jezzaclark

Often coming out of Christianity we have great ideas and dreams of what the future will look like. We scour the pages of the Bible to see what picture we can get of God's plans at the end. In our searching we often come to those books which seem a little more obscure to our minds. Understanding them can be really hard, especially when we want to get all the details right. Unfortunately we can end obscuring the image by pushing the details too far.

Daniel is one such book. Its images of statues, beasts and predictions about weeks and the enemy paint an incredible picture. In fact to try and draw the picture would often end up looking really dumb because it is so incredible. I find it hard enough to imagine a ten horned beast, then a little horn that uproots three and makes great boasts, its a horn!

Recently I had to write an essay assessing the methods and assumptions in popular end time theories from the book of Daniel. What did I discover in this process?

Daniel is a great book, one that is far more profound than I ever imagined. It is concerned for God's sovereignty, even the great kings of Babylon or Persia/Media (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius) are nothing in the face of God. I had to do a talk at youth group on chapter 4. The great thing that stands out to me, the great king Nebuchadnezzar eating grass! Can you imaging a king eating grass, let alone the king of the great Babylonian empire. And if he did, would his people ever let him rule again? But our God is the great God, he can cause kings to eat grass, he can cause kings to rise, to fall, he can protect his people from great fiery furnaces, he can shut the mouths of lions, he can send messages that only his people can understand. Whether or not he will do these things in our lifetime is a different question The answer in Daniel 3:18 of Shack, Mack and Benny (some nicknames for Daniel's three friends) sums up the message of the book. 'God can save us from the fiery furnace, but even if he doesn't, we won't bow down and worship you!' (my paraphrase) What an encouragement to us today. It doesn't matter what happens in this world, no matter how much Christians get or feel persecuted, we are not/will not bow down and worship anything/anyone other than God. May this be true!

To deal with the actual images we turn to an outline of the book. Chapters 1-6 then set the scene for the great images of chapters 7-12. In chapters 7-12 we see great visions of horned beasts, rams and goats, explanations of 70 weeks, the future events of Babylon, Persia, Media, Greece, kings rising and falling. But over it all is the sovereign God who is directing these things, fighting battles, for his purposes. Now, the more I read I can't help but see these images and explanations as depicting events, particularly around the second century BC. In fact the link to Akkadian prophecy seems strong. Akkadian prophecy summarises past history and then projects into the future. That future is not 100% clear at the time, but this is the nature of this type of prophecy. It doesn't matter so much whether it does get it perfectly right. However, this reminds us of chapters 1-6 – are all the details exactly right? Did Nebuchadnezzar really eat grass? But these chapters are similar to Menippean Satire. Telling a story in an embellished form to make a point, in this case that God is sovereign. The Akkadian prophecy of ch 9-12 makes the same point, God is sovereign, he will bring about his purposes.

This all hopefully allows us to go back to dealing with the end of the world as we know it. If we are to read Daniel in its setting and for what it is trying to say we can see that it is sending a strong message to Israelites in exile, most likely in the 2nd century BC. They are to trust God, even in the face of what seems terrible events, a small horn making great boasts and fighting against the holy ones, committing detestable acts. We are to remember God is sovereign, he is in control, he will bring about his purposes.

For us this turns Daniel into a book of great encouragement. To predict the end of the world from the details in the book takes more out of the book than is there, in fact it does an injustice to the book. Yes, we can see how Jesus used it, he reappropriated it for his purposes, being consistent with the book but showing how the book predicts things that are a type of what he will achieve on the cross. We live in the times waiting for his return. We look forward, knowing God is in control and achieving his purposes. It will be a great and glorious day, in fact way beyond our small imaginations. In the meantime we live faithful to him, often under great persecution from a world that just doesn't get it.

For me, Daniel says God is the boss, and it doesn't matter what happens, we should not/can not/will not bow down and worship any other God!

Jez