A man was bragging that he had saved the life of a poor
half-starved little girl who was trying to sell wilted flowers on a
freezing cold winter day. When asked how he explained: "This little
girl was hardly dressed for the kind of weather she was facing. She
wore no gloves, and in her hand she carried a few wilted flowers.
She sought what shelter she could in an open doorway, and there I
happen to see her as I passed along the street. Her lips were blue and
her legs and arms were shaking noticeably. As I passed along she
extended her hands with the flowers as a gesture asking me to buy
them. I stopped and took out a dollar bill from my wallet. I said
little girl what would you do if I gave you this dollar bill? 'Oh,
gasped the freezing child. "I would be so happy I would die from
joy." So I put the dollar bill back in my pocket and saved the poor
girls life." If you take the words of the little girl literally then he truly did
save her life, for she said she would die if he gave her the bill. Such is
the kind of nonsense that can result from taking all language
literally. I was helping Lavonne set up a baby crib she needed for
babysitting. When the frame was together and the spring was in she
said, "Throw the mattress in before you go." So I picked it up and
literally threw it in tearing a hole in the bottom in the process. Had
she not told me to throw it in, it never would have happened. On the
other hand, had I not taken her literally it never would have
happened either. So often we expect people to get our point without
interpreting everything literally.
We would die laughing if we knew all of the strange things that
result from literalism. A tribe in Africa insists that men have two,
four, six or eight wives because the Bible says be not unequally
yoked. King James of England asked the famed poet Ben Jonson to
name the gift he would like from the king. He jokingly replied, "A
square foot of Westminster Abbey." The king took it literally, and
when Jonson died he was buried in the Abbey standing up so that he
would occupy only his requested square foot.
Controversy over many passages of Scripture centers around the
whole issue of literalism. All Bible interpreters of evangelical belief
follow the rule that the literal interpretation is the best except when
it does not make sense, and is not consistent with the rest of
Scripture. The traditional interpreters of Daniel feel that there is no
meaningful way to be literal in the interpretation of this dream. The
image of the dream represents Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and
Rome. In spite of the fact that the first three of these pass from the
scene of history they are shown to be destroyed at the same time as
the last one when the stone of the kingdom of God strikes the image.
There is no way to say that Babylon was literally destroyed at the
coming of Christ. And the interpretation that it refers to the second
coming will not work either, for Jesus will not destroy the literal Babylon
at that time. There is no way to escape the need for
symbolic interpretation, and those who pretend they are being literal
by putting the fulfillment off until the millennium are being
intellectually dishonest.
Even if there was any evidence in this text for by-passing the
incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension and reign of Christ to
jump to the millennium, there is no way to take verse 44 literally and
maintain that it refers to the millennium. The kingdom referred to in
this verse is clearly an eternal kingdom, which is to stand forever.
The millennium only lasts for a thousand years, and how can a
thousand year kingdom fulfill this kind of language about a kingdom
that never ends? I can see the finite being used to symbolize the
infinite, but not the infinite being used to symbolize the finite. A
thousand year kingdom can be symbolic of an eternal kingdom, but it
is senseless to use an eternal kingdom to be symbolic of one limited to
a thousand years. Literalism here does not make sense. The
traditional view takes this eternal kingdom to be the one announced
by Jesus. It is that kingdom one must be born again to enter into,
and which Jesus made synonymous with eternal life.
The traditional view is a literal view of the shattering stone's
effect on these four kingdoms by recognizing the facts of history.
These four universal kingdoms of men were a unity. They were four
in a row with no long periods in between. All four of them came
right in a row with one built upon the other. The literal facts of
history are that with the breaking up of the Roman Empire that
unity was shattered, and from that point on Christianity was the
dominate power in the Western World. The first coming of Jesus
Christ literally ended this series of universal empires.
Why have men not been satisfied with this, and why do they look
for an even more literal fulfillment in the future? It is because the
text says the stone smashes the image to dust. It utterly destroys
these kingdoms, and since Jesus did not do that in His first coming,
they say He will fulfill it in His second coming. This demand for
absolute literalism is sheer nonsense. What is being shattered by the
stone representing Jesus? It is the image, which is a symbol of the
kingdoms of men. The image is crushed to powder and blown away.
Can we expect what happened to the symbols in the dream to happen
literally to the nations they symbolize? This would lead to the literal
pounding of the whole ancient world into dust and blowing it away
leaving either a huge hole in the earth, or an ocean. If we distinguish
between the symbol and the reality it symbolizes we avoid such literal
nonsense.
Let's take a contemporary illustration to make the point clear. If
somebody puts up a balloon to symbolize the President of the United
States, and then takes a dart with vote written on it and throws it at
the balloon exploding it to symbolize his belief that by voting we will
put him out of office, it is not likely anyone would interpret this to
mean he intended to assassinate the President. A dart happens to be
a good way to break a symbolic balloon, and no one expects he will
treat the literal President as he treats the symbol of him. Pulverizing
into powder also happens to be an excellent way of getting rid of a
symbolic statue, and it clearly reveals the fall of those nations
symbolized, but it is foolish to expect that Jesus would have to
literally go across that whole ancient world shattering the nations
into powder to fulfill this prophecy. If by His coming their unity and
world dominion are shattered, that is sufficient to fulfill what is being
said in symbolic language.
To jump to the future in hopes of finding a more literal
shattering of the kingdoms of men is foolish, for it destroys the unity
of the image and limits the conquering Christ to an old world view.
When He comes again He will come to a world far more vast than
that which He conquered in His first coming. To try and limit the
shattering effects of the second coming to the old world is silly.
There will be plenty of shattering to be done in the new world. If we
stick to Daniel's reference to the first coming of Christ we will save
ourselves much confusion. The spiritual victory of Christ over the
kingdoms of men is illustrated with the language of the conquering
warrior. How else can you speak of spiritual victories except in
terms of physical warfare. It is not seeing this necessity that leads
literalists to demand that Jesus be a literal warrior. The Jews did the
same thing and expected the Messiah to literally conquer. When
Jesus did not do that they rejected Him.
In the well known passage referring to the incarnation we read
Isaiah 9:5-6 in the Berkeley Version, "For every tramping soldier's
boot in the middle of the battle turmoil and every coat rolled in blood
shall be buried-fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a Son
is given; the government shall be upon His shoulder...." The first
coming of Christ was to bring victory and peace, and yet Jesus never
lifted a sword against Rome. And yet the New Testament insists that
Jesus did fulfill these prophecies. He did succeed in setting the
captives free on a universal scale. He did destroy the works of the
devil, and He did ascend to the throne of David. To put all this off to
the second coming is to ignore the whole New Testament. Jesus came
to fulfill the law and the prophets, and this He did at His first
coming.
The angel Gabriel came to Mary and said in Luke 1:31-33, "And
behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall
call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of
the Most High; and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His
Father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and
of His kingdom there will be no end." Was Gabriel in his very
announcement of the incarnation ignoring the consequences of it,
and jumping ahead to the millennium? Not so, for Peter at Pentecost
made it clear that Jesus took the throne of David in His ascension,
and that He was both Lord and Christ. He fulfilled this prophecy of
Gabriel in His first coming, and thereby also fulfilled the prophecy of
Daniel. The eternal kingdom is established and there is none other to
establish in the future.
Jesus reigns now and is putting all enemies under His feet, and
He is destroying all rule and authority that oppose Him. Those who
ignore the whole New Testament teaching on the present reign of
Christ, and who put all their stress on an obscure reign of the future
imply that Jesus is presently a do nothing king. It is no wonder that
they are historical pessimists who see no hope for a victory in time.
That Jesus will come in power and great glory to conquer literally no
Bible student can doubt, but that event should be considered in the
many text that deal with it. To read it in where it doesn't fit not only
adds to that picture what does not belong, but it takes away from the
glory, power and results of the first coming of Christ.
That Daniel's prophecy refers to the first coming has all the
evidence in its favor. Consider the reference to the stone again in
verse 45. It is cut out without hands. There is no support for Jesus
being a stone at His second coming, but the New Testament refers to
Him s the stone, which the builders rejected, who became the chief
cornerstone. Matthew Mark and Luke all refer to Jesus as the stone.
Peter says so in Acts 4:11 and again in I Peter 2:7. Paul says so in
Eph. 2:20. At the second coming Jesus is universal Lord and not a
stone that grows into a mountain. This only fits the first coming. A
text that confirms this beyond a doubt is Matt. 21:41,44 in the
Berkeley Version, "Jesus said to them, did you never read in the
Scriptures, "The stone which the builders rejected has become the
cornerstone,...whoever falls on that stone will be smashed, and on
whom it falls, he shall be pulverized."
In the words of Christ Himself we have it stated that He was a
shattering stone in His first coming. When Daniel finished his
interpretation the king fell on his face in worship before Daniel. It
was not to idolize Daniel, but in honor of the God of Daniel who
opened up the future to give him a glimpse. The king acknowledged
Jehovah to be the supreme God. He made Daniel a ruler in Babylon,
and Daniel immediately used his position to get his three friends into
power. Thus ends the second chapter and immediate consequences
of Daniel's interpretation of the future, which is in our past because
the fulfillment of it came in the first coming of Jesus as the shattering
stone.
