; to be right in our individual links with God. That there are some godly persons in the world who are a testimony to Christ gives God a basis to go on with this world. It is striking to think that God values every godly person in this earth because without such He would have to come in in judgment on the world. If there was nothing here at all for God He would have to rid it of evil, but because there are persons here in this earth He can stay His judgment, He can maintain the gospel, and He can continue the testimony. These things are in our hands; it comes down to us to keep these things, to be preserved in life, to lay hold of eternal life, to value what it says here: “before God who preserves all things in life, and Christ Jesus who witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession”. Paul would say: ‘It has been done before; Christ witnessed a good confession before Pilate; the world was all against Christ, and now the world is against you: maintain it and do not slip away, and do not give up on the truth, and do not go back on things, maintain the good confession, and keep the commandment spotless, irreproachable. Do not give anyone reason to speak anything against you in regard to your walk’.
I trust we are encouraged, for His Name's sake. Amen.
Grangemouth
18th May 2024