Living faithfully in exile

Christopher J.H. Wright’s Hearing the Message of Daniel: Sustaining Faith in Today’s World made our 2017 Books of the Year short list in the Accessible Theology category because he shows how Daniel lived faithfully in exile, and how Christians should live today. Babylon was like a beast of prey, but Daniel and his three friends nevertheless avoided “pious separatism.” Instead, they were diligent during their “downright offensive and idolatrous” Babylonian education. They said yes to hard jobs but no to majority religious pressures.

Wright, who lives in London and is International Director of the Langham Partnership International, opposes separatism and says we “need to understand the culture we live in without sharing its belief system.” He notes how the revelations of Chapter 8 left Daniel “worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. Then I got up and went about the king’s business.”

In this excerpt, courtesy of Zondervan, Wright examines Daniel’s late visions, where we learn about how God will resurrect those who “will shine like the brightness of the heavens.” Wright notes, “We are not told what it will be like to ‘awake’ from the sleep of death. We are not told what our bodies will be like in that time of ‘everlasting life.’ We might want to ask a lot of questions—as Daniel probably did—but instead he is told to ‘roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end.’ Answers must wait.” —Marvin Olasky

Daniel’s angelic visitor begins with a surprisingly dismissive comment about the remaining years of the Persian Empire. A single verse (11:2) is enough to summarise about 200 years of an empire that ruled from the Aegean Sea to the borders of India! We are told that there will be a few more Persian kings until one comes who will attack Greece. In fact two Persian kings attempted to conquer Greece in the early years of the fifth century BC but were beaten back in some critical battles in 490 and 480 BC. Then another single verse (v. 3) suffices to mention Alexander the Great (the one-horned charging goat of ch. 8) and his conquest of Persia in the mid-fourth century BC. So by the time we reach verse 4 we have arrived in the four separate kingdoms that emerged in the so-called Hellenistic era. If a thousand years in the Lord’s sight are as a single day, then perhaps it is not surprising that two verses are enough to cover several centuries!

That epoch of Greek cultural dominance over the whole region lasted another two hundred years until Rome conquered Greece and extended its rule over the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern region. Only two of the four Hellenistic kingdoms, however, impinged upon the life of the Israelites in Judea: the kingdom of the Ptolemies, who ruled in Egypt and then the kingdom of the Seleucids, who ruled in Syria. In Daniel chapter 11 these are referred to, respectively, as the king of the South and the king of the North. Since the land of Palestine lay in between the two rival kingdoms, the fate of the Jews seemed to be at the mercy of one or the other. That is the way chapter 11 proceeds, outlining the cycle of plots and schemes and battles between the two powers in the South and the North. We really don’t need to spend time on the details (you can check them out in larger commentaries). The main thrust of the chapter is to lead up to the climax of the story—the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (11:21–39), who was featured in the previous visions (7:23–25; 8:23–25; 9:26–27).

But before focusing on him, notice an important feature of this narrative: the balance in tension between the sovereignty of God’s control of events (it is God, through his angel who is explaining what will happen) and the freedom and responsibility that humans have for their own choices and actions.

On the one hand, we read that certain things will happen “at the appointed time” (vv. 29, 35), and that “what has been determined must take place” (v. 36). But on the other hand, three times in chapter 11 we read that this or that king “will do as he pleases” (vv. 3, 16, 36). The phrase is applied at the beginning of the sequence to Alexander the Great and at the end to Antiochus. So it embraces all the human participants in the story. There is therefore no room for the accusation that, because God presents the history to come in the form of a prophetic vision, the characters are mere puppets on strings, manipulated by divine power to act without any choices or decisions of their own. On the contrary, they act freely and they are responsible for their actions since they can be judged and punished for them. And most of the time it seems that these human kings and commanders, just like the spiritual forces in opposition to God, are acting against God and God’s people in their ambitious vying for earthly power and greed. And yet God remains in control. Neither Daniel, nor his angelic messenger, nor the whole book makes any effort to resolve the tension between these twin realities. The Bible simply affirms both of them. People do what they choose to do, in pursuit of their own chosen goals, for good or ill. Yet God remains sovereign and works out the course of history over the centuries to fulfil God’s own purposes of redemption and grace on the one hand and ultimate judgment of the wicked on the other.

Daniel, like the rest of the Bible, simply tells us: people choose their courses of action and bear the consequences, but God knows and sees and ultimately works all things according to his own purpose.

This, of course, is a tension to which the whole Bible bears witness. We cannot slide out of the tension either into dualism (the unending struggle between good and evil with no resolution) or into fatalism (the view that all human actions are mere out-workings of a cosmic fate, such that personal freedom of choice and moral responsibility are mere illusions). Daniel, like the rest of the Bible, simply tells us: people choose their courses of action and bear the consequences, but God knows and sees and ultimately works all things according to his own purpose.

Persecution: Lethal but Limited

In this mysterious combination of divine appointment and human freedom, the climax will come in the overwhelming evil, violence, oppression, and sacrilege that marked out the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Some details are listed in 11:31–35. Three things stand out.

First, the people of God will suffer. That in itself is not surprising; the Bible indicates that this is a regularly recurring reality. Now, sometimes such suffering is, we might say, self-inflicted, when it takes the form of the judgment of God in response to continued rebellion and wickedness. That was certainly how the prophets interpreted the terrible suffering of the people of Jerusalem and Judea under the Babylonian siege that ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile. We saw that very clearly in Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9. But the Bible makes it equally clear that sometimes suffering cannot and should not be explained in those terms. The Hebrews in Egypt, for example, are not said to be suffering there because of God’s judgment on their own sin, but because of the sinful oppression of the Egyptians. And that is the case here, too. There is no hint in Daniel that the “wrath of Antiochus” was an expression of the wrath of God against Israel. Rather, they were the victims of an evil regime that set itself up against the God of Israel and his people. They could cry out in pain and anguish, but they are not called to repentance.

Second, such suffering can divide God’s people. Indeed, the tactics of their enemies can be precisely to create such division. It seems that Antiochus used both intense persecution and violence on the one hand, along with seductive flattery and deception on the other hand, to tempt some of the Jews to collaborate with him, while others remained firm in resisting him even to death. At such times there is a great need for people who will understand what is happening and give good guidance and leadership to the rest of the people. Such persons are here referred to as “the wise” (vv. 33–35). They themselves, however, will not necessarily escape the terrible, purging fires of persecution.

With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him. Those who are wise will instruct many, though for a time they will fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered. When they fall, the will receive a little help, and many who are not sincere will join them. Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time. (Dan 11:32–35).

Third, however, the suffering of persecution has a limit. It will come to an end. Or rather, it will come to many “ends.” As we saw in chapter 8, the word “end” in a book like Daniel does not necessarily mean “the end of the world as we know it.” We know that eventually there will come a definitive, ultimate end to this world of evil. Or more accurately, there will come an end to evil so that the world can be restored to the goodness, beauty, joy, and peace that God intends for it. But even before that time, periods of intense suffering do not last forever. There is an ebb and flow in the history of persecution and oppression of God’s people. Daniel’s visions stress that such an “end” will come, in the appointed time, even to the excessive, blasphemous, and violent arrogance of Antiochus. Again and again this chapter points out that there will be a limit to the suffering—it will happen, but it will be only for a limited time, or within God’s “appointed time” (11:24, 27, 29, 35, 36, 40).

There is an ebb and flow in the history of persecution and oppression of God’s people.

Such an assurance does not lessen the suffering, but it does give hope. But hope is allowed its questions. And the most oft-repeated question of God’s suffering saints is “How long, O Lord?” It echoes right through until the closing chapters of the whole Bible, where it receives the same assurance of God’s sovereign control and God’s ultimate redemptive justice (Rev 6:9–11).

As I have been writing this chapter I have been spending a week of fellowship and retreat with colleagues in Langham Partnership. One couple among our leadership team are Syrians living and working in Lebanon. We read Psalm 119 together during the course of the week, and when we read the kaph section, the wife commented that verse 84 was being prayed intensely by Syrian Christians, whether still in Syria or as refugees in Lebanon:

How long must your servant wait? When will you punish my persecutors? (Ps 119:84).

Of course they pray for the perpetrators of the terrible violence inflicted by ISIS, that God would either bring them to repentance or restrain them. Of course they are willing even to exercise costly love in caring for the families of some of those fighters who are living in the camps in Lebanon. But as they struggle to live and work and witness as Christians to the vast numbers in desperate need, they daily ask the Lord that burning question—“How long will this go on? How long must we wait for an end to all this destruction, death, dislocation, and suffering?” They do not seek vengeance, but they do long for God to act in justice—with a longing often expressed in the Bible and assured of God’s answer.

Future Hope: Resurrection and Judgment

But what of those for whom that answer comes too late, those who have perished in the “time of distress” (12:1)? That ultimate question—the enigma of the unjust death of the saints in times of persecution—drives the book of Daniel to its climax with an unambiguous promise of personal resurrection (12:2). I say “unambiguous” because up to this point the Old Testament has given hints and hopes that death would not be the end of God’s covenant relationship with faithful believers, but there are very few clear and specific promises of a resurrected life.* The following texts point in that direction, but without any detail:

Apart from these, other references to resurrection are corporate or representative. Israel as a whole will be raised up when they repent and turn back to God (Hos 6:1–2). When they return from exile, it would be like an army of dead bones being restored to life (Ezek 37:11–14). And the Servant of the Lord—who shares Israel’s identity representatively, after he has given his life for others—“will see his offspring and prolong his days” and be triumphantly vindicated by God (Isa 53:10–12).

Here at the end of the book of Daniel, however, the promise is clear and unambiguous.

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. (Dan 12:2–3)

Death has become not a never-ending shadowy existence in a gloomy underworld of Sheol, but simply “sleep in the dust of the earth.” And the future is not closed off by death, either for those who have suffered it unjustly under persecution or for those who have perpetrated great evil on earth—but seemed to “get away with it” by dying before facing justice. For the resurrection described here is discriminating. For some it will bring “everlasting life,” for others “shame and everlasting contempt.” The God who acts in vindication and redemption will also act in judgment. Resurrection, therefore, not only vindicates the righteous, it also vindicates the justice of God.

Resurrection, therefore, not only vindicates the righteous, it also vindicates the justice of God.

Two things should still be said, however. First, this does indeed provide great hope and reassurance for individual believers in the face of suffering and death. But it is not merely individual. Those to whom this promise of everlasting life comes are not just assured of their own personal future bliss. Rather, they will participate in the corporate redemption of God’s people. The two verses about resurrection must be read in the light of the first verse: “At that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered” (Dan 12:1). Elsewhere the Bible will make clear that God’s ultimate purpose is a whole new creation in which the redeemed humanity—God’s people from every tribe and nation and language—will dwell in the fullness of resurrection life eternally.

Second, while the promise is clear, the details are not. We are not told what it will be like to “awake” from the sleep of death. We are not told what our bodies will be like in that time of “everlasting life.” We might want to ask a lot of questions—as Daniel probably did—but instead he is told to “roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end.” Answers must wait. However, the “time of the end” has invaded history already. For that is exactly how the resurrection of Jesus Christ is described. The astonishing message of the first disciples was that an event they all believed would happen “at the last day” (as Martha replied to Jesus about her dead brother Lazarus, John 11:24) had been anticipated on that first day of the week when God raised the crucified Christ to risen, bodily life—“the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20). On that day God brought into history in advance a guarantee of what will ultimately be a reality for all God’s people. The resurrection of Jesus is the model of what resurrection will mean for all of those who are in him by faith. For the same power of God that raised Jesus from the dead “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:21).

Taken from Hearing the Message of Daniel by Christopher J.H. Wright. Copyright © 2017 by Langham Partnership International. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com.

ENDNOTE

* People often ask why there is so little teaching about life after death, resurrection, eternal life, etc. in the Old Testament. I think one reason is that God wanted Israel to be very different from surrounding cultures where there seems to have been a morbid fascination, even obsession, with death and the afterlife. In Egypt, for example, people who could afford it (especially Pharaohs), would spend their entire lifetime and vast amounts of money preparing their future “home” in the world of the dead. The evidence is still there, in the pyramids, the tombs, the mummies, etc. The Old Testament directs attention away from obsession with death and affirms the goodness of life, life in this good creation, and calls on people to live now in the presence of God “for all its worth,” so to speak. For Old Testament Israel, death is an evil and an enemy. What lies beyond it is a mystery. But Yahweh, the Lord God, is Lord over death as over life (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6), and was known to have the power to raise back to life those who had recently died (1 Kgs 17; 2 Kgs 4) so they could live in trust in him for whatever lay beyond.