The Ancient of Days and the Son of Man
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Daniel 7:9-14 - Part 2/2
Daniel 7:9-14 - Part 2/2
OPENING REMARKS
We’re returning to Daniel chapter 7 today. Last time we looked at the rise and fall of the little horn; that this little horn represents a future ruler who will be given power to rule for a season and who will oppress God’s people and blaspheme God.
Today we will be looking at scene 2 of Daniel’s vision from verses 9 to 14. In this vision, Daniel sees two prominent characters; one named ‘The Ancient of Days’ and one ‘like a son of man’ who receives dominion, glory and a kingdom.
I want for us to see in this passage once again the absolute sovereignty of God over all that He has made. That He does rule both in the heavens and on the earth. I want for us to see that all the powers of earth; rulers, kingdoms, regimes, governments, empires are all as helpless as one another before the throne of God; they will all face judgement for how they have ruled. Moreover I want for you to see that God has a Kingdom, and that His Kingdom is the only one which shall last forever.
9 “As I looked,
thrones were placed,
and the Ancient of Days took his seat;
his clothing was white as snow,
and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames;
its wheels were burning fire.
THRONES WERE PLACED
As Daniel peers into heaven the first thing that he notices are that thrones are being placed, and that this Ancient of Days is seated upon one of them. The throne of God is an image ubiquitous throughout the Bible; it’s everywhere! Look in the old testamant, look in the new you’ll find references to the throne of God. Look in the gospels, look in the prophets you’ll find the throne of God.
When the Apostle John had his vision on the Island of Patmos he also saw a visage of the throne of God:
1 After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind:
When we say in this church that God is sovereign do you know what that is? It’s an acknowledgement that God sits upon a throne; He reigns, He rules, He’s a King. That’s what it means that God is sovereign; that He excercises His supreme authority as a King not as an elected official, not as a regent, not as a CEO but as King. He answers to no one. He reigns.
Sovereign Definition: a supreme ruler, especially a monarch.
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”
He doesn’t need your permission to reign, He doesn’t need to win the election before He can really excercise His power. He is ruling over all the affairs of men right now.
You might say; well how can He really be ruling when there are whole nations that deny Him. When people even in this nation seem happy to worship nearly anything other than the God who actually exists? How could God be in control when there is so much sin, suffering and evil?
You know what the greatest evil ever committed was? It was the murder of the Son of God by the hands of lawless men outside the walls of Jerusalem in around 33AD. An horrific act of violence, and perhaps the most grievious sin anyone has ever committed. But you know what? God ordained it. He purposed it. He predestined it.
22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
Does this mean that God is guilty of sin? No! It was the chief priests, the sanhedrin and the Romans who were guilty of killing Jesus. They acted freely out of the sinful desires of their hearts, they had no idea they were fulfulling the sovereign decree of God. This goes to show that even the most rebellious, sinful people are still governed by God. What they meant for evil God meant for good.
20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
HIS THRONE WAS A FIERY FLAME, ITS WHEELS A BURNING FIRE, A FIERY STREAM ISSUED FROM BEFORE HIM
Daniel sees the Ancient of Days sitting on a throne of fire, with wheels of fire and a lava like fiery stream flowing out before Him.
Fire is an element which is very often connected to God throughout scripture;
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire from heaven in Genesis
God appears to Moses out of a burning bush
His presence appears as a pillar of fire by night guiding the Israelites through the wilderness
God falls with fire upon Elijah’s sacrifice on Mount Carmel.
Jesus often used fire as a picture of judgement
There were tongues like fire on the disciples heads at pentecost
Fire can signify a number of things in scripture.
There is what is known as theophany fire; theophany comes from two Greek words Θεος which means God and Φαινειν which means ‘to show’ or ‘to reveal’. So we see God choosing flames of fire as a way of revealing His power and majesty to His people.
Fire can also represent holiness, or purification; tongues of fire on the disciples heads at pentecost or as a means of purification or testing in 1 Peter 1:7
7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Fire in scripture more often than not represents God’s judgement.
6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
15 “For behold, the Lord will come in fire,
and his chariots like the whirlwind,
to render his anger in fury,
and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment,
and by his sword, with all flesh;
and those slain by the Lord shall be many.
And it’s God’s judgement that is certainly in view here; since in verse 11 we see the little horn and the fourth beast thrown into the flames as a judgement against their rebellion.
That’s why I always get nervous when Christians begin to pray for the fire of God to fall on me! :-D The disciples wanted to pray that in Luke 9:54-55
54 And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55 But he turned and rebuked them.
I don’t want that kind of baptism of fire!
There are also wheels attached to the throne, fiery wheels. Wheels in Bible prophecy usually denote constant activity. So the wheels of fire here tells us that God is actively judging world affairs. Yes, there will be a judgement day when all will stand before the Great white throne, but there is a form of judgement that God is executing even now. In particular He raises up earthly powers and He casts them down as judgements.
There’s a quote often attributed to John Calvin that goes like this; “When God wants to judge a nation He gives them wicked rulers.” It’s maybe a little simplistic as a truism but you can see what hes getting at. Each of the four kingdoms in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 were Kingdoms that were raised up by God; that didn’t necessarily mean they were good kingdoms, but it meant that God had His purposes in raising them up. He raised up Nebuchanezzars Kingdom Daniel 2:37-38
37 You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, 38 and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are the head of gold.
He also cast it down in one day Daniel 5:26-31
26 This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 27 Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; 28 Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
29 Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made about him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
30 That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
We see God exercising this kind of judgement in the present day, too. When a nation departs from God, rebels openly against His word and against His design for human life inevitably those nations end up with evil and corrupt governments. Politically speaking you can track the rise of the Nazis back to the end of the first world war and the treaty of Versailles. But greater spiritual causes lay behind these political causes. During the 1800’s Germany became the home of a form of theological liberalism that poisoned the well of the global church even to the present day; these theologians denied the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the miracles of Christ, the Jewishness of Christ, the authority of the scriptures, the bodily resurrection of Christ, some even claimed that the gospels were mere myth. They denied everything that it means to be Christian, yet still claimed to be Christian. I believe the rise of the Nazi goverment was absolutely a judgement upon Germany, a judgement against the rebellion within the German church of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
We have also seen the opposite happen; when nations choose to serve God and put His precepts into practice; protecting His worship, looking after the vulnerable and needy, regulating trade and commerce, we see these nations flourish. The rise of Western civilization, the sudden rise to power of the United States of America was founded upon the Judeo-Christian worldview.
What should this tell us? How can we be encouraged? Our God doesn’t miss a thing. Sometimes people and governments seem to get away with great evil in this world; but this scripture tells us that there will be justice, there will be a reckoning.
25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
The Ancient of Days has hair like pure wool, and His garment white as snow. We read a similar description of the Son of Man in Revelation 1:13-14
13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire,
Does this mean that the ancient of Days is actually also the Son of Man? No, the Son of Man and the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7 are two different individuals. The Ancient of Days most believe to be God the Father.
So does God have hair like a sheep? No! :-D
“We ought not to imagine God in his essence to be like any appearance to his own Prophet and other holy fathers, but he put on various appearances, according to man’s comprehension, to whom he wished to give some signs of his presence. As our capacity cannot endure the fullness of that surpassing glory which essentially belongs to God, whenever he appears to us, he must necessarily put on a form adapted to our comprehension.” - Calvin
The colour white speaks of God’s holiness, His purity.
A million angels minister to Him on His throne, hundreds of millions stand before Him and the books are opened.
The books—i.e., the unerring record of man’s thoughts, words, and deeds, which is written in the unfailing memory of God.
What a scene. What should this tell us? Again we ought to be reminded of this one fact that God is holy and we are not. Even the most moral person in the world would look like a complete degenerate next to God. The only way to avoid the judgement of God is to be holy like He is. Well that’s impossible! For all those in Adam, yes. But for those in Christ; there can be no judgement, there can be no wrath from God, only blessings on account of His holiness.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
13 “I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
14 And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
THE SON OF MAN
Daniel then sees one like a son of man. What’s a son of man? A son of man simply means a human; a man. But Daniel didn’t say he saw a man, but one like a son of man. Coming with the clouds of heaven before the Ancient of Days.
Jesus of Nazareth was given titles by His followers and by His contempories and He is given titles today; Lord, Son of God, Prophet, Rabbi. But He chose one title for Himself which His followers never used; the Son of man. Jesus used this name; the son of man to refer to Himself time and time again in His ministry. To those of us living in the 21st century without any Jewish heritage this title seems an odd one. Is He simply emphasising His humanity? Is it as the Muslims say, that Jesus by calling Himself the son of man was denying His divinity and clearly saying that He was just a man? Jesus wasn’t doing anything of the sort. Jesus was identifying Himself as the ‘son of man’ of Daniel chapter 7. This is Him! Who receives a Kingdom from the ancient of Days that never ends!
36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
He is the King who is given dominion, glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve Him. In fact that word translated as ‘serve’ פלח can be properly rendered as worship. So Jesus Christ is the Son of Man, and this son of man shall be worshipped by all. For those who believe that Jesus is not divine, that don’t believe in the trinity, here we have the Son being worshipped as God by all peoples and all nations.
Some believe this picture of Christ receiving the kingdom is a picture of the consummation of the Kingdom when returns to reign on the earth, others believe this is a picture of Him receiving the Kingdom immediately after His resurrection. Either way, the picture is clear; Christ is King and He shall be worshipped and adored by all the earth for eternity.
So, what to take away with us today? To know that there is only one Kingdom that is secure; the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Christ. God has chosen to reveal Himself to sinful mankind gently, graciously and lovingly through the Son of Man; Jesus Christ. He has done this so as to make a way for us to come to Him and be part of His Kingdom. He has done this because He is love.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
I want you to know that if you believe in Christ today you have a long, long, long life to look forward to. An eternal life. An eternal life given over to worship. That is your destiny, that is your call, that is your privilege.
Pray