Jesus Seen From a Provindential Perspective
In the preface to this book we suggested that looking at Jesus from a providential perspective would shed a new and necessary light on his unique nature and special place in history. That perspective derives from understanding the Divine Providence, which is the original and unchanging purpose of our Creator working itself out over time.
The aim of the providence is the establishment of a world of goodness and love in which all people are at one with God and live in harmony with one another. The original Garden of Eden embodied this ideal, but it was destroyed due to the disobedience of the first humans, Adam and Eve. Providential history traces God’s work to free humanity from the dominion of Satan that resulted from the alienation of the first family and its descendants from the Creator. Thus the goal of the providence is to raise up sinless replacements for Adam and Eve who can establish a new Eden, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Jesus was the most important person in providential history. After millennia of providential preparation for a savior, Jesus came as a second Adam to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It is this mission of Jesus that is the key to understanding him and his impact on the world.
As the Biblical account of the Fall reveals, one salient feature of the providence is that it requires the cooperation of human beings, who are endowed with the potential to achieve perfection but only on condition that they exercise their free will in accordance with the Divine purpose. Thus although God’s purpose and will are unchanging, their realization in the perfection of individuals and society is subject to men and women fulfilling their God-given responsibilities.
As we will elaborate in this book, the best way to understand God’s purpose for the creation is to compare it to the desire of parents who want children who will grow to adulthood and share in a world of love and joy. Fallen nature makes the realization of this ideal extremely difficult.
The difficulty of getting sinful people to fulfill their responsibilities was demonstrated at the very beginning when Cain, the eldest son of Adam and Eve, killed his innocent younger brother, Abel, in a fit of selfish jealousy and resentment. With this dark and murderous behavior establishing a pattern for Satanic dominion of the world, it would take many millennia of slow and painful progress—spearheaded by a series of Godly leaders, such as Noah, Abraham, Moses and the prophets—before a people capable of receiving a second Adam could be guided into forming a providential nation.
It is against this background that we must examine the significance of Israel’s rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. Didn’t the conspiracy to kill Jesus pursued by the religious and political leaders of Israel amount to a repetition of Cain’s murder of Abel? If so, what impact did that have on Jesus’ mission to replace Adam? Indeed, wasn’t the crucifixion of Jesus the reason the Kingdom of Heaven on earth was not established by Jesus and remains a distant hope even today?
The Three Parts of This Book
The chapters of this book delve into the many issues related to the Divine Providence as described above. They are organized in three parts to help the reader recognize the three stages of the providence that are most pertinent to this narrative.
The first part looks at the significance of Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah of the Old Testament prophesies, but also as the fruit of a millennial process of spiritual evolution and enlightenment necessitated by the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It examines the mission of Jesus as a ‘second Adam’ whose advent followed a prolonged period of preparation during which chosen individuals and tribes had to set certain conditions of obedience that reversed the disobedience of our first ancestors. Although these preparations were concentrated in Israel, they were part of a worldwide period of enlightenment.
The second part looks at the life of Jesus in terms of his mission to replace Adam and the responsibility of Israel to embrace and follow him as the Messiah. Here we look at the behavior of his immediate family and his close relatives in the family of John the Baptist, at the resistance of Israel’s establishment leaders to the person and message of Jesus, and at the betrayal of those close to Jesus that paved the way to the cross
The third part looks at the impact of the cruel treatment of Jesus by Israel and how this led to Israel’s loss of its privileged position as the nation chosen to receive the Messiah. It traces the creation and evolution of Christianity, which inherited the mission to establish a new Israel to receive a second advent of Christ. It interprets major events, such as the emergence of Islam, Marxism and modern science, in the light of the providence and role of Christianity in the world today.
The Need to Complete the Biblical Narrative
The Divine Providence discussed in this book is the very root of life and our existence. It therefore precedes and transcends all scriptures and beliefs as well as all the human divisions, whether of religion, race or nationality. We are all God’s children.
The Bible covers a central providence leading to the advent of Jesus, but it does not explain the providential role of other religions and spiritual movements, such as those that rose in Asia several centuries before Jesus. It also does not recognize the role of classical Greece with its discoveries that would form the foundations for Western Civilization and the development of science.
Finally, the Bible’s narrative ends with the lives of the earliest followers of Jesus, notably the 12 disciples and the apostle Paul, leaving us without a scriptural basis for understanding the providence as it has developed over the past 2,000 years.
Thus in this book we have endeavored to supplement the Gospel narratives with a providential interpretation of Old and New Testament scriptures, and applied the same interpretive perspective to our discussion of the last two millennia of providential history
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Thomas Cromwell
