The Hidden Structure That Explains All of Daniel | Dr. Jim Hamilton

You were probably taught to read Daniel like a codebook with beasts to identify, timelines to chart, and an Antichrist to spot. Dr. Jim Hamilton thinks the church has been missing the point, and he makes a compelling case that the key to Daniel's strangest visions is hiding in the stories of chapters 1–6.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:
Dr. Jim Hamilton, professor of biblical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and senior pastor of Kenwood Baptist Church, joins Joshua Lewis to walk through his book With the Clouds of Heaven: The Book of Daniel in Biblical Theology. His central claim: Daniel wrote real history and real prophecy, and the apocalyptic visions of chapters 7–12 aren't a departure from the narratives of chapters 1–6, but rather a projection of them. 

Look to the patterns: Nebuchadnezzar attacks God's people, plunders the temple, and tries to indoctrinate the faithful in Daniel 1, and that same pattern gets pressed onto the end times, again and again, until it culminates in resurrection of the dead (Daniel 12:2). Dr. Hamilton makes the case that Daniel interpreted his own God-given visions through a mind saturated with earlier Scripture, describing Nebuchadnezzar's shattered statue in the language of Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. 

However, the sparks fly on the fourth man in the fiery furnace. Dr. Hamilton argues it was an angel, not the pre-incarnate Christ, and Joshua isn't ready to concede. You'll also get his take on the 70th week of Daniel, resurrection hope in the Old Testament, and why Daniel parallels the book of Revelation.

ABOUT THE GUEST:
- https://jimhamilton.info
- With the Clouds of Heaven: The Book of Daniel in Biblical Theology https://a.co/d/00WPN6Zr
- Typology: Understanding the Bible's Promise-Shaped Patterns https://a.co/d/0d5vWjzG

RESOURCES MENTIONED: 
- Waking from the Dust: Daniel 12:2 and Resurrection Hope in Biblical Theology by Mitchell L. Chase https://a.co/d/02n8iyCx
- Knowing God by J.I. Packer: https://a.co/d/0bSWnkek
- The Book of Revelation (NIGTC) by G.K. Beale: https://a.co/d/0dUD4rQ9

0:00 – Introduction
2:40 – Daniel's Theology Overview
4:30 – Dating Daniel's Prophecies
6:59 – Nebuchadnezzar Patterns Repeated
13:07 – Daniel in the Writings
16:29 – Eden to Daniel
19:57 – Nebuchadnezzar's Dream, Psalm 1
28:46 – Fourth Man Debate
46:02 – Daniel 10 Angelic Visions
49:08 – Resurrection in Daniel
57:03 – Daniel's 70th Week
1:02:42 – Closing Encouragement

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hey everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Remnant Radio. I've got Dr. Jim Hamilton with us, and we're going to be discussing uh his book on Daniel. It's going to be an exciting program. You guys stay tuned. We're talking about the Cloud of Heaven, a book that uh Dr. Jim Hamilton has put together for us uh on the book of Daniel. It's gonna be an exciting program. Tons of really great content that we're gonna be talking today about. Uh we're gonna look at uh what could be Christophanes. We could be looking at passages of uh kind of like uh, well, we talked about the typology book that we've had Jim Hamilton on to talk about before. Uh man, a lot of really cool connection pieces from the book of Daniel to Revelation, arcing even back to other passages in the Old Testament. So it's gonna be a really cool program today. I'm very much looking forward to it. If you're out there and you want to stay up to date on all things at Remnant Radio, not to miss out on interviews like this, highly advise you to check the link in the description over at theremnetradio.com. You can sign up for the newsletter and get updates on all this content. Just in case, you know, the YouTube overlords decide to not promote our content, you'll still get the update. Guys, thank you so much for staying with us. Let me introduce you to my guest. Jim, tell us a little about yourself and your ministry for people who might not have seen you come on prior. Uh, tell us a little bit all of that that you do. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

I have the privilege of serving as a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm also the senior pastor at Kinwood Baptist Church here in Louisville. And that's uh just a sheer delight and joy to my heart. And I'm married. I've been married for it'll be 28 years in about a month. And on our 28th anniversary, our secondborn son is going to get married. So he'll be the first of our children to get married. We have five kids, and they range in age from 22 down to 12. And I've had the joy of uh studying the Bible and writing some things about the Bible. And I love the scriptures, love the Lord, love the Lord's people.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Glad to be here. So what I hear you saying is you're not very busy, and we should expect to see many more books like this one coming out in the near future. Let's uh let let's okay, this is a little bit of a blast from the past for you, I'm sure. You you wrote this book in 2014. Uh so leave it to remnant radio. Say it again.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

That's when it appeared. Uh it was actually written probably like 2012, 20, you know, in that before long before 2015.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Oh man. So that leave it to remnant radio to do yesterday's news today. Uh that's what we're that's what we're talking about, is this book because it's interesting to us. And I think that we try to do our best to say, hey, we want to have conversations with people we think are interesting. Well, not just the people, but the subject matter that you guys are working on. Uh so tell us a little bit about the book, how how you've you know or formatted it. Again, we're going back to 2012 here. Uh, but but tell us a little bit about it. Daniel is an interesting book. Uh, it's kind of apocalyptic, it's kind of this historical narrative. There's a whole lot of different pieces in it. How should people be conceptualizing the book of Daniel as they approach it?

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yeah, that's a great question. So sometimes people will ref will refer to this little book that I wrote as a commentary. It's not actually a commentary so much as it is a book about Daniel's theology. And so uh the way that I structured the book was I I chose what I thought were the significant topics that needed to be discussed for us to understand how Daniel interpreted earlier scripture and how Daniel is communicating what he intends to convey, the message he's trying to get across in his own book. And, you know, at the time that I wrote the book, I couldn't find uh a book that I would regard as evangelical. And by that, what I mean is someone who believes that the character Daniel, who's active around the time 539 BC, up he was maybe born 620 BC, and then he's active maybe down to 536 BC or so. I I couldn't find someone who was affirming that Daniel was actually the author of the book and that the book was giving us real historical information about what took place in Daniel's life, and that that it actually is prophesying about things that are going to happen in the future. So, you know, many things have been written on the book of Daniel, but in the current scholarly scene, many, many people think that Daniel is is prophesying about things that have already taken place, and he's actually pretending to prophesy as he narrates history. So though those are some of the the distinctive aspects of the approach that I tried to take.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

No, help me with the the other position. I mean, is that is the argumentation that after like maybe in the Maccabean period, like way late on that it's being predicted? I think I picked that up on your book, if memory serves me correctly. How how does that typical argumentation go when it comes to you know Daniel being pseudopographical or like someone's taking Daniel's name in order to say that this happened? But but no, this is actually a historical document that predates those kinds of prophecies.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Yeah, so it basically comes down to the fact that some of these things that Daniel discusses so closely resemble things that took place between, say, 167 and 164 BC during what is referred to as the Maccabean crisis, because the the similarities are so strong, many, many scholars believe, because they don't believe that God reveals the future, the way that the book of Daniel is claiming to reveal the future, they believe that the only way this could, that the matches could be so exact is for Daniel to have been to have written these things after they took place. And and, you know, as a believing person, I believe in God, I believe that God reveals himself to his people, I believe that he reveals the future. I I think it's it's perfectly understandable that Daniel actually is predicting the future. But you mentioned my book, Promise Shaped Patterns. I think that in Daniel's predictions of the future, he's informed by the patterns of the past. And this is something that I think is often overlooked and neglected. People don't see the way that what they refer to as the apocalyptic section of the book of Daniel, chapters seven through twelve, is actually taking the patterns of chapters one through six and projecting those patterns onto the end times. So I think that's a key aspect of the way that Daniel goes about prophesying of the future. He's using patterns from the past, some of which he's narrated within the context of his own book.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

That's really interesting. I wish I had read your book, this book, before I had preached Zachariah, because now I'm thinking about Zachariah's temple building complex, and I'm going, oh, there's probably a connection there that I missed, uh, unfortunately. But I'm I I can see how that would actually make a whole lot of sense in that book, and we'll now have to go back and read it and see if I can make those connections. And then put my church through another you know six months of Zachariah. That'll be fun. Um they'll be thrilled about that. Uh let's uh let let's uh you mentioned this in your book, you talk about like kind of the opening historical chapters, talking about the what's taking place there and how that reflects in those apocalyptic chapters. You mentioned that just now. That was one of my questions I I intended to ask you. Could you paint some of that for us? That picture of like, okay, they heard you say it, but like get into the the nitty-gritty of it a little bit to explain how that actually fleshes out.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah, so you know, the book opens, Daniel 1 opens recounting how King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and what he did was he he defeated God's people in Jerusalem, he defeated Israel, and he this is this is probably narrating the time when Daniel himself was exiled in 605 BC. And so at that time he didn't burn down the temple, but he did he did plunder the temple, and he took a lot of young Israelites, the promising people of the rising generation, captive, and then he took them back to Babylon. So what he's done is he has defeated God's people militarily, he's plundered the temple, which jeopardizes their ability to worship the Lord in the temple, and then he's tried to convert what he when he when he brings Daniel back to Babylon and he gives him a Babylonian name and he he tries to teach him all the Babylonian literature, what he's doing is he's he's trying to indoctrinate Daniel and the other his friends, those who are taken captive with him. And so he's trying to turn them into good Babylonians. And as you proceed through the book, the the apocalyptic figures, they're gonna do the same thing. They're gonna attack the people of God, they're gonna try to stamp out the worship of God, and they're gonna threaten the lives of God's people and try to make them convert to idolatry in various forms. So this is what you see in Daniel 7, this is what you see in Daniel 8, this is what you see again in Daniel 11, again and again and again, and and I would argue also in Daniel 9, over and over again in the book, what Daniel's gonna do is he's gonna take what Nebuchadnezzar did in chapter 1, and it's kind of like he projects that into the future. Now, along the way, in places like Daniel 3 and Daniel 6, you have Daniel's friends, they're preserved through the fiery furnace in Daniel 3, and then in Daniel 6, Daniel himself is preserved through the lion's deck. So the message that's being communicated to the afflicted and persecuted people of God is this is what the foreign powers are going to try to do. You should be faithful, like the three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, like Daniel, and you should believe like they did that the Lord would deliver, like the Lord did in their case. And then in the in the passages between Daniel 3 and Daniel 6, Daniel chapters 4 and 5, uh what happens is these proud, worldly kings are humbled. So in Daniel 4, um the king has that seven-year hiatus from sanity. And it's only when he acknowledges that God is Lord, that the Lord is God, that his heart returns to him and his sanity is restored. And then in Daniel 5, the foreign king sees the writing on the wall and he can't read it, and then Daniel interprets it for him and tells him that he's been weighed in the scales and found wanting. So the message is these proud, wicked kings that are attacking God's people, God has the power to humble them, and God has the power to deliver his people out of things like fiery furnaces and lion's den. And so you should understand that you're going to be persecuted, you're going to be opposed, and you should be bold, and you should stand firm, and you should believe that this is all part of the Lord's plan, and he's going to raise his people from the dead, and he's going to ensure that his purposes are accomplished. And this is what we see at the end of the book in Daniel 12, when in verse 2 we read about how many will awake, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting shame and destruction. So that promise of resurrection communicates that if, like those in Daniel 11, who know their God and they stand firm and they act wisely, if they die by flame and sword and fire and so forth, well, the Lord is going to reward them and raise them from the dead. So this is kind of how I would summarize the message of Daniel. And really the whole book is chiastically structured. So if we start from the middle, chapters four and five, God has the power to humble those proud, wicked human kings. Chapters three and six, framing the central section, God has the power to deliver his people from lion's den and fiery furnace. And then we move out to chapter chapters two on the one hand and seven through nine on the other. God has a definite plan for the future that involves these wicked kings coming and going until his all God's purposes are accomplished. And then if we go out to Daniel 1 and Daniel 10 through 12, you have the exile of the people in Daniel 1, and then the ultimate kind of new exodus and return from exile in in Daniel 10 through 12 that culminates in the resurrection from the dead. So that that's how I would very quickly summarize the message of the whole book.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

And it's uh has a whole lot of explanatory power there. And I find this really common in a lot of the prophetic literature. You know, I I grew up in uh kind of a classical Pentecostal denomination, and all of the apocalyptic and/or prophetic literature was read as like, this is the blueprint, you need to figure it out, because if you if you know all the details and how the things are gonna unfold, then you'll be ready for the end. And every time I've done my own study on these books, typically the message is the bad guy's bad, God will defeat him, trust God, he'll take care of you. I mean, it's really I mean, I know that that people are gonna listen to me and be like, you're a theology podcast, you know? Like you're it's supposed to be more particular than that. But I'm like, man, I really think that's the focus of so much of prophetic literature is not trying to give you all the details of how it is going to unfold, but maybe the overarching patterns of the bad guy will be defeated, God will reign supremely. Um but I just said that. I just said prophetic literature. You put this in the writings and not necessarily in the category of prophetic. Why is that?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Well, I didn't put it there. This is where the Jewish people put it. The people that, and and I think probably this goes back to people like Ezra and Nehemiah. They have organized the Old Testament into the this tripartite type division, threefold division of law, prophets, and then writings. So the law is obvious, that's the five books of Moses. The prophets is not what we think of. In the prophets, you have two sets of four books. The first four are Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Samuel and Kings both counted as one book. And the idea is these are historical books written by prophetic figures. And then you have Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then the twelve minor prophets. Those are what we normally think of when we use the word prophets. And then that leaves the writings, and in our Hebrew Bibles, the writings are organized into a set of three, a set of five, and then a set of three. So the first set of three are Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, that and then the set of five are the so-called small scrolls, or sometimes they're referred to as the Megilot, that's the Hebrew word for small scrolls. And those are um Ruth, which is about a Gentile who comes to the land of Israel and gets married. That's the first one, and then Esther, that's the last one, and that's about an Israelite in a foreign land who gets married, so they kind of match one another. And then Israel's best song, the Song of Songs, over against Israel's worst song, the Book of Lamentations. And then in the middle is the one that's not like the others, and that's Ecclesiastes. And it's not like the others in the sense that there's not a woman with the speaking with a speaking part for one thing. So those that's the set of five. And then you have the final set of three, which are the book of Daniel, and then Ezra Nehemiah, and then Chronicles, counted as one book. And I think that the book of Daniel was positioned where it was, in part because as the books fall out this way, what you have in Daniel is a kind of return to historical narrative. You get that a little bit with Esther, which precedes it, but it's historical narrative with an end times focus. And in that way, it's kind of like the book of Revelation that comes at the end of the New Testament. So I think there's actually a sort of parallel in the law, prophets, and writings that's kind of matched in the New Testament with the Gospels, which sort of corresponds to the five books of Moses. And then the prophetic material in the Old Testament is kind of matched by the epistles, the explanatory letters. And then uh the book of Revelation in the New Testament kind of corresponds to books like Daniel and in some ways Ezra and Nehemiah, in that it's this forward-looking kind of uh return to historical narrative. So uh I think that there's an intentional on the part of people like Ezra and Nehemiah, there's an intentional organization of the Old Testament material. I don't have chapter and verse for this, but I think it it makes best sense of what we find in these books. And then whoever it was that put the New Testament books together, they seem to have paralleled or matched the structuring of the books of the New Testament.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

That's that's really interesting. You you say that Daniel is kind of set at a setting at the end of Eden. And again, we're we're we're 16 minutes in. I've barely we're barely through the introduction here. So we can we can we don't have to spend a ton of time on this, but like give us that kind of I don't know, the gospel thread from Eden to Daniel and kind of walk us through uh again, context matters so much, and I think that when people just hear you give the context or the chiastic structure of Daniel, they go, Oh wow, that's clearly the meaning of the book. That that makes a ton of sense. Uh, but but work us through again where Daniel fits in the light of the whole as it relates to Eden all the way to Daniel.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Yeah. So I I think we have to start with Genesis 1.28, where the Lord blesses the man and the woman that he's just made, and he says to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And if they fill the earth and subdue it, what they're going to be doing is filling the world with God's image bearers. And instead of filling the world with God's glory, I think it's Genesis 6.11 that tells us that the Lord saw that the world was filled with violence. And this all stems from Adam's sin. So Adam sins, and he and his wife, Eve, they get driven out of God's presence in the Garden of Eden. Uh, but the Lord doesn't leave it there. I think the Lord makes promises and puts in motion a plan that's going to bring about what we have in Revelation 21 and 22, which is a new and better Eden. And if we think of things in these terms, when the Lord takes Israel out of the land of Egypt and he says to Moses in the buildup to this, Israel is my son, my firstborn son, let my son go. Moses is to say to Pharaoh, it's almost as though the Lord is taking the nation of Israel as a new Adam, son of God, and he's going to put them in the land of promise, which is like a new Eden. And they're going to have a new opportunity to dwell in the presence of God and live in accordance with God's instructions. But the way it plays out, the same thing that happened to Adam happened to Israel. And just as Adam broke the covenant and got driven out of the Garden of Eden, the people of Israel have broken the covenant. And when Nebuchadnezzar exiles them from the land, in the opening chapter of the book of Daniel, we should understand this as kind of a repetition of that pattern of the covenant breakers being driven out of the covenant place or the place where they enjoy God's presence. And then the book of Daniel, as it looks forward to the resurrection of the dead, it's really looking forward to the restoration of God's people to God's place where they will live according to God's ways. And that's how the whole Bible culminates in the book of Revelation. So in terms of the big story, I think in the opening phrases of the book, when Daniel chapter 1, verse 2 refers to the land of Shinar, it's almost like what Daniel is doing is taking like a cord that's that's coming off a lamp that is his book, and he's plugging that lamp into that wall outlet. And when he does that, the electricity from the broader story comes surging into that lamp and the lights come on. So what Daniel has done is is plugged his narrative into the outlet, so to speak, of earlier scripture, and that's what gives energy and power under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the message that Daniel communicates.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

And you argue this too uh in Daniel 2 about like the Nebuchadnezzar's dream being interpreted, and you're saying that he's doing this through the lens of Old Testament scripture. I've got the references written up here because I can't remember all of them. But Deuteronomy 4, Isaiah 2, Micah 4, uh, and that kind of pays out here in Daniel 2. Can you can you kind of make sense of that? Because that that's very interesting as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Yeah, so I actually want to ref refer to a text that you didn't mention from that I think is referenced in Daniel 2. So I re wanna read Daniel chapter 2, verse 35. So Daniel sees the statue and um he describes it to Nebuchadnezzar, and then he he's telling the king, he says, Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold all together were broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away. Now I think what has happened is Daniel has seen this vision, and he has interpreted this vision using the language of Psalm chapter 1, verse 4. Um, not so, the wit the wicked are not so, they shall be like chaff that the wind drives away. So I think Daniel probably has Psalm 1 memorized, and when he sees this vision, what he sees is filtered in his mind through the terms and the phrases of Psalm 1. And then when he describes what he saw to the king, he uses the language of Psalm 1. And so this communicates to God's people that what they what they're familiar with from Psalms 1 and 2, which pertains to the way that the blessed man is going to meditate on the Torah day and night, and he's gonna be like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season and so forth. And then we get into Psalm 2, and I think we learn that the blessed man is actually the Lord's Messiah against whom the kings are raging. And this this this the Lord is going to answer from heaven I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill. And then he's warning the wicked. Therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, kiss the son lest he be angry, and you be destroyed in the way. And it's almost like the destruction of that statue, which sit which symbolizes these successive kingdoms that are going to reign over the land of promise. They're a picture of the wicked being destroyed in the way, which also resonates with the end of Psalm 1, where it says, Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. And I think once once Daniel has seen his vision, he's like, Exactly, this is the wicked perishing in their way because they refused to acknowledge the Lord and his anointed, but instead tried to burst their bonds and cast their cords from us, as we read in Psalm 2, 1 through 3. So I think what Daniel is doing is quoting Psalm 1 back to Nebuchadnezzar, kind of to say to him, Therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, you rulers of the earth. And um, and and in this way, I think Daniel's audience is also instructed because I think it's it's highly likely that the Jews of Daniel's day would have had Psalm 1, Psalms 1 and 2 memorized, and they would have recognized this illusion.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

That's okay, that that's difficult for me on a couple levels, okay? Because on one level, I've got the dream interpreters over here who are like, hey, you've got a picture in the Bible. So you had this dream, and in this dream there was uh, you know, a horse. Well, here's what horses mean in the Bible, and they go back here, and I'm like, I don't, I don't, I that feels like a leap. You know what I mean? The when I look at the Joseph, he doesn't have any text to pull from, he just gets divine revelation from God. If I if I hear you right, and clean this up for me if you think I'm I'm I'm off on what you're saying, because I'm just trying to distill what I'm hearing you say. Daniel gets an interpretation from the Lord. Yep, that's the interpretation, know what it means. But now I'm going to paint the explanation of it, including biblical language. It's not like he's using the biblical language to interpret the dream. The interpretation comes from the Lord, because again, we're the evangelicals who like, I actually believe what the Bible said what it said, and God gave him the dream. So, or the interpretation for the dream. So we're like, okay, cool. Uh that's how that works. But he's using language. So I, you know, uh a comparison, this is what I've tried to explain sometimes, Genesis uh 1 through 11, true historical account told in a polemical way, is my take, and I know it's not everyone's, but I go, hey, if I went to a Thanksgiving and my whole family's there, and my brother-in-law is playing football and he trips right before making that last touchdown, you know. You know, I might tell a story later about Thanksgiving dinner, if Ben is present in order to pick on him and say, Hey, you know, I was passing the mashed potatoes and I didn't trip, and I and I'm telling a true story of what really happened, but I'm I'm actually poking the bear, as it were, referencing something else. So it's still telling a true story. So pull out a little bit and say, Is Daniel giving an interpretation he hears from the Lord, but then painting it and and writing it down in a way that his audience will see that there's actually hyperlinks somewhere else? Is that what I'm hearing you say? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

So I would just fill this in, you know. Um, the subtitle of the typology book has the words promise-shaped patterns. Okay. So here's the kind of thing I have in mind. Once the Lord has spoken the words of Genesis 3:15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, you will bruise his heel and he will bruise your head. Once the Lord has spoken this, I think people who have their thinking shaped by that promise, it's almost like the promise is impressed upon their thinking so that when they see things happen, they think about them through the lens, so to speak, or they filter it through the channel that those words have dug in their thinking. So they're probably going to refer to the wicked as seed of the serpent. And or they might call them uh the sons of Belial, which is another way to say they're seed of the serpent, or they might refer to them as brood of vipers, which is another way to talk about seed of the serpent. Um, so the point is the words of God have it have been impressed upon people's thinking with the result that when they experience things, they filter them through the words of God. It's it's really almost an application of what Moses said when he said Deuteronomy 6, 6, these words that I command you today shall be upon your hearts, and you shall teach them diligently to your sons. Dot, dot, dot. And then he says, They shall be as frontlets before your eyes. It's like you you look at the world through the words of Scripture. And that's the way I'm proposing Psalm 1 is functioning in Daniel's thinking. Daniel really had a vision. The Lord really gave him the interpretation of the vision, he really did get the revelation of the dream and its meaning. But when Daniel processed this through his thinking, he did that with a mind shaped by earlier scripture. So that when he went to describe what he had seen, he described it using words of earlier scripture. So, you know, there's a both and at work here. He really did have, he really did have experience revelation. He really did receive the revelation of the meaning of what he saw, and he really did think about that through the language and imagery that he was familiar with from earlier passages like Psalm 1.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah, I've used uh another illustration again, trying to press this home for people who are watching. I you know, my son cleans his room, I come in, uh, you know, he's he he finds his mom's watch, long-lost Apple watch. It appears in the room. She must have tickled him one night and then lost it in the bed. And he gives the watch to dad, and dad says, Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. And then, you know, uh uh David says, Hey, is the room to your liking? And I go, Hey, you know, everything in its right place, but oh, you know, we got some sit, you know, dust on the on the bookshelf. Uh, you need a wax on, wax off, buddy. And then I walk out and I say, I'll be back. And everyone in the kind of context recognizes I'm quoting karate kid, wax on, wax off, forest gump, life is like a box of chocolates, and I'll be back from the terminator. And you don't even have to watch those movies. In fact, I think two of those films I haven't even seen. Um, but like uh I know in in the in the culture and the ethos of just the pop cultural language that we all kind of swim in that I'm referencing something else. And you're saying that the the biblical reader of this time, the Jewish reader at this time, their imagination is so saturated with scripture, when Daniel's telling the story, they're like, oh, I'm seeing it. I see the hyperlink that you're making here. Now, yes, one of the dangers that there happens, I think when dangers might be a strong word. Eagerness, zeal might be a better word. Uh, one of the one of the the accidental zealous moments that happens when we begin to read scripture is that we see all these patterns and sometimes we get drunk on symbols. Uh, I remember going through Zachariah again, stressing this point. Let's not get drunk on symbols. I think maybe something I've actually uh quoted from you on this. Uh, but uh Daniel, you know, is it chapter four, the the fourth man of the fire? Maybe I'm just thinking it's chapter four because there's four guys on the fire. That's chapter three. Okay, chapter three. Okay, so uh you're you're you're here going, hey look guys, I know you've got a lot of zeal. You're all really excited to see Jesus in that fire, but I don't know if that's Jesus. Can you give us a uh, you know, help squash everyone's precious moments picture in their Bible or you know, undermine the Veggie Tales series, whatever it entails, but help us make sense of this. And do you hold this like with a with a closed fist? Are you sure that it's an angel? Uh or are you open to be persuaded otherwise?

SPEAKER_02 30:44

I'm open to being persuaded, but my you know, if if the hand is open, it's it's kind of a strong hand. Um, you know, it's gonna take some work to persuade me. So let's just start with thinking about the incarnation. Uh, and I would say that prior to the fullness of time, when God sent forth his son, who was born of a woman, born under law, and and that when Paul says that he did this in the fullness of time, I think what he's communicating is at the exact moment in his sovereign eternal plan when he intended to do that. Okay, prior to that, I don't think that the Lord the Lord was triune, and we have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existing always, but I don't think when God made the world, he created a like a human body that he assumed at that point. I I think that the living God, the sec, and particularly you know, the second person, the son, he only assumed a human body at the incarnation. Prior to that, my understanding would be that when God created this world, that we can see with our eyes and we can hear things with our ears and we can perceive things with our five senses, God himself did not make himself part of the created order or part of the created world. So that when I I think it's the case that when God makes himself visible in the Old Testament prior to the incarnation, and I think the New Testament supports this conclusion, what he has done is sent a created angel who represents him. And so in Galatians 3.19, in Acts 7.53, and in Hebrews 2.2, we read that the law was given through angels. And and I think that this fills out, you know, every so often in the Old Testament, when people experience God, they talk to God, the the figure is referred to as the angel of the Lord, and what they'll actually see is something like a man. So, like in the book of Daniel, he referred to seeing this man who spoke with him, but it's a heavenly being. Okay, so that's the first thing, first thing I would say is that I don't think God himself took on human form until the incarnation. Now, I think that God sending angels to to speak for him and to reveal him to people, and even I think, you know, in cases like Genesis 18, when Abraham bows down to these angels, apparently, you know, the angel doesn't do like the ones in Revelation 19 and 22, when they say, Don't bow down to me, bow down to the Lord alone. This angel is apparently authorized to receive, you know, worship that's directed to God, and he's not receiving it himself, so he doesn't dissuade Abraham. Similarly, even in Exodus 3, when when the Lord says, I am who I am, it says at the beginning of the chapter that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses. So it seems that that's an angel who's who speaks to Moses on behalf of God, even to the point of revealing the Lord's own name. Okay, so having said that, uh, that's kind of a broader theological point. If we look at the book of Daniel, I want to I want to consider what we read in Daniel chapter 9, in verse 21, when Daniel writes, While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first. Okay, so Daniel sees this guy, Gabriel, apparently one of these angels, one of these heavenly beings, and he's seen this guy before. And he says, Okay, this guy Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first. Now I think we can go back, you know, earlier in Daniel and pinpoint, for instance, Daniel 8, verse 16, I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Uli, and it called, Gabriel, make this man understand the vision. So in this case, Daniel is identifying the guy he's encountering in chapter 9 with at least the guy he encountered in chapter 8. Maybe this is also the guy in chapter 7, when uh we read in Daniel 7:16, I approached one of those who stood there. So, you know, there are all these people around the throne. Daniel approaches one of these angelic figures, and that angelic figure gives Daniel an explanation of the vision that he has seen. Okay, so my point here is when Daniel sees a guy for the second or third time, Gabriel, he identifies him with the guy that he saw earlier. Now, in addition to that kind of move, there are other places where Daniel is going to use language that is the same from one vision to the next, indicating that, you know, when he sees this man, he's seeing another man, and these are the same kinds of person. Now, I say all that to draw attention to Daniel chapter 7, and in verse 13 we read, I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man. And nowhere, now now this guy, this one like the son of man from Daniel 7, 13, is everywhere in the New Testament identified with Jesus. So, you know, Daniel 7, 13 and 14 is quoted all over the place in the New Testament with reference to Jesus. So I think that in Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14, Daniel has a vision of the Lord Jesus approaching the ancient of days and receiving the kingdom from him. He doesn't say something like what we saw in Daniel 9, verse 21, whom I had seen in the earlier vision. You know, Daniel 9, 21, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision first. And I think it would be easy in Daniel 7 for him to say the one like a son of man who was in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You know, in other words, he doesn't link the one like the son of man, whom I take to be Jesus, with the guy in the fiery furnace. And then we go back to that passage.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Would he be able to do that? I mean, I'm I'm going from memory here, but is Daniel recorded in the account of the fiery furnace?

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Daniel is not mentioned in Daniel chapter three. But but I still think he could, well, he he could either say, This is the guy that was in the furnace with my friends, or he could use the exact same language. So both Daniel three and Daniel seven are written in Aramaic, so we're dealing with the same language. And back in chapter four, in verse, sorry, chapter three, verse 25, at the end of the verse it says, The appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. Okay, so there's a difference in the description. Like a son of the gods is not the same phrase as one like a son of man. And and so I think that if Daniel thought the guy in the fiery furnace is the same guy, the guy in the fiery furnace in 325 is the same guy that I saw approach the ancient of days and receive the kingdom in 713, he very easily could have said, uh, there came one like a son of the gods. Or he could have had Nebuchadnezzar say the appearance of the fourth is like is you know, one like a son of man. You see what I'm saying? He he could have linked those two, and the fact that he doesn't link them by using the same phrase to describe them, and the fact that he doesn't identify them, like saying the guy that I saw in my vision is the same guy that appeared in the fiery furnace, I think indicates that that the author of the book of Daniel, whom I take to be Daniel himself, did not identify those two figures. Um and then there's also this in in chapter three, notice how in verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar says, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Mesheb, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. So within the text of Daniel itself in 420 or 328, the figure in the fiery furnace is called an angel. And there are some scholars who think that there are places where the Lord Jesus is referred to as an angel, even in the book of Revelation, like Beal in his massive commentary on the book of Revelation, he discusses how when this uh let's see. I think it's the angel in Daniel 14, 6. I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an internal gospel to proclaim. He discusses how some people, some interpreters think that that angel is actually the Lord Jesus. Or or what it's one of these angels in in in Revelation 14.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

I've got the book sitting on my shelf, and with the magic of post-editing, I can uh put the quote in. Uh uh Yeah, no worries, no worries at all.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Okay, so that the Lord Jesus is ever called an angel.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Sure, sure, sure. And I I think I I think that there's room for fairer scholarly debate on this. I think I am probably in the camp when I look at Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, I look at Abraham eating with you know the three beings, one of them who seems to at least take the name of Yahweh, which you would say is uh a representative and not uh you know embodied. And it seems like there are a few accounts there where it would be clearly embodied, right? Because they're consuming food. But even the scriptures say that angels are spirits, right? So it's like it's kind of hard to be like, is this spirit taking on a human form without being incarnate? I think there's theological wiggle there, I think, to kind of wrestle through that. And if an angel can do that, is it possible for Christ to do that in the kind of free incarnate state? And and again, lots of theological discussion to be had on that. But but I want to kind of hang out on the non-physical accounts, because I think if I were to press you on that John, no, it's not John 10, maybe it's John 12, where Jesus is uh John is speaking of Jesus and says that Isaiah was speaking of his glory, meaning that the the being that's sitting up on the throne, you know, clothed in glory, angels, holy, holy, holy, or seraphim, however technical you want to be, the eyeballed creatures, the weird ones that are out there saying uh he's different, which is a weird thing for the craziest thing in the world to say. Um he goes, Hey, God's different. Uh John is saying he's saying this of speaking of Jesus' glory. So I would assume that you would take certain passages in the Old Testament where there is embodied pictures of the Lord that take place, and since no one has ever seen the Father, this must be the Son making the Father known from eternity past, because he eternally proceeds from the Father, he's eternally making the Father known. So my only question would be just kind of more of a spooky one, which is what if this being in the fire, and I have no dog in this fight, I don't care, I'm just asking. Uh, what if what if the being in the fire uh was a spiritual being that was made to be seen and wasn't embodied at all? Like, could it still be the Lord in that context? It could be a could it be like a visionary experience, which I don't know that the shared visionary experience is all that common. I may be talking myself out of it, but but but help help me uh you know uh for those who are like now it's gotta be Jesus. Uh I heard a three-point sermon that changed my life, and it was Christ, the third man of the fire, or the fourth man of the fire. Any of that persuasive at all?

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Well, you know, for me, so I I think I've indicated that I think Daniel's thro Daniel chapter three and Daniel chapter six stand across from one another in the chestic structure of the chestic structure, yeah. And and in three twenty-eight, um, blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. And then if we look over at 622, the lion's den, we read there, Daniel says, My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth, and they have not harmed me because I was found blameless before him. And then later in verse 23, no kind of harm was found on him because he had trusted in his God. So angelic deliverance for those trust in God in Daniel 3, 28 and 62 and 23. And and so I think that you know, if you're gonna argue that the fourth man in the furnace is Jesus, you're gonna have to argue that he's he's being identified as an angel. And I think you probably want to suggest that he's also the one that shut the lion's mouth.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

And still, I think it's pretty squishy. I think it's pretty squishy. I think you're you might be right on this one. I'm gonna have to. I I'm I'm undecided. Everybody knows on the program, I don't make decisions on air, but I'm gonna I'm gonna wrestle through it.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

I don't think you have me on the angel of the Lord in the old testament yet, but uh don't again to that that whole thing about the creator and the creation, okay? Yeah. So I I think that when we think about God creating the world, you know, one of the one of the ways I think we want to rec we want to think about this is in order for me to see things with my created eyes, I have to see created or I have to be perceiving created matter that is perceptible to created eyes. Same with like what I hear with my ears. If I'm gonna hear a voice, it it's because I'm created, it's gonna need to be generated by something like lungs, which force air up through a windpipe where there are vocal cords, and then that air is gonna need to come through a mouth which is shaping syllables and consonants and vowels to communicate human language. And until the incarnation, I don't think we want to suggest that God took on. Createrial form that can be perceived and heard by created human perceptive capacity.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

I don't okay. I'm gonna push back on this one. Because in John 12, God speaks from heaven and people hear the Father is speaking from the heavens. This is, you know, uh, I I have glorified it, I will glorify it again. You've got the baptism in Matthew 3. Uh Jesus is being baptized and the Father speaks from heaven. He doesn't have vocal cords in that account. Like, I don't, I don't know. I think uh we we we I don't know. I I'm trying to be I'm I'm I'm not trying to like uh badger the witness here. I just don't know if I don't know if I'm on board with that one yet. Um because there there are accounts in the old testament, even I think of of God speaking, even with you can make the argumentation it was Elijah, he was in a still small whisper. Uh that might be stretchy, but you definitely have New Testament accounts. Those are three off the top of my head. Even the Mount of Transfiguration, this is my son, listen to him. And that was heard by physical ears.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Yeah. So I, you know, perhaps this is just a suggestion, perhaps the same thing is happening on these occasions that happened like at Mount Sinai, where you know, the text reads as though Yahweh came down on the mountain, and then the Lord spoke all these words, saying, But then we read in Acts 7:53, Galatians 3.19, Hebrews 2.2, that the law was given through angels. And and then, you know, even Genesis 18, it says in verse 1, the Lord appeared to Abraham, and then it says it in like in the next phrase, he lifted up his eyes and he saw three men. So, you know, I'm affirming that these are probably angels, but they're described in the text as men uh who come to Abraham. So, and I and I think this would fit with the understanding of Genesis 6, when it says that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they took wives. I I think these angels have the capacity to take on human material bodies and you know engage in immoral relations with human women.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Let's keep going uh with this passage in Daniel, because we've we've tackled a lot of the front section of the book. Let's kind of get into the apocalyptic stuff, the stuff that's rather spooky, maybe. Uh, you talk about Daniel 10 introducing uh the most complex angelic scene uh where a whole bunch of different figures are possibly taking place there. Unpack some of that for us.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Yeah, so this is where you know the the whole of chapter 10 is really the introduction for chapters 11 and 12. So the figure whom Daniel sees in chapter 10 is going to communicate to Daniel, as he says in Daniel 11, 2, this figure says, and now I will show you the truth. Um, so the the guy that kind of makes his entrance in Daniel 10 is now revealing to Daniel the content of chapters 11 and 12. And this is where people will tie what is revealed here directly to a lot of the events that took place between like 330 BC down to 165 BC or so. And, you know, if you want to trace that out, an easy place to do it is just to look at the ESV study Bible notes, and they'll give you a kind of point-for-point correspondence between what Daniel prophesies and what took place during that period of history. I I I think that's a possible interpretation. Uh, I think it's also possible that these events are yet future. And, you know, I'm I'm I'm just open to understanding um or to both end, right? Because it's like uh there's an installment of the pattern uh in that historical period that points forward to the future. That's right. Uh but you know, at the at the at the end near the end of this passage, once we get down to about verse 36, uh verses 36 through 39, there's a really close correspondence between what Daniel reveals here and what Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. And a great if you if you have Greg Beale's commentary on the Thessalonian letters, sorry, it's it's uh 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians 2. Um, Beale kind of aligns Paul's statements with Daniel's statements. He's got a really nice chart, and you can see how everything that Paul says there in first uh 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is informed by what Daniel writes here in Daniel 11, 36 through 39. So that figure in 2 Thessalonians 2 is yet future because Paul says there in 2 Thessalonians 2 that he's speaking of the one whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing at the appearance of his coming. So, you know, I think that Paul is talking there about the second coming, and I think he's talking about this end-time antichrist figure whom the Lord Jesus is going to destroy at his return.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Yeah, that checks out. The book ends here with resurrection, some to everlasting life. Uh talk on that for me because there's not a whole lot of Old Testament references to resurrection that I can recall. I remember uh doing some prep work for this, I think it was a systematic theology class that I was teaching in a co-op or something. And we talked about resurrection, and I, you know, you always try to go Old Testament, teachings of Jesus, New Testament. And there's quite a quite a sparse referencing of resurrection language in the Old Testament. So how important and central is that to Daniel's writing? What does he mean when he's writing that? Does he have an understanding of a like a real resurrection of the dead?

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Yes, I think absolutely Daniel has an understanding of the resurrection from the dead. I'm I'm just looking up my my friend Mitch Chase. He his dissertation was recently published, and I believe it's called From Dust You Shall Awake, but um I'm not going oh, there it is. Waking from the dust is the title of it. It's just recently been published, and it was it was completed a number of years ago. What I think Mitch demonstrates conclusively is that even though Daniel 12.2 represents a fullest, explicit articulation of the resurrection, there is reason to believe that all the way back to Moses, I would, I would argue all the way back to Adam, God's people are expecting resurrection from the dead. And you have a number of different indicators of this. So I think, you know, the the account of Enoch who walked with God not dying. I think this indicates that they're looking, they're they're understanding in most cases people are going to die, but the hope that God has given to us enables people to transcend death. And then you you keep going, and uh, I think one of the next things that you hit is this uh birth of Isaac from barren Sarah. And I think that the way that Paul talks about this in Romans 4 and the way that the author of Hebrew talk Hebrews talks about in Hebrews 11, they seem to make an equation between a barren woman giving birth to a child and uh a dead corpse rising out of the body, or out of sorry, out of the ground. It's almost like life comes from death in both case, both cases. So if God can bring Isaac to birth out of barren Sarah, then God can raise the dead. And I would argue that that equation is also present in places like 1 Samuel 2, 5, and 6. Um Samuel or Samuel presents Hannah referencing Deuteronomy 32, 39. Behold, I I am he, I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and and and paralleling that with the barren woman giving birth to seven children. So it's God raises the dead and caught God causes barren women to give give birth. So I think the birth of Isaac is an indication of hope in the resurrection. And then I would also point to the concern to be buried in the land. So Abraham's purchase in Genesis 23 of the cave of Mach Pelah, and then the burial of Abraham there. And then both Jacob and Joseph, they want to be taken back to the land of promise and buried in the land of promise, even though they only own that little place in the land of, they don't they like the author of Hebrews says, they did not receive the promises, but they greeted them from afar. And and I think the the way to think about this, you know, if you uh if you think your your life ends when your body dies, it doesn't matter where you're buried. And if you don't receive the land of promise during your earthly life, well, then everything's over and it doesn't matter where they bury you. But if you're expecting your body to be raised, and if you're expecting God to fulfill that promise in the resurrection, well, that that's why you would want to be buried in the land. And and I think this is also, you know, in it it should inform our understanding of the book of Ecclesiastes. So I've recently completed a commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes, and I think that Solomon's urging of his audience to fear the Lord and to know that God will bring them into judgment is informed by the resurrection from the dead. So I think Solomon, I grant he's not explicitly stating God is going to raise people from the dead, and then they're going to experience either the rewards from living in the fear of the Lord or the consequences from not living in the fear of the Lord. But I think the only reason you care about the fear of the Lord, and the only reason you fear the judgment, and the only reason the judgment impacts how you live now is if you believe after the resurrection, there's going to be a judgment, or you know, in the resurrection, I'm going to experience either the rewards or the consequences of the verdict that was rendered at that judgment. Apart from that, who cares if there's going to be a judgment? If my body dies and that's the end, it doesn't matter. So I would argue that even though, you know, you can say the resurrection first starts getting explicitly articulated in like Isaiah, Isaiah 25, you know, he will swallow up death forever. Isaiah 26, their dead shall rise. And then both the righteous and the wicked are explicitly said to be raised here in Daniel 12, too. Okay, fine. It's explicitly stated here, but I think it's taken for granted, assumed, operated upon, and and given uh both among the authors and their audience far earlier than that.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

Yeah. I mean, you even have well, this could speak of a spiritual place, maybe not a bodily resurrection, and the reference that came to mind. Okay, so this is maybe a fun question, uh, and not maybe super serious, but if they cared where their bodies were going to be buried, should we care where our bodies can be buried? Because, like, I want to be buried above ground, because I just have this expectation for the first hundred years of the millennium, I'm gonna be digging up all these jokers who are buried underground. Does it matter to you? I know that's a silly question, but I tongue in cheek.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

I I do think that historically the Christians have buried their dead, not cremated their dead. And I and so I do think that when we should think in terms of this corpse matters, and um this this person matters. This is a person that was made in the image of God. We're gonna treat this corpse with dignity, and in keeping with historic both Jewish practice in the Old Testament prior to the coming of Christ, and almost totally universal practice of Christians, you know, once Christ comes, we're not gonna like burn the bodies and consume them. We're going to bury them because Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, he actually speaks in terms of the body as as a seed that is sown. You know, he says it's it's sown a natural body, it's raised a spiritual body, glorified body. So I think with a seed, you don't light it on fire and let the fire consume it, you bury it in the ground in anticipation of new life coming from it. And I think that's the way the New Testament speaks about our bodies. And so I don't want to be cremated, I want to be buried. Now, you know, the the Lord can re-re constitute He's Almighty. So someone whose body was consumed in a fire or they died at sea or whatever, the Lord can put them back together even though they weren't buried.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Yeah, but it's it's it's like uh treating things as holy and sacred. Like uh I think that's that matters, right? Like I don't, you know, I don't toss communion wafers at people from the stage because I think it's sacred and it matters. Uh so so yeah, I I I'm with you. Okay. I'm gonna get kicked online if I don't ask about the 70th week of Daniel and the unfolding of time. So I I know we're kind of at the end of the program, but if you've got time, can you settle the debate and tell everyone dispensationalists or wrong? No, I'm just kidding. No, do do whatever you gotta do. Uh, but uh explain the 70th week of Daniel. What mean it this?

SPEAKER_02 58:31

Well, so I think that we have to read Daniel's various prophecies and apocalyptic statements in light of one another. Okay, so in Daniel 9, verse 27, we read, He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. Now, when we combine that statement with statements like what we find over in Daniel chapter 12, verse 7, where there's a reference in the verse to a time times and half a time, and then in 711, where there's a reference to 1290 days, and then 1212, 1335 days, I think we need to read all these things in light of each other. So let's start with the days. If if we start with 1290 days, and now bear with me with some math here, if we take the number 30, which is a a round number that communicates the number of days in a month, and we multiply 30 by 12, we have 360, right? Now, if we if we if we add another half, so we take 12 number of months in a year, multiply that by three, 36, multiply that by 30, and then add another half year's worth of months. Basically, what I'm driving at is if you multiply 42, which is 36 months, which will be three years, plus six months to make 42 months, you multiply 42 by 30, it adds up to 1260. And then you add another month on that and you get 1290. Okay, so I think that the the number 1290 is calculated this way, and it refers to a three and a half year period. And then that informs in 1211 the time times and half a time. And those two three and a half year periods are are in turn informed by 927, which refers to the 70th week being cut in half. So, you know, half of a seven-year period is three and a half years. So I think that this way of thinking about things is present not only here in Daniel, it's also in Revelation, where you read about 42 months and 1260 days and time times and half a time. I think these are all different ways of referring to a three and a half year period. Now, the bottom line for me is that it looks to me like in Daniel chapter 9, verse 26, we have a prophecy of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. So 926 says, this is the ESV, and after the 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. So we had the seven weeks and then the sixty-two weeks. So the way I interpret this is there are sixty-nine weeks between Daniel's own day and the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, and then there's a 70th week. Um, and I think that that 70th week pertains to the inter-advent period. I would say that the Daniel's 70th week covers the entirety of the period of time between the ascension and the return of the Lord Jesus. And um there's a lot that goes into that, but ultimately this is the way that I think John interprets Daniel 9 in the book of Revelation. So I'm trying, I'm trying to understand what Daniel wrote, and then understand what John wrote, and then understand these things the way that Daniel intended them to be understood, which I think under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John correctly interpreted, and then under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John in turn wrote himself. And this is how I understand, this is what I understand Daniel to mean and John to mean in the in Daniel and Revelation.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

Man, there's so much more we could tackle here on the program. I have a feel like we barely scratched the surface. Here's the thing what I hope is it does is it just like spurs the mind with lots of interesting questions so that you have to go and pick up Jim's book because uh you're not gonna pick up a book that Jim wrote that's like not fascinating. Uh, you're not gonna see all kinds of really cool and rich patterns. Uh it's been super edifying to my life and the people around me uh in my church that I recommend it to. Now, here's the thing uh is everyone going to want to read a book on promise-shaped patterns or you know, the book of Daniel? Uh no, but my by my book, my church has a uh high concentration of Bible nerds, so I I like to like to recommend them quite frequently. Uh, and if if if you're one of those Bible nerds, probably because you're watching a theology podcast, I encourage you to go pick it up. We'll we'll put a link of it in the description if you guys want to go check it out. Fortunately, it was released in 2014, so uh you don't have to buy a pre-order copy like we often do here on the show. Uh, but maybe I'll have to have you back on and talk about your book on Ecclesiastes. Okay, any closing thought you want to leave us with about the book of Daniel before we sign off the program. Uh I I don't want to just like end it on the 70th week and then uh, you know, uh uh turn the page. But uh anything you want to add to kind of uh summarize our conversation or think you are people you know thinking about as they're reading the book of Daniel?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

Yeah, I I I would love uh thank you for that. I would love to just draw attention to Daniel 1132. This was kind of the verse that that Jod Packer picked up on in his book, Knowing God. At the end of Daniel 1132, it says, The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action, and the wise among the people shall make many understand, though for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder. So I think Daniel is saying, even if we if we're slain by the sword, even if we're taken captive, if we know God, we're gonna stand firm and take action and help other people understand the Bible. So that's that would be my encouragement. Know God and help people understand the scriptures.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

You can't go wrong with that kind of ending, guys. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Uh, make sure to subscribe to the channel, like the video, share it around to all those uh Bible nerds out there who love that book of Daniel. They're probably all eschatology freaks. But anyway, guys, thank you so much for tuning into this program. We'll see you next time.