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THE BIBLICAL INSTITUTE

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 3, 1877

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 3, No. 18.

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THE BIBLICAL INSTITUTE.

FIRST LESSON.

THE GREAT IMAGE OF DANIEL, SECOND CHAPTER.

An image of gigantic form was shown to Nebuchadnezzar in a dream. Its head was of gold, breast and arms of silver, sides of brass, legs of iron, feet and toes part of iron and part of clay. Beginning with the most precious metals, there is a uniform descent till it ends with the basest. Finally a stone cut out of the mountain without hands smote the image upon the feet, dashed it to atoms, the wind carried away the fragments like chaff, and the stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
This indicates that the image denotes something which occupies the territory of the earth, inasmuch as the stone which succeeds it, expanding into a mountain, occupies its place and fills the earth. With this the dream ends, and the state of things thus introduced is to be eternal. First there is change and degeneracy, indicated by the different metals of the image; lastly a permanent, eternal, glorious condition of things, shown by the mountain filling the earth.
In his interpretation of the image, Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, Thou art this head of gold. Verse 38. He did not mean Nebuchadnezzar as an individual; for he was speaking of kingdoms. Verses 39, 40. One part of the image could not represent a kingdom, and another part an individual. This would be inconsistent. The head of gold therefore symbolizes that kingdom over which Nebuchadnezzar was ruler.
Who, then, was Nebuchadnezzar? King of the old Chaldean or Babylonian monarchy. This was the head of gold. It is sometimes objected to Adventism that it has no starting point; that the first steps have to be assumed or taken for granted, whereas its great feature is, as in this instance, that the starting point is given and the stakes set for us in unmistakable language in the Scriptures themselves.
An old Assyrian empire, founded by Nimrod the great grand-son of Noah, Gen. 10: 6–10, had ruled in Asia for 1300 years. On the ruins of this was founded the Chaldean or Babylonian empire of the Scriptures, by Belesis, the Baladan of Isa. 39: 1, B. C. 747. In prophecy it dates from B. C. 677, because then it became connected with the people of God, by the capture of Manasseh, king of Judah, 2 Chron. 33: 11. It reached the height of its glory under Nebuchadnezzar to whom this dream was given.
From this point the road was steep and short to its decline and overthrow. The kings and their reigns were as follows: Nebuchadnezzar 43 years. Evilmerodach, his son, 2 years. Nerglissar, his son-in-law, 4 years. A son of Nerglissar, nine months, not counted in Ptolemy's canon, and lastly Nabonadius, son of Evilmerodach, grand-son of Nebuchadnezzar, the Belshazzar of the book of Daniel, who reigned 17 years, and with whom that kingdom came to an end.
The kingdom that succeeded Babylon, represented by the breast and arms of silver, was Medo-Persia. Dan. 5: 30, 31. Cyrus overthrew Babylon B. C. 538, it having continued from 677, B. C. 139 years. 538 marks the beginning of the Medo-Persian kingdom and 331, B. C. its close, when Darius was overthrown by Alexander the Great, at the battle of Arbela. The Persian kingdom continued 207 years.
The third kingdom, the one which succeeded Persia, was Grecia. Dan. 8: 5–7, 21.
We are to look for one more universal kingdom and only one, for there were to be but four in all. Therefore, whatever universal kingdom we find anywhere this side of Grecia, that must be the kingdom represented by the legs of iron. Such a kingdom is brought to view in Luke 1. Cæsar Augustus sent out a decree that all the world should be taxed. Then he had jurisdiction over all the world. His kingdom was universal. But Cæsar Augustus was a Roman Emperor. Here we find the fourth and last universal empire, Rome, the legs of iron. The clay of the feet and toes denotes the degeneracy which came into the kingdom, and the ten toes the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was finally divided by the incursions of the northern barbarians. Rome in prophecy dates from its league with the Jews, B. C. 161, seven years after its conquest of Macedonia. Its division into ten parts was accomplished between the years 356 and 483 A. D. Grecia ruled from B. C. 331, to B. C. 161, a period of 170 years, and Rome from B. C. 161, to its division in 483, a period of 644 years.
The two legs do not denote the division of Rome into the Eastern and Western Empires. If they do, Rome should have been thus divided from the beginning of its history, or the legs should have been united down to the ankles, as it was not till A. D. 330 that the seat of empire was moved from Rome to Constantinople. But history forbids the former, and consistency forbids the latter.
"In the days of these kings" the kingdom of God is to be set up. Not in the days of any one of the previous kingdoms which had passed away, nor of Rome in its undivided state, when it was but one kingdom. It is not till after we find a plurality of kingdoms existing contemporaneously, that we can look for the setting up of the kingdom of God, and we do not find these contemporaneous kingdoms till we find Rome breaking up into its final divisions 356 to 483 A. D. Not till then was the image complete ready to be smitten by the stone upon the feet. The kingdom represented by the stone could not therefore have been set up in the days of Christ and his apostles 483 years before this division was completed. The fact is therefore forever settled that the kingdom represented by the stone is not a spiritual kingdom, but is literal like the four preceding it; and that it is yet future; for nothing to answer to the setting up of this kingdom has taken place since 483 A. D.
It will be asked if those kings or kingdoms are still in existence, in the days of which the God of Heaven was to set up his kingdom. If they were established so long ago as 483, have they not all passed away? We answer, No. They are the kingdoms which, as Dr. Scott remarks, have generally been known since that time as the ten kingdoms of western Europe. Many of them can easily be traced to the present time. Originally they were the Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, Suevi, Heruli, Burgundians, Anglo-Saxons and Lombards. And we have now the French from the Franks, the English from the Anglo-Saxons, the Portuguese from the Suevi, the Spanish from the Visigoths, the modern Italians from the Ostrogoths, and the Huns, and Lombards from the original stock of that name.
The image is all complete. We are still in the days of these kings, and wait for the setting up of the kingdom of God, which is the next and only remaining event in this line of prophecy.