by
Richard L. Barker
Copyright 2020 by Richard Barker
ISBN 9780463464946
[Updated version: September 2023]
Thank you for downloading this PDF. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.
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CONTENTS
Chapter One - GOD’S SECRET PLAN
Chapter Two - THE LOST COVENANT
Chapter Three - FAITH AND JUSTIFICATION
Chapter Four - THE UNIVERSAL COVENANT
Chapter Five - PROGRESSIVE REVELATION
Chapter Six – CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL
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“THE LITTLE BOOK OF PROVIDENCE” vis-a-vis THE PROPHECIES OF ENOCH
My book is about the Bible; it is primarily concerned with canonical scripture and its interpretation. However, The Book of Enoch was effectively treated as canonical by the very early Church Fathers including Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Tertullian believed it to be inspired and written by Enoch himself. Even those such as Augustine who were instrumental in ensuring it was ultimately rejected by most of Christendom acknowledged it to be divinely inspired, principally in view of its citing in New Testament Jude. And its opening verse suggests it was never God’s intention that the book be canonical to be focused on by the churches through their history; rather, it was to be a blessing to the generation of Christians who would live to see the second coming of Christ.
In Week 7 of Enoch’s Apocalypse, the patriarch foretold that a seven-part instruction concerning God’s providential intentions towards His whole creation would be provided. Those who received it and acted upon it would be “the elect righteous of the eternal plant of righteousness”. That is the generation of saints who would live to see Christ’s return. As to how this would come about: “After they have written down truthfully all my words in their languages, not erring from my words but writing them down truthfully, then I know another mystery. Books are to be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom. To them shall the books be given, and they shall believe in them and rejoice over them, and then shall all the righteous who have learnt from them the true paths of righteousness be recompensed” [En104:10-14 my highlighting].
Such would not occur until just after Enoch’s writings had been faithfully set out and made available to many peoples in their own languages. This affirms The Book of Enoch to be prophecy indeed
– for his writings were concealed for centuries and only recently discovered in the caves of Qumran in the 1940s and widely translated. As for the “other books” that were to be freely distributed, that cannot refer to the supplementary books of Enoch or indeed anything discovered at Qumran. They of themselves could never be “a cause of joy, uprightness and much wisdom” for the generation “who would be living at the time of tribulations when the wicked and godless are to be removed” (Enoch’s opening verse). For as with the canonical Old Testament, they do not contain or adequately reflect the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles set out in the New Testament.
So, either the books being referred to are entirely new revelation for the last days of the current age OR they are a clarification of earlier revelation that had been widely misinterpreted. It can only be the latter – for everything the world and the church are intended to know and practice in the current age has already been provided in the New Testament and cannot be supplemented.
That is where I believe The Little Book of Providence comes in. It is not new revelation; it is certainly not primarily about the Book of Enoch, rather it is a re-interpretation of the whole Bible – a part of a process that is, I believe, fulfilling the prophecy of Enoch, and (more speculatively) the tenth chapter of Revelation. I am barely comfortable making such a claim, but it arises from the series of extraordinary events that have occurred to me in recent years to which I have attested in my website.
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Divine providence can be defined in many ways, but in the context of this book it concerns God’s foreseeing protection and care of His creation, and in the case of beings created in His own image, their anticipated eternal wellbeing. To begin to understand how and why the munificent nature of God’s providence has long been obscured in traditional renderings of the gospel, we should start by examining what the apostle Paul wrote on the subject – daring to believe that he meant exactly what he scribed, including some seemingly extraordinary statements in Romans chapter eleven1. The apostle makes a more cryptic reference to this mystery in the third chapter of Ephesians, translated in some Bible versions as “the fellowship of the secret (or mystery)”. That happens to be the title of my previous book, for although Paul’s revelation concerning God’s salvific plan for the Gentile nations is by no means the only biblical doctrine that needs to be revisited, a coherent synopsis cannot be provided without it.
On several occasions Paul described his evangelistic message as “my gospel”2. That was appropriate for it contained aspects that had not been revealed to anyone until his conversion:
“The mystery which has been hidden from ages and generations but has now
been revealed to His saints, to whom God willed to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”3
The apostle was referring to a dispensation of heavenly grace that was to be made available to Jew and Gentile rather than exclusively to Israel, God’s first-choice nation. It would be provided to those
“predestined to become conformed to the image of God’s Son”4. As Paul himself affirmed (but few appear to have grasped), such privileges were not envisaged for members of the Gentile nations in the current epoch and resulted from the disobedience of the Jewish nation:
“What I am saying is this: Was this stumbling to lead to the Jews’ final downfall?
Out of the question! On the contrary, their failure has brought salvation for the
Gentiles, in order to stir them to envy. And if their downfall brings great riches5 to the world, and their loss has brought great riches to the Gentiles – how much more will their restoration bring!”6
And later in the same chapter:
“For you (Gentiles) were once disobedient towards God but you have now obtained mercy through (the Jew’s) disobedience” 7
1 Especially vv11,12,15 &30
2 Greek: to euaggelion mou – Rom2:16; Rom16:25; 2Tim2:8
3 Col1:26,27 – Unless otherwise stated New Testament texts are not quoted from a particular version of the Bible but are the author’s own translation from the Greek. These can be verified with an interlinear Bible such as that provided by Scripture4all HERE
4 Rom8:2
5 Greek: ploutos
6 Rom11:11-12
7 Rom11:30
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Paul is referring to the same mystery below, confirming that it was new revelation:
“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of
men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow
partakers of the promises in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light the fellowship8
pertaining to the secret (plan) which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with His purpose for the ages which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him”9
Saul of Tarsus - The thirteenth faithful apostle
Jesus had called twelve men to the apostolate, partly for symbolic reasons:
“And Jesus said to (His disciples), “Truly I say to you who have followed Me, in the Regeneration when the Son of Man will sit down on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel”10
The symbolism pertained to the reconstitution of God’s chosen people: the twelve tribes, only two of which had survived at this point. Judas was replaced by Matthias who was added to the eleven faithful apostles11 to witness to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
Saul of Tarsus on the other hand was appointed out of due time12 having been commissioned by the risen and ascended Christ as the thirteenth faithful apostle now that gospel salvation was to be made available to the Gentile nations. It becomes evident as one reads through Acts that in spite of the Great Commission to baptize and make disciples of all nations, it is not until events recorded in the eleventh chapter that any of the original twelve fully grasped that anyone who was not a Jew, Samaritan or proselyte could be granted the same gift of salvation as that intended for the Jews:
“I (Peter) realized then that God was giving (the Gentiles) the identical gift He gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; and who was I to stand in God’s way? This account satisfied them, and they gave glory to God, saying “God has clearly granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life”13
It needs to be understood that references to “eternal life” or “life” in the New Testament relate to being re-united to God in Christ:
8 Or “administration” (Greek: oikonomia) – textual variant utilized in some Bible versions 9 Eph3:1-12
10 Mt19:28
11 Acts1:26
12 1Cor15:8
13 Acts11:17,18
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“This is eternal life, that they might know You the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent”14
“Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has (present tense) eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day”15
“No murderer has eternal life abiding in him” 16
Eternal life (literally age-life) is something to be experienced now; a higher form and quality of life than that which one can naturally know as fallen human beings. It should be noted that even the sinless Saviour asserted that He “lived by the Father”17 in the same way
“those who eat Me shall live by Me18. It affirms that “life” as Jesus, Paul and others speak of it does not refer to avoiding perdition or “going to heaven when you die” for that was hardly an issue for Jesus, yet even He “lived by the Father”. It relates rather to a present empowering relationship with the divine; “death” being the deprivation of such.
The mystery revealed to Paul was not apprehended even by Peter until he received a vision of the sheet of unclean animals that he was told to kill and eat19. Paul had to rebuke Peter for his reluctance to fellowship with Gentile Christians20, again affirming that the mystery Paul was disclosing was not something that Jesus had made clear to the twelve.
Why Old Testament prophecy has been subverted
The subversion of Old Testament prophecy that is to be outlined in this chapter resulted from a two-stage rejection by the Jews of their Messiah, the first during His life, the second pertaining to their response to the apostles’ teaching after Jesus had been resurrected and had ascended to heaven. The first rejection may be perceived in Jesus’
lamenting of Jerusalem:
“If you had known, even you, especially in this your day the things that make for
your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children with you, to the ground, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your
visitation” 21
Whilst many ordinary Jews would welcome Jesus to their city with palm leaves their leaders were indignant and already plotting His downfall. This was the first rejection culminating in the crucifixion and as Jesus stated it put paid to the hope that the coming of the Messiah would bring an end to Israel’s political and military problems. The promise of peace and security for Jerusalem, evident in much prophecy including the recent angelic annunciations concerning the birth of John and Jesus, would not be secured by Jesus in His earthly lifetime, indeed worse was to come for Israel in about a generation’s time as Jesus 14 Jn17:3
15 Jn6:54
16 1Jn3:15
17 Jn6:57a
18 Jn6:57b
19 Acts11:1-18
20 Gal2:11-14
21 Lk19:42-44
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had warned in His Olivet sermon22. However, this is not what resulted in the rejection of the Jewish nation as sole inheritors of the Kingdom that Paul refers to in Romans 11 and Ephesians 3. Such is affirmed in Acts where the apostle indicates that even after Pentecost it was still the Jewish people’s “day of visitation”, and they were still not appreciating it. Paul had warned certain Jews at Antioch:
“Be careful! – or what the prophets say will happen to you: “Cast your eyes around you mockers; be amazed and perish! For I am doing something in your own days that you would never believe if you were told of it”23
The warning was about what will or might happen to the Jewish nation, not what already had happened. Their day of visitation did not end when they crucified Christ: that event that Jesus referred to as His other baptism had been both divinely planned and prophesied24; what was shortly to occur was undoubtedly planned or foreknown by God and also hinted at in some of Jesus’ parables, but it had not been foretold within the Old Testament. It concerned the establishment of an international messianic community, a plan hidden in God the Father25 even from earlier prophets. For the Jewish leaders had refused to acknowledge that the resurrection and the miraculous signs were the vindication of Jesus’ earlier claims. They still rejected His Messiahship even now that He had been raised to the highest heavens having empowered His disciples to work miracles in His name. The Jews had already forfeited the prospect of political peace and security through their rejection of Jesus in His lifetime, now something even more radical was at stake: Kingdom inheritance. The next Sabbath, these same leaders “filled with jealousy” towards the apostles, just as they had been toward Jesus used blasphemies to contradict everything Paul was telling them, which prompted the apostle to add:
“We had to proclaim the word of God to you (Jews) first, but since you have
rejected it since you do not think yourselves worthy of eternal life, here and now we turn
to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord commanded us to do when He said “I have made (Israel) a light to the nations, so that my salvation may reach the remotest parts of the world”26
The prophecy from which Paul quotes (Is49) declares Israel to be God’s servant, through whom He would manifest His glory and by whom He would bring saving enlightenment to the whole world. The Jews as His chosen people, being the first fruits of His increase27 and heirs of the world28 would have come to know eternal life (as previously defined) through sanctification in Christ blood29; but as the same prophet foretold this had been prophetically linked with the restoration and liberation of their nation and holy city through the direct intervention of a returning Messiah, who as well as residing with his 22 Mt24
23 Acts13:40-41
24 Acts2:23; Is53:5
25 Paul’s references to “God” always refer to the Father. The economy of the Godhead is a mystery but the Father’s monarchical status is a biblical reality that needs to be recognized in order to understand aspects of what is being presented in this document, in particular the fact that the timing of events is under the Father’s authority (Mk13:32; Acts1:7; Eph3:9; Rev1:1) 26 Acts13:46,47
27 Jer2:3 cf. Jam1:18
28 Rom4:13
29 Zech13:1
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people would act as judge and arbitrator with opposing nations30. As a result of their rejection, the universal enlightenment would go ahead without them by means of a newly formed universal assembly founded by their Messiah and His apostles, none of whom would be drawn from the ranks of the Jewish sacral hierarchy. Although it is only briefly alluded to in Scripture, the longed-for national liberation and the re-instatement of Israel to “the Kingdom” would now have to wait31. Shortly afterwards at Corinth, preaching in the synagogue, more Jews turned against Paul and started to insult him. Paul took his cloak and shook it out in front of them, saying:
“Your blood be on your own heads; I am clean; from now on I will go to the Gentiles”32
But why should Paul not be clean (or innocent) if he brought such a message of salvation to the Gentiles and the Jews had not rejected it? Was not such salvation envisaged for all? Clearly not: “For as a result of the Jews’ rejection, salvation has come to the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy”33. It was not a matter of protocol or order it was a transfer of privilege. This will make more sense once it is has been demonstrated that there is salvation and there is SALVATION. The latter was earmarked for the Jews alone in Old Testament prophecy but was to be made available to the nations through Paul’s revelation concerning the Gentile inheritance. “Salvation” as foretold for the Gentile nations meant one would be enlightened, pardoned in the name of Jesus if one acknowledged Him as Lord, leading to acceptance as a subject in God’s Kingdom, for all who call on the name of the Lord would be spared from perdition. SALVATION on the other hand was to be born again by water and Spirit, delivered from corruption by means of sanctification in the blood of sprinkling34 resulting in eternal life, being an interior communion with Christ and the Spirit, participation in God’s royal priesthood and a joint inheritance with the Lord of Glory.
In the early chapters of Acts, everything appeared to be following prophetic expectations: Messiah had come, been rejected, executed, raised and ascended. The Spirit had been poured out upon Jews and proselytes on Pentecost, the dead were being raised; demons expelled, numerous miracles being performed, not just by apostles but deacons as well35. Even items of the apostles’ clothing or handkerchiefs were taken to people, and they were healed. Multitudes came to the apostles for healing, and again, all were healed. The Good News about Jesus was being preached as a result of which Jews, Samaritans and proselytes were receiving the gift of the Spirit, such that at that point Peter could say:
“All the prophets that have ever spoken from Samuel onwards have predicted these days”36
But they had not predicted what was about to follow: Gentiles were to be granted
“eternal life” and have equal status with elect Jews as joint heirs with Christ in His Kingdom.
30 Is2:4; Mic4:3
31 Acts1:6
32 Acts18:6
33 Rom11:11
34 Heb12:24 cf. Heb10:29
35 Acts6:8
36 Acts3:24
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