Thoughts on Daniel 2

The following article by Brad Cole is another part of an ongoing commentary on the Sabbath School quarterly:

These words of Nebuchadnezzar’s magicians are, for me, the highlight of Daniel 2:

The truth, of course, is that the God of the universe did come to live among human beings, even in their greatly deprived and rebellious state, and his life and death will forever be the highlight of universal history. In contrast, the Babylonians picture of “the gods” was such that it was unthinkable that they would condescend to dwell in the presence of mere mortals. Their gods were distant and severe and required great acts of sacrifice and appeasement.

Worship to a vengeful god who must be appeased is prevalent in human history. The prophets of Baal, for example, “…prayed louder and cut themselves with knives and daggers, according to their ritual, until blood flowed.” (1 Kings 18:29 – GN) But this kind of worship has been given even in the name of the true God. In the book of Hosea, God describes the false worship experience of his own people, all because they believed him to be a fearful deity: “I wanted to save them, but their worship of me was false. They have not prayed to me sincerely, but instead they throw themselves down and wail as the heathen do. When they pray for grain and wine, they gash themselves like pagans. What rebels they are!” (Hosea 7:13-14 – GN)  

Is God offended by his creatures? Is he angry because his children have broken the rules? Does God need to be reconciled to us? Is not the Bible a record of God using every means possible to reconcile his children back to love and trust in Him? “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.” (John 3:16 – GN) “The world” would include both his good and bad children whom God loved with an infinite love long before the Cross. The Cross did not create love for us in the heart of God, but rather was the ultimate expression of God’s love for us. And, of course it is helpful to remember that the One who came to reveal his loving character was none other than God himself!  

Yet many have the picture of a God who cannot really see his sinful children as they are, for if he did, it would stimulate righteous indignation and for his wrath to break out against us. But must we really be covered by something so that the all-knowing Father is less than all-knowing about our own sinfulness? The Bible as a whole reveals that God’s great love for each one of us in no way relates to our behavior. God is intimately aware of our deeply rooted character flaws, yet that does not diminish his love in the slightest degree. Any doubt about this was answered by Jesus in the final acts of his life, as he washed his betrayer’s feet and then forgave his tormentors as he died.  

By contrast, the worship of a god who is angry and offended by our sin and who must be appeased through great sacrifice to find it in his heart to forgive is paganism, and this worship offered to a god that does not really exist is the essence of idolatry. “…we know that an idol stands for something that does not really exist; we know that there is only one God.” (1 Corinthians 8:4 – GN)  

The belief that the main attribute of God is overwhelming power, force and coercion, led those in Jesus’ day to assume that the arrival of the Messiah would be primarily one of military might and that he was coming to conquer his enemies. Yet when he arrived, he revealed God to be kind, gentle, humble and forgiving to his enemies. And he disappointed them greatly by saying that the kingdom he wanted to establish was “not of this world.”  

Unlike the picture of God many have held through the ages, we worship a God who does dwell with mortal humans and during those precious few years, he revealed that the God of the universe desires intimacy and friendship with his creatures. He ate and drank with those who were considered the lowlife of society because he loved them and because he wanted to re-establish trust and friendship. All of this infuriated the religious leaders: “Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. ‘What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riff-raff?’” (Matthew 9:10,11, The Message).

But these religious leaders who condemned Jesus did not know God intimately; they did not know the truth about his gracious and kind Person; they had not entered into an intimate friendship with Him; they completely misunderstood the nature of his coming; and they certainly did not imagine that God would be the sort of Person to eat and drink with sinners. Because of all this, they were easily able to dismiss Jesus as a fraud.  

Is our mental picture of God in any way different than the kind of Person Jesus revealed Him to be?  

The bottom line question then as we read on in the book of Daniel about the rock, representing Jesus, which will come and strike the feet of the nations is this: are we in any better position to recognize and welcome the true God at the 2nd coming than those very careful Sabbath keepers of 2,000 years ago? Like the Pharisees, do we also eagerly await the 2nd coming out of anticipation that Jesus is coming to destroy and punish our enemies, to reward us, and to forcibly establish his kingdom? Do we know the truth about the kind of Person God is and have we entered into friendship and communion with Him? Are we working to promote and to establish his kingdom on earth – a kingdom that is based entirely on the principle of other-centered love?

I love that the book of Daniel reveals that God knows the future and that someday all of the pain and suffering that is the history of planet earth, will end. But this is really only good news if the One that we are waiting for is the same in character as the gentle and humble God who arrived 2,000 years ago. And it is only good news if we have already entered into a knowing and intimate relationship with him today.