Listen or read the following transcript as Sinclair Ferguson speaks on Preaching from Daniel, Part 1 in this address from The Gospel Coalition Sermon Library
The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.
Well, I’d like to add my own welcome to you, to our congregation here, and to assure you that the various ushers, a good number of whom are members of the church here, will do everything in their powers to help and assist you. And if you have any particular need, please be in touch with them.
Now, my remit over this conference time is to draw your attention to the book of Daniel, and I want us to begin by listening to part of Daniel chapter 1 as we settle and focus our minds on the Word of God. This is one gathering where you don’t need to tell people where to find the book of Daniel, I hope. It’s in the Old Testament, so that should give you something of a clue.
Let’s begin to read in Daniel 1:1.
1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. 3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, 4 youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. 5 The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. 6 Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. 7 And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego. 8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. 9 And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs, 10 and the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age? So you would endanger my head with the king.” 11 Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 12 “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” 14 So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food. 16 So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables. 17 As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. 18 At the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. 19 And the king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king. 20 And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. 21 And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus. (Daniel 1:1-21, ESV)
I’ve been asked to speak to you in these three days on the subject of preaching from the book of Daniel, and there are, I think, a number of reasons why the organizers of the conference have chosen this subject and asked me to speak on it. They told me that the reason they wanted me to speak from the book of Daniel was that they knew I had written two studies of it, and therefore would need to do very little preparation.
I am reminded of an experience I had as a student listening to Professor John Murray, whom those of you who ever heard him speak had a habit of looking at his fingernails while he spoke as though he had his notes on his fingernails, and he was speaking on the subject of Adam and Christ from Romans 5:12-21, a subject on which he had written at very great length. And I remember as a teenager hearing him say at the beginning, “I find it very difficult to speak on a subject to which I’ve given so much thought.” And as I listened, I thought, he’s got his first sentence wrong. But you know, as well as I know, that the more we think about the subjects that are before us, the more we study God’s Word, indeed, the more penetrating we are in our study of different parts of Scripture, the more reluctant we often are to speak on things that we ourselves wrestle with and find difficult to understand.
I should say right at the beginning that I come today by no stretch of the imagination as an expert on the book of Daniel or on apocalyptic literature, but as someone who, with you as ministers of the Word of God, desires to listen to God’s Word and to put it into practice in my personal life. A far more important reason for choosing the book of Daniel is because it affords to us in the one book a variety of different styles or genres of literature. And what I propose to do as we eventually get to the text itself is to select three different styles or characteristic forms of literature that are assembled in the book of Daniel so that we may try to think together and encourage one another in what it means, first of all, to preach from the Old Testament Scriptures, and then how to hone our skills in understanding the significance of these different styles of writing for the enablement that gives to us to engage in different styles of preaching.
And in that connection, it is perhaps not accidental that the title of these three addresses is preaching fromDaniel, rather than preaching on Daniel. And from time to time, that rather subtle distinction will, I think, become clear. I have a simple goal in these studies, and it may strike you in different ways. My simple goal is that by them you will be encouraged and stimulated to go and preach on the book of Daniel for yourself, and to preach more from the Scriptures of the Old Testament than perhaps you do.
And in a sense, that goal is guaranteed to be reached. Either you will be so inspired by the occasion that you will think, “I must go and preach from the book of Daniel,” or you’ll leave thinking, “Well, I could do better than that. I must go and preach from the book of Daniel.” So whatever the immediate impact, I suppose from one point of view, I’m on a winner.
Now this morning I want to say a number of things by way of general introduction to the book of Daniel. Then secondly, I want to pick out a number of notes that we will see illustrated in the first chapter in the ways in which this first chapter of Daniel, as other chapters, exemplifies some of the things we should be looking for as readers and students of Old Testament narrative as we come to gain insight from them and to preach them.
And then thirdly, I want to turn more immediately to the text of Daniel 1, and at least by way of outline in the time that remains to us, expound its significance for us as we study it together.
So first of all, let me say a number of things by way of general introduction to the entire book of Daniel. The book of Daniel is set certainly by way of implication in the 6th century BCE in Babylon, in the days of the Neo-Babylonian period and the great Babylonian empire with which we are so familiar, both from our knowledge of the history of the ancient Near East and, of course, from the pages of Scripture itself.
And we are given specific indication as to the time period that is involved in the experience of Daniel, who is the hero of the book. In Daniel 1:1, we are told that he is brought from Jerusalem, presumably as a teenager in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, in the year 605 BC, that is to say, by our reckoning.
1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. (Daniel 1:1, ESV)
And we have some indication here that in Daniel 1:1, the time period is being reckoned according to the Babylonian calendar. His ministry lasts through Daniel 10:3, we are told, to the third year of King Cyrus, that is 537 BC.
3 I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks. (Daniel 10:3, ESV)
In other words, we have here the record of the ministry of an individual from presumably his mid-teens until well after he was collecting his old age pension from the Babylonian security office and buying his ice creams in the hanging gardens of Babylon.
It is for that reason a book that ought to speak powerfully to such a diverse group of ministers as we ourselves are, some of us scarcely out of our teenage years and some of us almost perhaps into our eighties. Daniel is one of the great Old Testament models of true ministry throughout every single conceivable generation of our lives.
One of the striking things about the book is how little it actually says by way of immediate description about Daniel. We get the notion from Daniel 1:4 that he begins his book as a young man.
4 youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. (Daniel 1:4, ESV)
We are told, you remember later on, that he is a man beloved by God.
Apart from that, there are only two other statements made about Daniel in the Scriptures. The first being that he was a righteous man, if he is the Daniel referred to in the book of Ezekiel, and the second, from the lips of our Lord Jesus Himself in His great discourse in Mark 13, Matthew 24 and 25, Daniel is to be regarded by the people of God as a prophet. That is presumably, as someone whose book gives to us simultaneously illustrations of the foretelling of the Word of God and the foretelling of the purposes of God.
And all in his case, although this does not seem to have been true of every prophet, all in his case confirmed, as was the case with other great prophets and messengers of new revelation, confirmed by the mighty works of God that were manifested in his life and through his ministry.
This is one of the relatively few and brief periods of biblical history in which the supernatural miraculous delivering power of God breaks through. And it breaks through largely to defend the kingdom of God in the days of Daniel and to confirm Daniel as a messenger of God’s divine revelation.
And what kind of book, what kind of literature do we find in these pages under the name of Daniel? Over the past century and more, it has become part of scholarly orthodoxy to regard this entire book, or almost the entire book, as fictional in character. And we need to understand, I think, that our approach to the book of Daniel, despite the disclaimers, is bound to influence the manner of our preaching of it. You are familiar, especially those of you who can still remember what you were taught in the Old Testament departments and most of our universities, why this book is viewed as a piece of fiction. It is a piece of fiction because no human mortal could ever foretell the things that Daniel foretold. It is a piece of human fiction because men do not come out of the crematorium unharmed. It is a piece of fiction because there are characters who appear in the Book of Daniel of enormous historical significance who do not appear in the records of ancient Near Eastern history. It is a piece of fiction because it’s full of words that post-date the time of Daniel.
It’s a piece of fiction because, as has been the fundamental element of scholarly orthodoxy in the past century, we are able, it is claimed, to date virtually to the year the time in which the Book of Daniel was written because we are able to distinguish the prophecies in the Book of Daniel that are true from the prophecies that are false and draw the conclusion that the prophecies that are true were written after the event and the prophecies that are false were written before the event.
Now these are matters into which it would not be possible for us to delve without extending into all of my time, not only today but the rest of the week. But I do want to say one or two things about this. The first is this, that the Jewish Christian tradition knows nothing, the Jewish Christian tradition knows nothing through to the time of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Book of Daniel being regarded as a piece of fiction.
And that is not at all insignificant, that the people who were closest to this book, which appears incidentally in the virtual canon of the Qumran community within a relatively short period following the middle of the second century, the Jewish people who read the Book of Daniel, read the Book of Daniel not as a piece of fiction that might inspire them, but as a piece of history that awed them and brought them courage. And indeed it did bring them courage.
It seems to me that one of the great errors of the assumption that what we have here is a piece of fiction written to encourage people in the midst of the conflict in Jerusalem and the onsurge of Antiochus Epiphanes in the middle of the second century, the fatal flaw in that argument is that you don’t get courage to fly. By going to watch Barry’s Peter Pan, knowing that it’s a piece of fiction, you don’t get courage to die for your faith from examples that you know are merely court legends and fairy tales.
And it is one of the great planks in the arguments of contemporary theological orthodoxy that this book was written in order to encourage the people of God to die for their faith, in which case it should have carried at least the government health warning, do not attempt these things without parental supervision.
Now there are many other reasons why that argument is, I think, self-defeating, but the most important consideration, I do believe, is this, and it’s one that we all obviously wrestle with, the bottom line is this, can God and would God deliver men from a burning fiery furnace? Is God able to disclose the patterns of future history to sinful men and women?
And when scholarly orthodoxy is at its most honest, it confesses that it does not believe that either of these two things could possibly have happened in the Book of Daniel. And those of us who know a little of the history of the 19th century are all too well aware that the next step is that the same is true of every Old Testament prophecy about an obscure Palestinian who was crucified on a tree outside of Jerusalem.
And precisely the same argument holds to the resurrection of dead men. Dead men no more get up and walk out of sealed tombs than living men get up and walk out of sealed tombs having spent the night with lions. And I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that that is the cardinal issue. The cardinal issue is just how supernatural is our God and just how much is He able to do even through sinful human beings.
Well what are the specific features of this book? It’s usually classed, as you all know I’m sure, as a piece of apocalyptic literature and I’ll return to this I think tomorrow morning. We need to understand, I think, when we say that, that apocalyptic literature is in some ways a designation of 20th century scholarship rather than a self-conscious awareness of the author of the Book of Daniel.
And we need to understand that even if there should be a genre of literature that fits under the name of apocalyptic, that genre is as widespread and develops over a similar period of time to the idea of a novel. That is to say, it takes various forms and it does not always fit into predetermined categories.
But classifying the Book of Daniel, or at least parts of it, as apocalyptic at least enables us to come to the book with our apocalyptic antennae full out so that we do not read pieces of literature that are not prose in content as though they were. So that we do not make what I think is a grave error of reading the Bible literalistically rather than reading the Bible literally.
But it will be of help to us in places to understand that there is such a thing as a genre of apocalyptic literature and we need to have the sensitivity to understand it. Well, let me come by way of this general introduction finally to say something about its structure and its theology and message. Daniel is usually seen as containing two different kinds of material: chapters one to six, historical narrative; chapters seven to the end, containing prophecy largely of an apocalyptic kind. But those of you who have worked on the book of Daniel and studied and preached through it will be conscious that the structure of the book is actually more subtle and intricate than that.
It divides naturally into the historical and the prophetic, but it’s also written in two languages, in Hebrew and in Aramaic. The Hebrew portion begins in chapter one verse one and ends at chapter two verse three, and then returns in chapter eight verse one and continues to the end of the book. So that the central section, chapter two verse four, where the very words in Aramaic are found in the text, chapter two verse four to chapter seven verse twenty-eight are written in the lingua franca of the ancient Near East, the language of Aramaic.
And this has been a great puzzle to the commentators and the scholars. But one thing this extraordinary phenomenon does is to indicate to us that although the book, as it were, in English divides naturally into two sections, one to six, seven to the end of twelve, those two sections are inextricably linked by a common language that overlaps them both, goes over the edge of the historical section and into the beginning of the prophetic and apocalyptic section in chapter seven. This underlines for us that chapter seven functions in the book of Daniel as a kind of central locking system to the whole book and its message, therefore, is of cardinal importance.
So there are two segments, historical, prophetic. There are two languages indicating that there is a connection between the two. And interestingly, embedded in the Aramaic section, we have an extraordinary disclosure in a chiasmic form, with a chiasmic pattern of the rise and fall of the kingdoms of this world. In the book ends of that chiasm, chapter two and chapter seven, we are given visions of four kingdoms. Nearer to the center of that section in chapters three and chapter six, we have narratives of divine deliverance. And then in the center, in chapters four and chapter five, we have narratives of divine judgment upon the rulers of the earth.
These patterns are fascinating just as pieces of literature, but they’re significant also as indications that there is a theology written into this, that our literary eyes are being drawn to patterns that are not there for aesthetic purposes, but are there in order to focus our minds on the things that are absolutely central in this book. Namely, the fact that the international language is used to tell us that this God is the Lord of the whole earth, these visions of kingdoms are given to indicate that He is Lord also of the unfolding of all human history, and these stories of deliverance to focus the eyes of beleaguered saints on the delivering power of God.
And in the center of that Aramaic section, our eyes focus on the solemnity and the certainty of the judgment of God. And it is perhaps therefore not insignificant that the hero of this book is one whose name means God is judge. And that essentially is the message of the book, the sovereignty of God over all history, how we need to hear that message in our own times, the providence of God in which He cherishes His people and works all things together for their good, the present judgment of God hidden from our understanding but realized in history over all the empires of this world, and in the midst of all this, the certainty, the absolute certainty that God will establish His kingdom and He will reign forever and forever.
And we may anticipate, as the book of Daniel teaches us, the final glorious resurrection from among the dead and the cosmic transformation of this world that has so far fallen from God. And all this, as Daniel gives us a little hint in chapter 11, verse 32, is to teach us the great practical principle that the people who know their God will be literally strong or stout and do.
32 He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. (Daniel 11:32, ESV)
In one of the translations, the people who know their God will stand fast and do exploits. And we understand from that that if this is not the impact it makes upon us, then somehow or another we have missed its message.
In a sense, Daniel is the antithonal response to the question of the 137th Psalm. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and we wept when we remembered Zion. Our captors taunted us saying, sing us one of your old gospel songs, give us a moody and sanky. And the heart has gone out of the people so that they respond, how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? You and I are living in a land that has become alienated from the God of its fathers, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We echo that plaintive question, how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? And the book of Daniel is about a man and his companions who byGod’s grace sang gloriously the Lord’s song in a strange land. So much then, by way of introduction.
Let me turn to the second main thing that I want to explore briefly this morning, and that is the way in which the first chapter of the book of Daniel, and of course other chapters of Daniel, are opened up for us when we have some appreciation of what nowadays are called the conventions, the characteristic marks of Old Testament narrative.
When we read a story that begins “once upon a time,” we know the kind of story that we are reading, and we have just instinctively antennae that help us to understand the signs that there are, that enable us to bring to bear upon our enjoyment of the story all kinds of things that aren’t explicitly stated in the story, but are implied from the kind of language and style of that storytelling.
And Daniel 1 gives us rather a neat illustration of some of these principles. Perhaps I can put it like this. I think the single most important principle when you’re reading an Old Testament narrative and preaching on it is this: Follow the camera angle. Follow the camera angle.
Almost every conceivable technique that’s used today by Hollywood is borrowed from Scripture, wittingly or unwittingly. And when you read the narratives of the Old Testament, if you just have in mind the principle “follow the camera angle,” you will see the authors of Scripture in these narrative passages doing exactly the same kinds of things that a director does in making a movie.
You will see panoramic views. You will see narrow vistas. You will see slow motion for concentration. You will see rerun of something that has taken place before. You will see split screen techniques. All kinds of characteristics of contemporary drama that we see on the big screen or on the television or in the airplane are borrowed from this God-given narrative of Old Testament Scripture.
And in this first chapter, there are at least seven of these features that I think help us to taste the flavor of what is going on here and in some ways are applicable to many other passages of Scripture. The first is this: There is always development of the plot or plot development.
And you will see how this goes in the first chapter like some massive hyperbole as it floats into the air and comes to a great crisis and turning point. The chapter begins with the first two verses which provide for us the setting. In verses three to five, we have the beginnings of the development of the plot. In verses six to seven, we are brought to the development of a conflict.
And then at the beginning of verse eight, we come to the crisis point in the whole narrative which is immediately followed in verse 8 through to about verse 17 by the turning point in the narrative, verses 18 to 20, the resolution of the crisis. And verse 21, the setting which God had worked out for His servant.
And I think it’s important that we recognize that kind of pattern in Old Testament narrative in order to safeguard ourselves from what some of us, I suppose, are more prone to than others and that is to read the whole of the Bible as though it had been written by the Apostle Paul.
Now to a certain extent, there is a story in everything the Apostle Paul writes, but I don’t suppose any one of us would say that the letter to the Romans was a piece of narrative. And because some of us are prone, wonderfully prone, graciously prone to be powerfully influenced by the teaching of the apostolic letters, it’s very easy for us to fall into the mistake of crunching every part of Scripture down into pieces of an apostolic letter.
And one of the things that that does in our ministry is it weakens us of the capacity Scripture gives to appeal to the whole man. To appeal to his rational powers of understanding a logical, theological argument, yes. But to appeal to his aesthetic powers, to appeal to his affections, to his emotions, to his sense of drama.
And the wonderful thing about the narratives of Scripture is, in a sense, all that’s put on our plate even before we begin. And if we can simply take what’s on the plate, then by God’s grace we may be liberated from the straitjacket which all of us, well I speak for myself, which at least one of us tends to fall into.
And that is having fewer preaching styles than our Lord Jesus Christ did. I suppose one of the reasons why sometimes people think that John’s gospel is so alien from the synoptic gospels is because they cannot believe that Jesus could have preached in more than one style and that context would have made a difference.
And narrative helps us in this respect. It has a plot and that plot should be the substance of our exposition. That’s why it’s possible to preach for more than ten minutes, incidentally. When people say to you, when you’re preaching on an Old Testament narrative, if you can’t say it in ten minutes, it’s not worth saying, you say, tell that to William Shakespeare who had one of the greatest economies of English vocabulary of any mortal who’s ever lived and it took him hours. I’m not suggesting that you do that. And don’t dare say I said it from this pulpit. But you get the point. The sense of the plot, the narrative, the drama will deliver some of us, I’m sure, from the straitjacket of, don’t quote me on this either, Aristotelian logic.
The second characteristic of narrative is that it’s full of linguistic signals. Now here we come, I think, to a more difficult area for most of us because most of us were not taught Hebrew in order to be able to read God’s wonderful word. We were taught Hebrew because it was a language that just happened to be there and we had very little encouragement to learn it. And some of us, therefore, came to hate it or to hate the teaching of it and to find it a miserable experience. But whatever capacity you have in the Hebrew language, make full use of it when it comes to reading Old Testament narrative. At least if you can use the tools, you’ve got a head start because the narratives are full of little linguistic signals and keys.
One of the most frequent of them is repetition. For example, at the beginning of the first chapter, we are told that Nebuchadnezzar came and he took and he placed, he brought, and they’re all forms of the same Hebrew root bol. And this creates and must have created for the original hearers and readers of this book a tremendous sense of the relentless power and pressure of this mighty king. Like great stamping feet he comes and he does as he pleases.
You’re probably more familiar with another example of this in verse 2 and 9 and 17 where the same Hebrew verb forgive is used that underlines for us this great principle that the God who gave the people into captivity was the God who gave His servants the equipment they needed to live for His glory and sing the Lord’s song while they were in captivity.
And there’s another striking example in verses 7 and 8 where there is an echo in verse 8 of the language of verse 7, the servant fixes the names, these ungodly names upon Daniel and his companions and by contrast Daniel fixes on his heart a profound resolution that he will never defile himself. And all of these catch for us a sense of the power of what God is doing over against the power of what man is doing.
The third principle that you do see here in this narrative is what I call the principle of the omnipresent director. Not only in the sense that you need to view the whole narrative by its various camera angles, but the one who is directing that camera knows more about what’s going on than the characters in the plot. And this is why we always are able to read the scriptures with spectacles as it were rather than monocles because we’re able to see what is happening in terms of the horizon of those who were active in the engagement, but we’re also able by the hints that the omnipresent director gives to us, we’re able to see what God is doing in that situation.
And you find that again and again in this chapter. For example, if you at your leisure look at verse 2 and 8 and 9 and 17 and 20, you will see that the omnipresent director is saying, look at what the Lord is doing in this situation.
The fourth feature that’s present here is that of chiasmic structure. And that appears both in a small scale and on a large scale. Let me simply point out the large scale to you. The book opens with the setting of Daniel in exile and Nebuchadnezzar in power. And the chapter closes with what just seems to be a kind of historical chronological footnote.
But the fact of the matter is that that historical footnote is the great theological bookend of the narrative. It’s saying to us this mighty Nebuchadnezzar came and he besieged the city. And he raped these youngsters from their parents’ arms. And he had all the power and influence to destroy them. But when Nebuchadnezzar was rotting in a sarcophagus somewhere in the hanging gardens of Babylon, little Daniel, whom he sought to destroy, was walking around the hanging gardens singing the Lord’s song in a strange land.
The very design of the chapter tells us not only that God will have the final victory, but that God is able to make His people stand. The fifth characteristic is this. It is the presence in Old Testament narrative of the antithesis. The presence in Old Testament narrative of the antithesis, of conflict. Now, that’s a universal feature of good narrative, isn’t it? The idea that there is a conflict that needs to be resolved.
But as we read scripture as spiritual men, as we expound scripture as ministers of God’s word, we need to understand that that antithesis goes very deep. Indeed, from one point of view, you could say that the whole of the Bible is but a footnote on Genesis 3:15.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15, ESV)
And the great antithesis that is announced in Genesis 3:15, that unfolds throughout the whole of scripture in various ways as a conflict between the city man is building and the city God is building, between the Tower of Babel and the power of God, between Babylon and Jerusalem, until that is consummated at the end of the book of Revelation with the destruction of Babylon the great.
And what we have here in the book of Daniel is a quite literal illustration of that ultimate antithesis between the city of man and the city of God, Babylon and Zion, in which a citizen of Zion is seeking to live in the country of Babylon. Everywhere we look, we must have an eye open to the antithesis because it’s the context in which our people live. It’s the context in which Jesus is building His church of cosmic conflict.
“I will build my church where? In a context in which the gates of hell will seek to prevail and will be unable to do so.” We can neither understand scripture as a whole, Daniel in particular, or our own lives or situation in our church unless we grasp the role of the antithesis.
The sixth thing that we see here, and I’m obviously going to get no further today than the second major heading, the sixth thing we see is the importance of character introduction. There is very little psychology on the surface of scripture. And for that reason, the descriptions that are given of individuals are always, or almost always, of great importance. They unravel for us a whole story about their lives. And often, it is the way in which they are introduced that will be so significant.
And that’s true of Daniel. Daniel, whose name means that God is judge. God is His judge, as well as being judge of all the earth. And it’s a very interesting thing in the book of Daniel that although his companions are described later as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Daniel is never described simply by his Babylonian name. If his Babylonian name is used, it is coupled with his Hebrew name, God as judge. And in a way, it underlines everything he stands for, the certainty of the judgment of God and the vindication of His people.
And as I say, often the first introduction of a character has his whole life story written into it. And here, we find that true of Daniel 1:8. The key thing about Daniel, you want to understand the secret of being a Daniel, living for the Lord in an alien land, it lies in this. He fixed it on his heart that he would never defile himself.
8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. (Daniel 1:8, ESV)
I’m reminded every time I read these words of words Jonathan Edwards wrote when he, too, was a teenager. In a whole series of resolutions he made at the beginning of his Christian life, resolve never to do anything in body or soul that will fail to bring glory to God.
The seventh feature that we see. And it is a very beautiful feature, and it works in different ways backwards and forwards. The presence in Old Testament narrative, a little like the presence sometimes in Scottish pantomimes of both echoing of earlier incidents in redemptive history and foreshadowing of later ones.
And we find that very evidently in the life story of Daniel. It is deliberately full of echoes of the Joseph narrative. It’s really saying to us, this is a man in whom dwelt the same Spirit of God that dwelt upon Joseph. He is all the early characteristics of that Holy Spirit of God that would supremely rest on the Messiah. He is the man of God par excellence in his period, as Joseph was in his period.
And precisely because the story carries these echoes from the Joseph narrative, it carries a foreshadowing of the Jesus narrative. Upon Daniel rests the Spirit of God described, for example, in the early chapters of the prophecy of Isaiah. He experienced a foretaste of the presence of that Spirit who would be poured out upon our Lord Jesus without measure.
And for that reason, although I personally would never speak about him technically as being a type of Christ, because he was joined to that promise that had its fulfillment in the outpouring of the Spirit upon our Lord Jesus, and then the outpouring of the Spirit upon the whole Church of Christ at Pentecost. It should not surprise us that the pattern of Daniel’s life is identical to the pattern of Jesus’ life. That the way up is the way down. That the way of resurrection is the way of crucifixion. And that that pattern, which as Calvin says, God from the beginning has worked into His church, that death should be the way to life and the cross the way to victory, is the pattern that is so gloriously revealed in this marvelous tapestry of Daniel’s life and ministry.
Well, I am where you’ve often been. What do I do now, because I’m not finished? Thank you.
