Daniel is troubled by the interpretation of the dream. He seems less troubled by what the king might
do to him than dismayed by its truth about the king. The interpretation is that the king’s
dominion is great, to the heavens and across the earth but the king does not
recognize the ultimate King of kings and thinks himself to be that one. Because of his arrogance and refusal to see
the truth and acknowledge it, he will indeed be out of his mind for seven
years, until he sees clearly and ascribes praise to the Lord. The opening sentences of this chapter, if you
recall, were the ascription of greatness to the Most High God whose kingdom is
everlasting. Daniel begs the king to
repent of his sins and practice righteousness and mercy that his prosperity may
be lengthened. Daniel believes this
dream will surely come to pass, now or later, the word is sure and will not be
averted. Our failure to ascribe Him the
honor due His Name can indeed stand between us and blessing. He is not our helper, that was Eve’s attitude
towards the birth of Cain and that attitude carried on in that line. He is the source of all things.
Amazing isn’t it how quickly Jesus went from being glorified
by all to the idea that the people of Nazareth would have the idea to throw Him
off a cliff? What did Jesus do? He made His claim to be Messiah in the
synagogue that morning. He said that He
was the fulfillment of the messianic prophecy and invited them to reflect on
what He had done in Capernaum. It seems
Jesus was reading minds, sorting out and vocalizing their objections that He
hadn’t shown them anything. They knew
what they knew, this was Joseph’s son, how could he now claim to be Messiah, no
matter what they had heard about Him.
His retort was to point back to the ministry of the greatest prophet,
Elijah, and his ministry to a Gentile, and the ministry of Elisha who healed
the Gentile leper from Syria, Naaman.
These two had faith while those closest to the prophet apparently did
not. Jesus compounded His sin of
claiming to be Messiah by comparing Himself and His ministry to Elijah and
Elisha. Little could anyone know, but He
was far greater than either of these men.
It is important for John that the people understand that the
particular confession you make about Jesus matters. For this congregation, it is important that
the confession be that Jesus came “in the flesh.” There were those among them, either gnostics
or docetists, who confessed Jesus but not that He came in the flesh. They said that He came in the form of a man
but not as an actual man, that a spirit inhabited a body. We are not dualists with regards spirit and
matter, we are a single unit comprised of spirit and body which need to be
taught how to work together as one. The
Holy Spirit should be the controller of the body such that they are one like
mind and body. Your confession of Jesus
needs to be true in order to be efficacious for salvation, truth matters.
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