Daniel
A Greater Kingdom
The book of Daniel is a prophetic book framed around the rise and fall of the great kingdoms of men. Its message is about a greater kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom whose rise will never cease, whose king will never be deposed by another, and whose destiny is to fill the whole earth - the Kingdom of God.
A Kingdom Like No Other
From the first great vision in the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, we are introduced to this Kingdom. The vision of the statue and the rock tells us volumes about the Kingdom of God. It is not like the kingdoms of man, and will not co-exist with their authority. When the Kingdom comes, whether to an individual or to the world, it will never come as an appendage to an old way of life or to a political power. It demands first and exclusive place, destroying all that is past without trace and starting a new creation - a work of God that will endure forever.
A Kingdom that Fills the Earth
A correct understanding of this Kingdom shapes every aspect of our understanding of God’s purpose for this world. It enables us to be a people of hope as we realise that God does not have many plans that all end in failure, but one unstoppable, unshakable kingdom plan that will continue to advance until it achieves its objective. This objective is nothing less than the whole earth filled with the knowledge of the glory of God - God’s kingdom filling the earth as his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. The rock that is cut from the heavenly mountain must continue to grow until that same mountain is reproduced on the earth.
An Overcoming Kingdom
Another great theme of the book of Daniel is the sovereignty of God. Although for a while it may seem like evil men and powers prevail God has already decreed their end before their beginning. Every time of trial or testing in Daniel is given an exact numbered time period before it even begins. God is the one who holds all men and their destinies in his hands and is sovereign over all the kingdoms of men. Through the examples in the lives of Daniel and his three friends, and in the visions of this book, the same great message of hope and encouragement is repeated time and time again - stay faithful in time of trial, for though such times must come, they will not last foreve, God will be with you all the way through them and at the end you will emerge victorious, stronger and more blessed than ever before.
The Kingdom and the Restoration of All Things
The last half of the book of Daniel contains visions of horns and kings that many find confusing, and some have distorted. But these latter visions fit into the same framework that is clearly laid out in the very first dream. They do not concern bizarre end-time timetables, nor do they talk about the wars of our age; they are about the fall of Babylon and the following kingdoms until the time of the Roman empire and the coming of Christ. When Daniel gave himself to pray concerning the restoration of his people after the seventy years prophesied by Jeremiah, God revealed to him far more than he expected. He was shown that the purpose of God did not revolve around the restoration of just the Jewish people (one seventy), but in the restoration of all things (seven seventies!) that would come through the Anointed One (Christ) who would be cut off (slain).
The King of the Kingdom
Daniel’s visions were remarkable in their scope. Not only did he see this vision of the coming of Christ, but he also saw his triumphal ascension into glory, his position of divinity at the Father’s side in glory, the final judgement of all men, and even the resurrection of the dead! It is no wonder that of all the prophetic titles that Jesus could have chosen to reveal who he was and what he had come to do, he did not use the title Messiah or Christ, but instead he chose Daniel’s own description of the one at the right hand of God, worshiped by all, who brings in the everlasting Kingdom - the Son of Man.