Tuesday 13 January 2015

Daniel 2

Keep in mind this vision was first given to a Gentile king centuries before Christ.

It would have been of no consequence to him to be given all the finer details of how the Gospel would later play-out in history. So the vision wasn't intended to make a direct statement about that.

All the king basically needed to learn was that all the political goings-on with which he was concerned, and which were to follow, as great as they seemed, were only temporary in comparison to the sovereign God with whom we all have to reckon, and in comparison to the bigger picture of what He would do.

For finer details, other prophecies would need to be consulted. 

As for those details, almost any eschatological model includes a certain amount of the now/not yet concept - the inaugurated/not-yet-consummated concept in eschatology - including post-Millennialism. 

The king's vision said nothing, for example, about the fact that for millennia the Ottomans, Nazis, communism, morally declining Western governments, etc would all exist before the Church finally sees its visible, upper hand in all of society. Yet those are historical realities - a gap, really - which even post-Millennialism allows.

The king's vision doesn't therefore necessarily portray post-Millennialism better than it portrays other eschatological models. To decide that we have to look elsewhere in Scripture, to statements which were meant to answer it.

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