Here is the climax of persecution of the church by Antichrist, cut short by the return of Christ. We look at the church militant, the future glory, and the significance of the symbolic time to the end, with the encouragements and lessons for the church.
The book of the prophet Daniel makes a gentle start, beginning so beautifully and so perfectly structured from a literary point of view. It then proceeds into depths of theology, prophecy and narrative concerning the proving of the Lord and his provision for his people.
There are magnificent things in the book of Daniel, including fresh Old Testament revelation, touching on themes unseen in any earlier books. You can’t really – for example – study the theology of angels without the book of Daniel. You can’t think very deeply about the doctrine of the resurrection of the body without the book of Daniel. So to Daniel was given tremendous privileges of revelation, quite apart from this book demonstrating God’s sovereign power to bless the survival of his people and their integrity through the ages.
The historical Daniel is undoubtedly the author of the book. On a number of occasions he uses the phrase ‘I, Daniel’ (although he only begins to write in the first person, in an autobiographical manner, from chapter seven on). It’s almost as though, dare we say, Daniel could not bring himself to write in an autobiographical manner at the beginning of the book, because he’s obliged to record what might appear to be his own accomplishments. He ascribes them all to the Lord, but he avoids the first person until that’s all over and done, and only then does he speak in terms of his own experience.
It’s often said that there is nothing bad recorded about Daniel either in this book or anywhere else in the scripture. He’s one of very few Bible characters of whom that can be said. The Lord, in His inspired word, didn’t wish anything bad to be said about Daniel. He was a fallible person, as we are, but so great was his faithfulness that his reputation is preserved in every respect.
Related Resources
A Briefing on Antichrist
The apostle John provides the facts about the emergence of antichrist, what exactly antichrist will do, and the twin means by which believers will discern ‘many antichrists’. These two, the unction of the ‘Holy One’ and the test of truth, are here explained.
The Career of Antichrist
This astonishing chapter falls into three parts: first, detailed prophecy of events up to 175BC (all fulfilled and here summarised); then the tyranny of Antiochus toward Palestine; then the end-times acts of Antichrist, now being fulfilled before our eyes in church and state.
Signs of Antichrist
From false teachers in the churches, Peter turns to our vulnerability to the godless worldview of the last days, how it is prophesied in both testaments, its motivation, its underlying contempt for accountability, and its wilful rejection of creation, design and morality.