The Book of Daniel: The Son of Man

Pastor Fletcher preaches about Daniel’s crazy dreams from Daniel 7-8. The scripture reading today was read for us in Mandarin. Discussion points: It’s likely that the beasts Daniel saw represented ancient empires, Daniel saw Jesus as both God and man being given dominion over the whole world, Jesus claimed the title Son of Man many times in the gospels.

• See Transcript

  Scripture reader: [Daniel 7:13-14, read for us in Mandarin] 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. 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.

  This is the word of the Lord.

  Preacher: All right, we are in the middle of a series on the Book of Daniel. Good morning, everyone. My name's Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor here. we're in the middle of a series on the Book of Daniel, and the Book of Daniel is really a great book. The 1st 6 chapters, awesome stories in every children's Bible. The last 7 chapters, the weirdest stuff that you're gonna find anywhere in the Bible. It is just bizarre and welcome to Bizarro world. OK, we're there, we're gonna be camped out there for a few weeks now.

  This week, you know, sometimes you buy the Bible is 66 different books. There's lots of different genres in those 66. It's a very unique, work of literature given that it is a collection of many different authors writing in different genres in the Bible. Bible you have some awesome works of of the law. You have these gospel biographies of who Jesus is. You have these letters written to churches. You have some amazing poetry. You have one book full of semi-erotic love poetry. People love it when I say semi erotic from the pulpit, just I see everyone like, uh, my pastor said erotic. You, you have like some amazing proverbs in there, and then you just have the really weird stuff that's like a weird dream that Daniel had and he wrote down.

  I mean, do you have, do you ever have weird dreams? I have weird dreams. I wake up, I'm eating my cereal. I'm telling my family about my dream and about halfway through my dream I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. It did when while I was sleeping, but now it doesn't, but it left an impression on me. And so Daniel, he writes down his dreams and unlike your dreams, his dreams have been read by millions of people across the world, across different religions and interpreted by many, many, many millions of people over the years. His dreams have a meaning. And they are important for us today.

  So we're going to dive into this dream. We looked at that central character of the Son of man in our scripture reading, but I'm just going to start at the beginning of Daniel's dream and walk our way through it. Are you guys ready to walk through the weird stuff? And Daniel, let's go, weirdness. All right. Daniel chapter 7. Daniel chapter 7 does act as a hinge book. OK, as I said, there's a hinge chapter. There's 13 chapters in Daniel. Daniel 7, right in the middle of the book, it is also the last chapter that's in Aramaic. If you've been here this whole series, half of Daniel's written in Aramaic chapters 2 through 7 are written in Aramaic, and that was just a, a literary device that the author was using to help show that this is a book for many different nations and ethnicities, but also it's just kind of an interesting literary device that he used. He was an artsy writer, like an 824 director.

  And he has this one chapter. It's still in Aramaic, but we've switched tone. OK. The first six chapters are kind of narrative. This one no longer narrative. So it's like the rest of the book is visions and the previous parts of the book was mainly Aramaic, and this one's coming. Both, so it's the central heart of the book, and in fact I would tell you that Daniel chapter 7 is one of the most important chapters in the entire Bible. If you want to understand who Jesus is, you have to understand this chapter. I never really saw that until this week, as I was reading it, and then. All of the gospels came to life in a new kind of way, as I was reading it. I knew some of this stuff. I did go to seminary, OK, for a long time, but. I had never seen it like this.

  If you want to understand who Jesus thinks he is. You have to understand this chapter. You have to, you have to understand Daniel's dream. There's no other way for you to understand what Jesus is talking about many of the times when he's referring to who he is and what he's come to do. It's so important that we get this, and it's so weird, and we're going to enjoy it. OK, verse one, before it gets too weird.

  In the year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matter. Daniel declared, we'll stop right there. First of all, the first thing you might notice, as I said, the author of Daniel, this like a 24 director, he's skipping around all over the place. We've got time, we've got a time jump, OK? We've seen all kind well he's changed point of views. He told a whole story from Nebuchadnezzar's point of view. Now we have a time jump, and it's not a jump forward, but it's a jump backward. And so we, we come here, we've already been in Darius the Mede, who is the of the Persian, the Medo-Persian Empire. Now we're going back to Belshazzar, who was the last king of the Babylonian Empire. So this is about 10 years prior to last week's passage. Daniel's still an old man, but maybe not quite as old as what he was when he was, hanging out with the lions as God closed their mouth.

  So that's what's going on. Then we have this really bizarre dream, and Daniel declared, I saw in my vision. By night and and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up in the great sea, and 4 great beasts came out of the sea different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. Then as I looked, its wings were plucked off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on 2 ft like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. And behold another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had 3 ribs in its mouth between. Its teeth and it was told arise, devour much flesh. I told you guys it's weird.

  After this I looked and behold another like a leopard, not quite a leopard, but kind of like a leopard with four wings on with four wings of a bird on its back, and the beast had 4 heads and dominion was given to it. And this I saw on the night visions and behold, a 4th beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth. It devoured and broken pieces and stamped what was left for its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had 10 horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which 3 of the first horns were plucked up by the roots, and behold, in this horn were eyes of the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.

  Weird stuff. OK, so if you follow that, you know, it's just like this weird dream. He's got this dream of 4 beasts coming out of a great sea. One of them, I'll, I'll just recap. One of them is like a lion, and it has wings like an eagle. The second one is like a bear and it has 3 ribs in its mouth. The third one's like a leopard, but it's got 4 wings like a bird and 4 heads also. And then the final one, it's not like any animal. It's beyond what we can even describe as an animal. He said all he had to say about that one is that it was terrifying, more terrifying than all the other ones, and it had iron teeth. There's nothing more terrifying than iron teeth, OK? That is really something, and it had 10 horns, OK? Don't think trumpets, think like goat horns and 10 horns growing out of its head, horns always represent kind of kings in the biblical standpoint, and one of them is this little horn that pokes up and the little horn has a lot of things to say and won't shut his mouth. Saying incredible things.

  That's the dream. Now, as I said, it's more like a nightmare. And many millions of people have weighed into this. You have people giving all kinds of interpretations for this book, and many people looking into every little detail. Does anyone have an uncle on Facebook who has talked about these things and tried to equate them with modern day life? Most of us do, many, many of us do. And I think that this dream is kind of best read and thought about like we might think about. The TV show Lost. Was anybody there in the early 2000s back when I was cool, you know, and we had this TV show that was just, it, it rocked the world. It was called Lost anyone, yes, a few, a few of you have watched Lost. It was like Severance, but 20 years ago, OK, if anybody's into that show that that just started yesterday.

  So Lost, lots of mystery. Lots of details, lots of like what is happening here, and people try to interpret every little detail on Lost, and I think that they kind of missed the forest for the trees at at times, you know, wondering about all the characters in every little detail and sure maybe the authors didn't do as great of a job of Daniel. OK, Daniel didn't make any mistakes. The authors of Lost certainly made some mistakes along the way. They were learning. But if you watch that TV show, I think there's a right way to watch that TV show, and that's don't get wrapped up in every little detail look for the overall picture.

  And that's what we're gonna do today, OK? I'm gonna make a few presumptuous interpretive moves. I'm gonna tell you what I think, but I'm telling you. Millions of people have read this. There have been scholars that come down in different places than me on a lot of these things. And so if you disagree, that's probably fine, but hopefully the general thrust of what's going to happen in this chapter remains the same. So let's talk about what it means, what does it mean? Daniel chapter 7. I think on one level the beasts do represent something specific that has happened in history, and then on the other level it's meant to show us something true for all peoples at all times.

  So let's talk about the thing that's specific first. I think that God is giving Daniel this vision, this dream to understand some specific events in world history. It's a word of prophecy. And you oftentimes see empires represented by animals, do you not? What United States, if you want to represent the United States, you just throw a bald eagle into a cartoon. Everybody understands that's the United States. If you throw a bear into the cartoon, that's Russia. If you throw a dragon into the cartoon, that's China. There's some animals that are instantly relatable to the nation, and with this one, the lion, almost no scholars disagree. That the lion was representing Babylon, that's like where all the scholars agree because the lion was the national emblem of Babylon. And so we, we know that to be true.

  Did you know that Benjamin Franklin, I've heard this at least. Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national image of the United States, but the other founding fathers like vetoed the idea because they were like, it's not ferocious and intimidating enough, and I have this to say. They did not meet the urban turkeys of Somerville. Those urban turkeys, they are merciless. They look at you like you owe them rent. And they will chase you down the street. I am of a different opinion than the founding fathers. I think we should have put it on our flag to scare people to say we have turkeys, stay away. The second beast is meant to represent the Persian-Medo Empire.

  OK, this is where I'm getting a little presumptuous, but I'm gonna just tell you how I see these things, and, and scholars do disagree in some places, but I think that most scholars believe this. The second beast is meant to represent the Persian meadow empire. And with this empire represented by a large bear, it's an empire that devoured other empires to become the greatest empire in the history of the world at the time. Hence, he has three ribs in his mouth. He's just devoured other empires and the the Medo-Persian Empire was actually a combination of three different empires that were kind of, consumed by the the Persians at the time and the, the Medo-Persian Empire.

  The third beast, I think, represents the Greek Empire. It's a leopard. What do we know about leopards? They're fast, right? And so it's got these wings and it's this fast thing, and I think it represents the Greek Empire, Alexander the Great, anyone who took over the world in about 30 years' time, just took it over super quickly, and then it said it has. Four heads and again a little bit presumptuous. I don't wanna make points where there aren't points, but history tells us that whenever Alexander died, he didn't have an heir and so the kingdom was split into 4 different groups and so that could be representing that. I don't know that for sure, but I think it is representing the Greek Empire and the final empire would be Rome.

  Rome is a beast unlike any of the others. At that point, no one had ever seen anything like Rome before, just as this beast was indescribable to Daniel. He had no way to describe it, and the only way that he describes it is he says it trampled everything under its feet. And isn't that what Rome did? where it came and stamped the Roman way of life everywhere it went, defeated all of its enemies. Rome was a beast, unlike anything the world had ever seen before. And that's the basic idea of the beast, OK? That's the basic idea of what Daniel saw at the time. What happens next?

  Verse 9. As I looked, thrones were placed in 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 and its wheel was burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from him before him. A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court sat in judgment and the books were open.

  OK, so it goes straight from this, this, this vision of these beasts and this little horn talking, which is certainly some mouthy leader at the time. And then it starts talking about the ancient days. And this ancient of days character is meant to be obviously a deity. This is obviously God. It's not meaning like old, it's meaning like before the days were created, ancient of days has. It the it and you can tell Daniel is just looking for words to describe what he's like. Basically it's it's like so glorious you can't, he can't even describe it and I love the way he says and there were thousands standing before him and thousands times ten thousands, just an unimaginable amount of people standing before and he serves as a judge and he has a throne.

  And then I love what happened. Verse 11. I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking, and as I looked, the beast was killed and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. It's like the horn is just talking and talking and then it's dead. Like there's no like end of speech at. I did a nerd Alert last week, Nerd Alert part two, OK, Lord of the Rings version here at the at the in the third movie book, the mouth of Sauron, it comes out and starts talking and then Aragorn it's just talking and talking. Aragorn just walks over there and chops off its head. End of story. We're not listening to your talking anymore and that's kind of what's happening here is the Ancient of Days just isn't putting up with this little horn that's talking. Weird stuff, but it's still powerful and and gets the, the point across.

  Then we're introduced, and this is the most important part, in my opinion. One of the most important passages in all the Bible to this character called the Son of Man. And he just starts talking about the son of man, verse 13, I think I have this one for you, yeah. Verse 13, he said, I saw on 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, 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.

  Now this is really interesting because we have the ancient of days who is certainly God, and then we have another character who seems like man, but also is portrayed as God. And he's given dominion, and all peoples of all tribes and tongues shall worship him. He is given a kingdom that will not be destroyed. He has a dominion, that's an everlasting dominion. Well, who is that? Who came along as a son of man during the Roman Empire to turn the world upside down? To knock down the kingdoms of this world. Though they didn't even realize it. Who was enthroned in a place of humility. Whose cross was where he was crowned, but as Jesus himself.

  And in fact, not only do Christians understand Jesus to be this Daniel chapter 7 son of man. But that's who Jesus understood himself to be. Make no bones about it. This is Jesus's favorite nickname for himself. As I've read the Bible, and I've read it several times, I've all, many times, I know that this is alluding to Daniel chapter 7. I've known that for a long time. I haven't always known that. For the first several years of my life, I would read Son of Man and think, well, that's talking about his human side. You know Jesus is 100% God, he's 100% human, he's the son of God. He's the son of man. But no, that is not what Jesus means when he says I am the son of man. Jesus is clearly referring to Daniel chapter 7, and this, this, this being who takes this place with the ancient of days, who is God, but yet also a man.

  A few of my favorite times that Jesus said that he's the son of man, and even like in the Gospels, almost 90 times in the book of Matthew, so just one gospel, 27 times, Jesus claims to be the Son of man. There's no doubt about it. Matthew 9 chapter 6. This is him claiming to be the Son of man for sure. He says, but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He then said to the paralytic, Rise, pick up your bed, and go home. Jesus is saying, the Son of Man has authority, and then what does he do? Has authority to forgive sins, and then what does he do? He forgives the man's sins and tells him to go home, claiming to be the son of man, that's. Matthew chapter 24, he says, then will appear in heaven the sign of the son of the man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. There is no doubt he is thinking in his mind, Daniel chapter 7. This character, the son of man riding on the clouds.

  Then we reach a climax in all of the gospels. When Jesus is arrested and he's brought before the high priest. Now of all the people in Israel who would know Daniel chapter 7, it would be the high priest. The high priest is the most highly trained, highly respected religious official in the entire nation. It is almost certain with 99.8% accuracy here that the high priest has. All of Daniel memorized. Like Daniel chapter 7, he's just got it. He knows it. And so they bring Jesus to the high priest and the high priest says, is it true? Are you the Son of God, the Messiah?

  Now I've heard people often say that Jesus never claimed to be God. He never claimed to be the Christ, and I have this to say, that's just because you are biblically illiterate that you would make that claim, because if you know your Bible as the high priest did, you would see that he does it right here, because the high priest says. I drew Matthew chapter 26, verse 63 through 68. Jesus remained silent, and the high priest said to him, I drew you by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus said to him, you have said so. Such a Jesus answer, but I tell you, from now on, you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Mike drop, no doubt who Jesus is referring to. No doubt who Jesus is claiming to be. It's as if Jesus is saying, you might think I'm the one on trial here. But at the end, I'm going to be judging you.

  And Jesus continues, and he says, then, verse 65, look at what the high priest says. The high priest tore his robes and says he's uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do you need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? It's obvious he knows what Jesus is saying. We miss it because we don't know our Bibles well enough often, but he, the high priest, there's no missing it. He knows it. They answered, he deserves death. Then they spit in his face and struck him, and some slapped him saying, prophesy to us, you Christ. Who is it that struck you? There's no doubt who Jesus understands himself to be. There's no way that a first century Jew could understand Jesus's claims as anything short of Messianic. He is absolutely claiming to be the Christ.

  Jesus is the Son of man. The promised Messiah who would conquer the beast of the kingdoms of this world and reigned throughout all of eternity. He is the true son of man. He is who Adam never lived up to be. God created Adam to be a co-regent, to rule the world. He gave Adam dominion and authority. He said, rule the world, have dominion here. But what did Adam do? He chose sin and selfishness. And as so he became like a beast. He chose to have dominion with sin. And ever since then, all of us, if we're really honest, have a bit of this beast-like character in us. Where we don't just want to rule the world on behalf of God, we want to rule the world for ourselves. We want the world to submit to us and our will in the way we want life.

  But Jesus is the true man, the true Adam, who came to rule the world but without sin. Who was victorious over sin, Satan, and death, who died the death that we deserve to die because of the way that we have beastly, in a beastly way ruled, the way that we have sought for ourselves. And as a result, we get to have life with him because of what the Son of Man has done for us, we get to be co-heirs with him once again. He restores our humanity and the beastly parts of us get to be said no to, and we follow after the true Adam, the true and better Adam, the true son of man, the one who actually follows the way of God.

  And so for us as believers today, I think that what Jesus is calling us to do is to be His kingdom representative. He represents a greater kingdom. And he has called us to be the light of his kingdom to bring peace and mercy to be his coworker, should you, should you say, to reign in the world with justice with mercy, with forgiveness, with love, with kindness, with patience, with endurance. That we would stand firm, not letting the evil days and the beasts surround us. Overtake us. But that we would be emissaries of the kingdom of God. That is the Christian profession, not just in the future but today.

  And Jesus tells us this. He says it, OK, when he's talking about the Son of Man, Matthew chapter 19, check it out. He says this, Jesus said to them, truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne. You who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. What he's saying is if you follow after me. You will be a co-worker with me. You will reign alongside of me, but in righteousness, mercy, and goodness.

  What does this look like for us today to be a co-worker with God? I can think of no better example than the man we are going to celebrate tomorrow. Martin Luther King Junior. Now, I get emotional about Martin Luther King Junior because I think that what he did was not in his own strength, but I see a man fulfilling his calling to serve the Lord. It always makes me emotional, especially in a secular place like Somerville that basically says like, hey, religion has no value, and I'm like, well, why do we have a holiday for a, a religious man like this? Why do we have a day where we celebrate a man who was a pastor first, and always.

  You see, I look at I'm OK and I I've had this conversation with my kids so many times where it's like. And I guess if you had a holiday devoted to someone of your profession, you might feel similarly, but um. But like, isn't it, isn't it cool that in our secular world we take one day a year to celebrate a pasture. Like, isn't that awesome? And they're like, Sure, dad. But it's just really powerful because I really see what he did as as not just being doing the right thing, but as someone who wants to follow Jesus to what it really means to follow Jesus, to stand up for what is right, not just because it's what's right, but because of what it means to follow after Christ.

  I just want to end the sermon with a lengthy quote from the Doctor King. And I think it's one of its most powerful and in honor of Martin Luther King Day, I would encourage you to go and read this entire, this entire message that I'm going to quote from. It's called Letters from a letter from a Birmingham jail if you've never. Read it before. And I hope you do. Here's what he has to say, and it won't be anywhere near as good as he, how he would say it.

  Human progress never rolls on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively in the knowledge that the time is always right to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

  He goes on to say, There was a time when the church was very powerful. In the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion, it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being disturbers of peace. And outside the agitators. But the Christians, they pressed on in the conviction that they were a colony of heaven called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be astronomically intimidated. By their effort and example, they brought an end to such such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial conquests. These things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often is an arch defender of the status quo, far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

  May we be half the man that we're called to be. Half the people that were called to be. And being co-workers with God. And seeing Doctor King's vision continue into a new generation. We cannot think that his work is done because he wasn't working just for civil rights. It's great that we achieved so many civil rights that the work there obviously isn't done. We see racial injustice in our world. We still see prejudices in our world, but also the work isn't done because there's so much other injustices, so many other things that we must continue. To pray forward, to fight against, fight for. And to strive to see the world flourish.

  And we can only do it with the help of the Son of Man, the Ancient of Days. The triune God, the Holy Spirit. Friends, you, if you aren't a follower of Jesus today, I implore you. If you want to make a difference in the world, I think it's the best way. Also, I implore you that it is that if he is the son of man, as we've said, you are in danger if you don't follow after him. He is the true and living God. And if that's a true thing, shouldn't your heart go after that? Shouldn't you submit yourself to that? And so you have opportunity today, as always, to, to trust and follow him.

  As we conclude, I just want to read one more passage that talks about the that talks about the son of man just to to bring it full circle. Revelation chapter one. Revelation and Daniel, they're like cousins, OK? Revelation is like the New Testament version of Daniel, and it's equally weird in many places. Revelation chapter 1 the kind of refers, makes all these references to what we see happening in Daniel's dream. I just think it's beautiful.

  Chapter 1 verse 5. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born of the dead and the ruler of kings on earth, to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold. He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.