The Christian and Old Testament Theology

Transcription

1 The Christian and Old Testament Theology OT509 LESSON 22 of 24 Walt C. Kaiser, Ph.D. Experience: President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts Lecture 22, Daniel: The Theologian of the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, one of the great themes of Scripture and Daniel, one of its greatest exegetes. The doctrine of the kingdom of God is presented in the Old Testament as part of the promise-plan. You ll notice that for a good number of evangelical scholars, some who are some of my best friends, they ll critique me on this point, and they will say, what in the world is wrong with you, why don t you take the kingdom of God and make it the main theme? After all, didn t Jesus come announcing the kingdom of God? Isn t that the substance of what Paul is speaking about, isn t that the substance especially of Ezekiel and Daniel? And, of course, it is and I very readily submit to that, but I think that it is only an aspect of the larger promise-plan of God. And furthermore, it is much later in development. We need to go all the way back and begin from Genesis 1-11 and through the patriarchal period. We will find very, very small, precious few, elements in those earlier parts of Scripture on the kingdom of God, but we will find an enormous amount on the promise-plan of God. So we subsume the kingdom theme under the promise-plan, rather than vise-versa. Now, this line of development in the promise-plan has already been traced, but let s sort of pick up at least four or five of the main elements by way of introducing this theme on the kingdom of God. This line of development includes these facts: First of all, kings would come from Abraham, Sarah and Jacob. That s exactly what had been promised in the earlier text, Genesis 17:6 and 16, in that great chapter where we have the sign of the covenant, there lo and behold he says, in 17:6, I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. So we are given a hint of the theme of the kingdom as early as Genesis 17:6, 16. Also in Genesis 35:10. 1 of 14

2 Now, of course, this means that there would come the Ishmaelite kings, the Midianite kings, the Moabite kings, they all come from Abraham s seed, that s for sure. But there would also be a royal line leading up to David and I think that was implicit in the promise as well. A second fact in this line of development is that Moses looked forward to a king in Israel. And even before Samuel s great prayer with God in which he really was upset with the people for asking for a king, it had been God s plan and intention, not only in patriarchal times, 2000 to 1800 BC, but also in the times of Moses, 1400 BC. In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, there he said that when you come into the land I will set a king over you. So there had been a plan also for a king. A third fact that should be put here, and that is, in Hannah s Song she testifies in her song which, of course, is used in the Magnificat of Mary, when Mary says, My soul doth magnify the Lord, [Luke 1:46 KJV] she is taking her words out of Hannah s Song upon the birth of Samuel back in I Samuel 2. But I m thinking particularly about verse 10, those who oppose the Lord will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of (his Messiah,) his anointed. So you have horn, Messiah and king put all together. We know the Messiah that was to come, prayed Hannah in this song, would be triumphant and he would come as a king. So the anointed one would be a king, I Samuel 2:10. A fourth fact here: To David, God promised to give him a kingdom in II Samuel 7:16, he said, I ll give you, I ll make out of you a dynasty, a house, a throne and a kingdom and your son will be a king to me forever and I ll be a father to him. Well, great teaching then and we go miles forward as we find out the promise now includes, not only a seed, but which seed would be a king and that king would have a throne and a dynasty and a realm, a kingdom, over which to reign, II Samuel 7:16. So the Scriptures give a central and emphatic place to the kingdom in the promise doctrine. The Davidic kingdom is celebrated in the Psalms for being widespread. The great Psalm, which is the greatest commentary on II Samuel 7 and I Chronicles 17, is Psalm 89. And in Psalm 89:25, there he has this wonderful theme about how widespread the kingdom of God will be, I will set the hand of my Messiah he is saying here over the sea, his 2 of 14

3 right hand over the rivers. And he goes on to speak of it as being from shore to shore. As a matter of fact, it will also be eternal, Psalm 72:5, 7 and 11, until the moon shall wax no more. As a matter of fact, that s Isaac Watts famous hymn, Jesus shall reign wherever the sun does its successful journey run. That was taken out of Psalm 72 and is Messianic and it speaks of the extent of the kingdom of God, as far as the east is from the west, that s the extent of his kingdom, which is world-wide. And, in fact, God s throne on earth, not in Heaven, the eternal throne promised to the seed of David, was to be eternal, said Psalm 45:6, in a most startling way: Thy throne, O God, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: Now, this usually boggles the mind of almost every commentator who tries to handle that reference here. How could the throne of David be called, Thy throne O God? The address in apposition to the throne is that the one seated on it now is being given deity and he is being addressed as God and that he lasts forever and forever. This is Psalm 45:6. Now, in the later Old Testament books the kingdom doctrine becomes more explicit than it had been in any of the sort of seed developments. The seminal thoughts that were in the passages, such as I have just traced for you, in the earlier part of the Scripture and the kingdom doctrine becomes more explicit, but Daniel gives us one of the kingdom s fullest developments in the Old Testament. So we turn to Daniel, the theologian of the kingdom of God. The first assertion that Daniel makes is that the kingdom of God will succeed the kingdoms and empires of men. We have in juxtaposition, in contrast, placed the kingdom of God over against the kingdom of men. And, of course, one of the great chapters demonstrating this is Nebuchadnezzar s dream of the colossal image in Daniel 2. We will notice in this chapter that Daniel was called in, you ll remember, somewhat belatedly; he, having been brought up in the school there in exile. He, and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, had been carted off to a pagan culture, given a pagan education and, by the way, this seems to me to indicate here one of the strongest arguments against environmental determinism which, of course, we shouldn t buy into as believers, but it does seem like it comes to the fore every once in a while. I am for Christian education; I ve spent most of my life in it. But we ve got to be careful not to think that the environment determines 3 of 14

4 the child or that all we need is one good example and the kids will go right. That s like saying what every hospital ward needs, especially an AIDS ward, someone who is robust in health to sleep in the middle of that ward, so that the others can get the idea of what a good healthy body is like. Or what a bushel of rotten apples needs is one good apple right in the center. If only they could see just a wonderful Michigan Winesap right in the middle there, the others would shape up and would say, let s shed our rottenness. Now, there s something wrong with that illustration, I think, but on the other hand it s amazing how many Christians fall for that logic. How many Christians think that that s what does the whole trick and, therefore, they depend on it? Daniel went to Babylon, there were some things Daniel wouldn t do. He purposed in his heart not to defile himself, so he did take a separation stand, that s correct. But on the other hand, when it came time to studying all the junk that he had to study and you have no idea what he had to go through in all of the arts and sciences and astrology that he had to go through he mastered it, but on the other hand, he kept his commitment clear to God. It s a rather interesting kind of study in Christ and culture. With deliberate involvement in the culture, but yet without compromising in his own heart. I think we need to study more of that. Joseph would be another example of it too as well. You would think that a boy 17 years of age thrown into what he was thrown in and with the bitterness against his brothers and then against God for not helping him and then repeatedly being rebuffed in one situation after another, he could have said after awhile, look, God doesn t care, I think I ll go do my own thing, I ll capitulate to my culture. He didn t do it, didn t do it at all. But here is Daniel called in now and Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, only this time he is not going to put up with those charlatans, he suspects the fellows on his payroll, that they are just spoofing him, telling him whatever he wants to hear. And so he says, fellows, tell me what I dream first before you give me the interpretation. Now that really shook them because they could hand him a line of chatter if he would just tell them essentially the elements of it, and they would say this means that, because they had all kinds of devices for it. But he said, if you ve got contact with the supernatural then tell me what I dream and if not, the whole school, I m going to see that the whole university gets murdered. Now, this is really quite an examination, none have ever been faced like this. 4 of 14

5 And so finally Daniel and his three friends who are in trouble too (whom we affectionately know as, your shack, my shack and a bungalow) these three were also in trouble and the four of them stood there. And Daniel said my God is able to reveal the dream to me. And as you recall, the dream was the head of gold and then you have the sort of shoulders and arms and chest which was made out of silver. Then you have the body and the belly and that which was made out of bronze or copper and then there come two legs, which were made out of iron and clay mixed together. And so he said, isn t that what you saw O king? And the king said, yes that s right. And then you saw a stone, it was taken out of a great mountain, but it was cut without hands. Yes, he said, that s right. Then the next thing you knew, it hit the feet of this thing and the whole image, this great colossal image, was crushed to powder. And then you saw the stone, that rock, grow and grow and grow until it filled the whole earth. Nebuchadnezzar said, go ahead, tell me what the meaning is, son. That was the vision, that s what s bothering me. I m sleeping there, I can t get to sleep and I was thinking about my empire, what s going to happen? And he said this is what I dreamed. And Daniel said, I ll tell you what this is. He said, that image consists of four decreasingly valuable metals with increasing vulnerability and with increasing division, you must notice all of those things, from the single head of gold all the way down to the feet (and it will become explicit later on) ten toes. There is bifurcation, division, here. And you go from that which is most valuable, from gold, all the way down to a mix of iron and clay. So we have unity to division, we have preciousness to less preciousness, there is decrease in value. And the image becomes not only decreasingly valuable, but increasingly divisible as it moves down too, from the unity of the one head. Now, let me give you the interpretation of it. He said, that rock, the rock that you saw cut out of the mountain, but not with human hands, he said, that rock, in the time of these kings, God is going to set up a kingdom that will never, never fail. So you will have you, O king, are that head of gold, you are the Babylonian empire, magnificent in its standard, beautiful in its benevolent dictatorship, but there you are. And after you will come another kingdom, so we know that Nebuchadnezzar stands for kingdom. Though it is not defined here, it becomes clear that this is Medo- 5 of 14

6 Persia. And then as he goes on through the succeeding chapters we will find out that the bronze, the third part here, is the Greco- Macedonian, that is, the empire set up by Philip and enlarged by Alexander the Great. And Alexander the Great, who at 33 years of age, just drinks himself sick and to death and dies mourning the fact that there are no more lands to conquer. He took everything from Europe, all the way through the Middle East, right up to the Indus River in India and that was it and he said, it s all over, there s nothing more to conquer. And he had marched his armies further than anyone had ever gone before. Finally there comes the fourth empire, which is Roman and Western and is the effect that still continues to the present day, to be manifested, as we find in Chapter 7. Finally in ten final kings over which in the Western confederation there will rise the little horn who is the anti-christ. But we are not concerned here about the identification of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greco-Macedonia and Roman, we are more concerned and we want to follow that rock or that stone that will crush all of these previous empires. So here you have the kingdom of men, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greco-Macedonia and Roman and yet God will set up a kingdom itself that will never be destroyed. Daniel 2:44: In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. So you have the main part of the interpretation about a kingdom that is coming. And this rock or stone was cut out of a mountain, but notice, not with human hands. Therefore, it does not come from human origins, but rather, it s suggested it is supernatural. Which kingdom itself will become a huge mountain, verse 35, and it will fill the whole earth. The fact here is that the kingdom of God grows and extends beyond anything that Babylon or Medo-Persia or even Alexander the Great was able to do, or his four generals who succeeded him. Or even the whole western civilization even as we know it up to the present day. So it grows into a huge mountain and fills the whole earth. Now, when Nebuchadnezzar heard this he fell down prostrate before Daniel and paid honor to him and he said to Daniel, surely your God is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, a revealer of 6 of 14

7 mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery. The theology then of the kingdom of God. God s rule and God s reign and God s realm. Rule, reign and realm, here signified by the theme of the kingdom of God. The realm is world-wide, the whole earth. The rule is, all power, all authority, all dominion, is given over to Him. A fantastic statement in and of itself. Nebuchadnezzar will need to learn this lesson one more time, for when he goes mad and for seven years is put out to pasture, literally, and there is with the ducks sort of roaming around, with the dew of heaven coming down upon him. And he is really into quack theology during this whole time where he is cracked up too as well. Finally his senses are restored to him and he comes back, and you recall, he too gives a wonderful affirmation of the majesty of God. In Daniel 4:34, at the end of that time: I, Nebuchadnezzar says he autobiographically, writing this chapter, interestingly enough a pagan king under inspiration apparently writing a chapter in the Scripture (I) raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High: I honored and glorified him who lives forever. (Now, here s his reason because) His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: What have you done? No one, none, not Mikhail Gorbachev, not Mr. Reagan, not anyone can say to Him, what on earth are you doing? What are you doing? There s no one can say that. His dominion, His authority, His providential rule now and certainly in the day when He manifested world-wide, when He crushes the last of the empires of men, will be without challenge, without challenge anywhere. A magnificent teaching on the kingdom of God and on the sovereignty of God. But there is a second point that we must make here and that is, we have already seen that the theme here announced, that the kingdom of God will succeed the empires of men and build itself into a world-wide dominion that will never have a challenge. But now, in the 7th chapter of Daniel, we will have The Ancient of Days will give to the Son of Man an everlasting kingdom. For once again, we now come back to this theme of the four empires of men. We re going to use the same four, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greco-Macedonia and finally Roman or Western. 7 of 14

8 And here we now have a vision from Daniel in Chapter 7. Daniel s vision is given to him and we think it parallels the vision of Nebuchadnezzar in the second chapter. Here come four beasts out of the sea, churning, the great sea is in upheaval. And we are given here a picture of each of the four beasts who rise, though each beast is less stately, less majestic, than its predecessor. We start with the king of the beasts, the lion, and the king of the bird realm, an eagle. So to the Babylon, what a lion is to animals and an eagle is to birds and gold is to metal and the head is to the body that s what Nebuchadnezzar in his kingdom, Babylon, was to all of the succeeding empires of men and he watched until its wings were torn off, so that it stood on two feet like a man. Daniel 7:4: and the heart of a man was given to it. This empire was vincible, it could be penetrated. And indeed it was. But then he saw a second beast and that was a bear. And it was raised on one of its sides. Modern scholarship dislikes making this second kingdom Medo- Persia. They would like to tear this apart and make Media number two, Persia number three and the fourth empire, Greece. They think that s safer for prophetic reasons, they also think it is better for historical reasons, but they re wrong on every count. Because we know that that empire was a combination empire, remember back here we saw its division already into the chest and arms, which has two parts. Now, we have a bear that s raised on one side, one side was more prominent, of course, Persia was more prominent than Media. But it was a composite and it had in its mouth three ribs, for it had already ripped off three major countries. And so it was there chomping on them as we get the picture. Then the third kingdom was that of the leopard. And it had four wings of a bird and this beast had four heads. Now, you can t confuse that, here you have four; here are the Seleucids, the Ptolemies and the others who came from the four generals out of Alexander the Great. And if you start trying to divide Medo-Persia you re going to miss the symbolism and the whole thing is going to start coming apart on you. And then, of course, he said the fourth one was nondescript. He said that fourth beast was so terrifying and frightening and such a powerful thing, it had iron teeth, it crushed and devoured its victims, trampled them under its feet and it had ten horns. Now, while the preceding image did not stress the ten toes, you know that two feet have ten toes, so there is an implicit harmony 8 of 14

9 here between the two. And while he was looking, in the midst of the ten horns up comes another horn, a little one, which had a big mouth. And this is big mouth, little horn. And big mouth, little horn speaks blasphemous things and great things against God and against men. And we re going to find out, rips off three of the ten horns and makes himself to be the leader of the whole western confederacy as history comes to a conclusion. Now, we re not interested in the identities for the moment here, it is the fourth beast that occupies Daniel s attention here with its terrifying power and its voracious appetite for conquest. And with its division, its ten horns, and the little horn that had a big mouth. But that is still not the central feature of the chapter; it s the Ancient of Days. For in verse 9, as Daniel was looking, and don t forget this is not just a dream like Nebuchadnezzar had, this is a vision. Visions apparently come in scenes, you can see the action flow, so as he kept on looking in this vision, he sees the Ancient of Days take His seat; court is now in session. Here comes the Living God, for that s who we think this Ancient of Days is. His clothing was as white as snow, [the hair on his head] was white like wool. His throne (like a blazing) [was flaming with] fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, [coming out from before him.]. Thousands upon thousands attended him, ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, the books were opened. This is a dramatic moment in the judgment of God upon all the works of men, upon all the kingdoms of men and all the societies of men. God will now say what was done, whether it was done correctly or incorrectly, no more argument now about the Sandinistas or the Contras or any of that thing, court is now in session. For the Living God, who knows what is right, is going to declare what is right and wrong. And as he continued looking and watching while big mouth was still going on, boastful words from the horn were being spoken. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, [but were allowed to live for a period of time]). In my vision at night, verse 13, I looked (on), [and] there before me was one like a son of man, coming with [the] clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. So here comes one from Heaven, and he is called the Son of Man. So the Son of Man comes to present himself to the Ancient of 9 of 14

10 Days. Now, this also, for those who say in the great Shema, Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one, they now have a problem. Here comes one from Heaven, he comes from the clouds anyway, He is called the Son of Man and He comes to the Ancient of Days. Now, which one is God? Well, you say, the Ancient of Days is. Yes, but this One comes from God. And here you have another hint of the Trinitarian or at least two of the three persons of the Trinity here. For while being fully God, God the Father and God the Son are now brought into the presence of each other. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence and what did God give to this Son of Man? He gave to Him authority, glory, sovereign power, all peoples, all nations, all men of every language to worship Him, His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away and His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. Well, we are finding a fantastic development here then in this particular text. Notice the purity, the majesty, the awe-ful (in that sense, full of awe) holiness of the Living God. Where He appears with just literally thousands upon thousands attending to Him who are called His ministering spirits and angels. God has armies like you wouldn t believe. This had to be pointed out to Elisha s servant, you recall [in II Kings 6]. Elisha, having been surrounded in a town with his servant, was there leading the Syrians captive, you remember, single-handedly into the city, they closed the gates only to find that they themselves were [surrounded]. And this was on another occasion when just the Israelites were in town and they were surrounded by the Syrians outside and the servant said, Oh, my master, look out there, look at the troops, we ve had it, this is going to be the day that we die. And Elisha prays, Lord, open the eyes of my servant, open his eyes so that he may see the angelic hosts that surround it, for once again greater are those that be for us than those that be against us. And I think we, who have a theology of the presence and power of God and who also believe in the ministry of angels, forget the surrounding host of God that indeed protect His servants and protect His work. Well, here you have the Living God standing with thousands upon thousands who are doing His bidding and attending Him. And in the meantime too, in front of Him are just myriads upon myriads, 10,000 times 10,000. We even exhaust the language now to speak of the enormity of the hosts that are there. 10 of 14

11 And then we have the Ancient of Days opening the books. God keeps very careful books. Some people think that everything has to be reckoned here in this life, that s not so, that s not so. And better to leave some things which you just can t get a fair shake on them. There s some deacon, some elder, that may have ripped apart a servant of God, and some of God s people bite and they bite badly, and you may have done everything you can, but there still is no fairness, no equity, no justice yet. Leave it on the books. For the biblical text says that God keeps everything there. And you say, will this affect salvation? No. For that s the book of life and there it s much better to have your name in the book of life for having believed. That determines one s eternal destiny. But on the other hand, you have verses like the verse in II Corinthians 5:10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to give an account of the deeds done in the body whether good or bad. And you say, what s that for? Fruit inspection, God s going to inspect not only believer, but also unbeliever, and asks, so what did you do three score and ten or more? Three score and twenty, three score and another additional period of years, what did you do with your life? And so here the books are open. And it seems to me, that as the Son of Man approaches, the Ancient of Days gives to the Son of Man all authority, all glory, all sovereign power, all peoples, all languages, all worship, all dominion and a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Now, if this is not the highest point in the teaching of what is the kingdom of God and what it involves, I give up. I think that it is and I think here too, as the text goes on to speak of this, for Daniel was troubled in his spirit, in [Daniel 7] verse 15, and the visions that pass through his mind disturbed him and he approached those that were standing there and he asked them the true meaning of all of this. I m so glad Daniel was a little dense at times and he says Huh?, and that has helped us enormously. That s why Daniel is so easy for at least the first eight or nine chapters, it s self-explaining. For Daniel is asked, do you understand? And he says, no, my Lord. And then he is given the explanation and it is revealed to him. That s another point in my argument, that the prophets did understand what they wrote, otherwise they didn t have anything revealed, uncovered, made bare to them. That s the whole nature of revelation, it is a disclosure. 11 of 14

12 Verses [16&17], So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things: The four great beasts are four kingdoms, well, that settles that, you want to fight about it? I don t think you can and he says they will rise from the earth., so that s why he saw them coming up out of the sea of men, But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and possess it forever yes, for ever and ever. That s clear too. Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, and I also wanted to know, verse 20, about the ten horns [on its head] and about the other horn [that came up], and the horn that looked more imposing than the others [and that] had eyes and a big mouth. And verse 21, [As] I watched, this horn (as it) was waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. He gave me this explanation: thank you. The explanation was, The fourth beast is a fourth (empire) [kingdom], thank you, that will appear on earth. Oh, okay, it s not terrestrial, it s not spiritual, it s real. It will be different from all the kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, You mean to tell me the western economies just take over the whole world situation? Sounds that way. Trampling it down and crushing it. Well, what about the ten horns? The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king (big mouth) [will arise], different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. I take it he s going to try to get rid of Sunday. Our heated up economy keeps on heating up and they can t figure out what s wrong with it, they don t know that you ve got to turn it down one day out of seven, that s the only way you can keep an economy going. But we ll burn it out; we re going to keep on burning it out. And Christians aren t understanding that either. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time. That sounds like, and from other passages, that s three and a half years. Probably the end of the 70th week, here the last seven years before the whole thing is collapsed. But he says, But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, the power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, (he says) the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him. 12 of 14

13 So stripped of his power, the little horn s sovereignty and his greatness and his dominion and more will be handed over to believers, to the saints here, the people of the Most High. And this will be given to them as an everlasting kingdom. So I take it that the Son of Man with the saints of the Most High are given all authority, all power, all dominion and true worship is received by God as it was intended to be offered. And I take it that, therefore, all rulers and peoples on earth will worship and obey Him, verse 26 and 27 of Daniel 7. Well, the conclusion to this has to be the same as the conclusion that comes to that famous section at the end of I Chronicles where there too in the post-exilic time, the chronicler writes, first of all, of the times of David and Solomon occupying about half of the book of I and II Chronicles, in about the third most theological book in the Old Testament. If Isaiah is the first and Exodus is the second most theological, then I would put I and II Chronicles, the great books. Especially II Chronicles, a revival, but more than that the central portion of I and II Chronicles deals with the normativeness of David and Solomon as a pattern, as a type, of what is to come in the kingdom of God. And you remember, after David asked for voluntary offerings and the people give so generously, they just give way beyond what had ever been expected at all, then he leads in this prayer, in I Chronicles 29. In I Chronicles 29:9 you have David s prayer, The people rejoiced at the willing response of their leaders, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord. David the king also rejoiced greatly. David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, Praise be to you, O Lord, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; Yours O Lord is the kingdom, he says, in a central position. You are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise (you for) your glorious name. So we conclude then this teaching on Daniel, the theologian of the kingdom, two great chapters then sort of make the main thrust, Chapter 2 and Chapter of 14

14 There s much more in Daniel and especially the one experience at the end of Chapter 4 we have linked with Chapter 2. But it is clear here that the kingdom of God speaks of the rule and the reign of God, which will be absolute and total. And thereby, also indicating that it will be a realm too as well over which everything is taken in. And so, therefore, the conclusion is that God s kingdom is part of His ever, ever, everlasting promise-plan. He said a king would come, He said He would give a throne, He said He would give a dynasty, He said He would give a kingdom. And now we are finding in Daniel the talking about how the kingdom of God would come suddenly, it would come as an in-bursting. You don t even see the action of the stone, to speak of the stone falling would be incorrect. There is no indication of that at all, we just see it come, it hits the feet of the monster image, the colossal image, and destroys the whole thing. And then grows and grows and grows until it fills, literally, the whole earth. The kingdom of God, as taught here in the Book of Daniel [is] one of the great themes in the promise doctrine. And this will be elaborated on in the New Testament, for as Jesus comes this will be the heart of His message too. He will come announcing and preaching that we should get ready, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 14 of 14