The Book of Daniel by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 16, 1908

The Book of Daniel

By Editor

The Everlasting Kingdom

THE EDITOR

In his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Daniel mentioned by name the first and the last of the five successive kingdoms symbolized by the great image and the stone which smote it upon the feet. “Thou art the head of gold,” said Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, thus definitely declaring that Babylon was the first kingdom, and as the closing act in the great world-drama it was foretold that “in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom.” The intervening kingdoms which should appear between the time when the sovereignty of the world was vested in the kingdom of Babylon and the time when the everlasting kingdom of God should be set up, was to be occupied by three successive world-powers, and three only. All efforts to change this number have been frustrated. At different times since the division of the fourth kingdom into ten kingdoms, “successive rulers have tried to amalgamate them into one great universal empire; and in each instance they have found that the word of the Almighty was stronger than the sword of Cæsar, of Charlemagne, or of Napoleon, or of any other ambitious prince or soldier that made the experiment. Again and again marriages have been made among the ten kings. The most powerful effort, and the nearest to successful, was made by Napoleon, when he allied himself to the house of Austria. He controlled the most gallant, the bravest, the most active nation on the continent of Europe. Europe seemed to lie prostrate at his feet, ready to accept his sovereignty; the cup of universal empire was almost at his lips, but God had destined it otherwise, and expressly said it should be otherwise six hundred years before the birth of Christ, and more than two thousand years before Napoleon was born. The waters of the Borodino engulfed his invincible battalions, and the snows of Russia became winding-sheets to half his army, and the bones of the rest, bleaching or buried on the plains of Waterloo, tell how feeble is the might of man, and how lasting is the truth of God.”—Cumming.

The Two Mysteries

That in this outline of the world's history given in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream there should be only two of the kingdoms particularly designated,—the kingdom of Babylon and the kingdom of heaven,—is suggestive, and is in perfect harmony with the whole course of events from the time of Daniel to the end of time. Right principles rather than royal personages are the controlling factors in human events, and the great controversy which has been raging ever since sin entered into the world, centers around the kingship of him who in his own person is the embodiment of righteousness. Opposed to him is the god of this world, who gained dominion over men by leading our first parents to depart from their allegiance to God, and who has maintained this usurped dominion by inspiring the minds of men with his own evil philosophy. The contrasted principles which are personified in the two leaders in this great controversy are summed up in the two pregnant expressions, “the mystery of godliness,” and “the mystery of iniquity.” In the time of Daniel, the Chaldean mysteries formed an essential part of the Babylonian religion, and these mysteries can be traced to the days of Semiramis, the beautiful but abandoned queen of Babylon, who lived only a few centuries after the flood. The exoteric religion of Babylon found its expression in open and gross idolatry, but co-existent with this was the esoteric religion embodied in these mysteries. The outward form was polytheism, in place of monotheism; the inner form was the philosophy of self, of self-existence, of self-exaltation, and of peculiar methods of penetrating the mysteries veiled from ordinary minds.

Preliminary to the initiation into the Chaldean mysteries was the drinking of “mysterious beverages,” doubtless intoxicating in their nature, which dimmed the understanding and excited the passions of the candidates until they were in a suitable condition to yield themselves wholly to the inspiration of the teachings of evil. In harmony with these facts are the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “Babylon hath been a golden cup in Jehovah's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk her wine; therefore the nations are mad.” From Babylon the essential principles of these Chaldean mysteries spread to the other nations and were incorporated into their systems of religion, so that the principles which ruled in Babylon were perpetuated in the succeeding pagan nations. Whenever Israel departed from the ways of the Lord, some phase of the religion of Babylon supplanted the religion of heavenly origin, so that the warnings and the exhortations of the prophets were frequently directed against those perversions of truth and righteousness whose fountain-head was Babylon.

The Papacy

In the days of the great apostasy foretold by the apostle Paul (2 Thess.

2:3-7), those pagan mysteries which had ruled the minds of men for many centuries were clothed with Christian forms and baptized with Christian names, and supplanted to a large degree the pure doctrine of the gospel of the kingdom of God. This transformation commenced in the very time of the apostle, who declared, “The mystery of iniquity doth already work,” but the evil system came to full fruitage after the division of the fourth empire into ten kingdoms, in the organization known as the papacy, which, “next to Christianity, is the great fact of the modern world.” “All idolatries, in whatever age or country they have existed, are to be viewed but as successive developments of the one grand apostasy. . . . The ancient Chaldean worshiping the sun,—the Greek deifying the power of nature,—and the Roman exalting the race of primeval men into gods,—are but varied manifestations of the same evil principle; namely, the utter alienation of the heart from God,—its proneness to hide itself amid the darkness of its own corrupt imaginations, and to become a god unto itself. That principle received the most powerful development which appears possible on earth, in the mystery of iniquity which came to be seated on the seven hills. . . . Popery is the last, the most matured, the most subtle, the most successfully contriven, and the most essentially diabolical form of idolatry which the world ever saw, or which, in all probability, it ever will see.”—Wylie.

But, as is made clear in the apocalyptic vision, the papacy is the continuance of esoteric Babylon, for upon the forehead of the woman who was seen “sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast” the fateful title was written, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT.” Thus while there has been a succession of outward world-kingdoms, exactly as foretold by Daniel in this warfare of principle for the sovereignty there has been the one continuous struggle for ascendancy in the minds and hearts of men between the two mysteries,—the mystery of the kingdom of Babylon and the mystery of the kingdom of heaven; and there is the most striking correspondence between this fact and the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, in which the kingdom of Babylon and the kingdom of the God of heaven are the only ones particularly designated.

The Real Secret

In view of what has been set forth, it becomes more and more clear that the secret which was revealed to Daniel in the night vision, was more than the outline of the successive world kingdoms, and was in reality the revelation of the working of that principle which would outlive all earthly kingdoms, and be perpetuated to all eternity in that kingdom which the God of heaven would establish. As “the God of heaven,” the only true and living God whom Daniel acknowledged as the revealer of this mystery, was in marked contrast with the “gods many and lords many” of the wise men of Babylon, who utterly failed to make known the king's matter; so this mystery of the kingdom of God would come to Nebuchadnezzar as akin to, and yet entirely different from, the Chaldean mysteries. The very forms of expression used by Daniel in making known the mystery, are a sufficient indication that he was not speaking his own words, but that he was the mouthpiece of divine wisdom, the channel for the revelation of the heavenly mysteries.

Christ and the Kingdom

A part of the symbolism of the dream was the stone, which “was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon its feet.” That this stone represented the future Messiah is evident from the use of the same symbol in other passages and the interpretation made of them. Thus we read: “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner,” and this declaration was plainly interpreted to the leaders of the Jews by the apostle Peter when he made his answer concerning the healing of the impotent man: “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand here before you whole. He is the stone which was set at naught of you the builders, which was made the head of the corner.” Again the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure foundation;” and through the apostle Peter is clearly given the application: “Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him [Christ] shall not be put to shame.” Plainly, therefore, the stone was the symbol of Christ, Son of God and Son of man.

In the dream “the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” In the interpretation it was declared, “In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people.” This identification of the stone which “became a great mountain,” and the kingdom which “shall stand forever,” is worthy of note as showing that the person of Christ and the kingdom of Christ are inseparable. This grows out of the relation which the eternal Son sustains to the Father as the one only Mediator both in the original creation and in the new creation; for we read: “Giving thanks unto the Father, . . . who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.” The eternity of the kingdom is, therefore, dependent upon the eternity of the being of the Son. The everlasting continuance of the Son, the Word who became flesh, in whom the eternal kingdom was established, and the consequent enduring nature of the kingdom, are emphasized in various scriptures. Through Isaiah came the prophecy: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting [ever-continuing] Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever.” In harmony with this prophecy the angel said to Mary concerning Jesus: “The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end;” and the angels said to the shepherds: “There is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” Again the psalmist wrote: “Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure;” and these statements are applied directly to the Son of God in that wonderful description of his being and character found in the first chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews: “Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou continuest.”

Although the Jews entertained many false views concerning the Messiah, yet from the clear testimony of the Scripture they had a correct understanding concerning the eternity of his being. When, therefore, Jesus gave some intimation of his approaching death, the people replied: “We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth [continues] forever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up?”

Both territory and subjects are essential to a kingdom, and in order that the kingdom of God, established here upon the earth as the successor of the four kingdoms mentioned by Daniel, may be everlasting, the earth itself must be kept in existence forever, and the subjects of the kingdom must be made immortal. Both these results are attained through the person of the eternal Son, who upholds all things “by the word of his power,” in whom “all things consist,” of whom it is written, “This is the true God, and eternal life,” and “who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”