Dan. 11-12
I did a brief search on Daniel 11. It seems that there is fairly firm agreement on the historical fulfillment of the first 35 verses. So much so, in fact, that some have accused the book of being written after the fact, fraudulently presenting itself as prophecy written centuries before. I say God gave us this first part of the vision so that we can know this word is from Him. As such, we can trust that the part that is yet to be will be.
Again, my search was fairly brief, but I did see a couple interesting thoughts on this vision of Daniel’s. One, that some of the later verses of chapter 11 have double fulfillments. This is something we see with many of the prophesies in the Bible. This could explain why parts of it somewhat fit historical events, but lack the certainty of the first 35 verses. The other is that the large gap between verse 35, where fairly solid agreement of prophecy fulfillment ends, and the latter part of the vision, on into chapter 12, is in part due to the fact that there was no Jewish nation for a long period of time, until after world war 2, in 1948. Since “north” and “south” in the prophesy are relevant to Israel, this makes some sense.
One thing that is clear is that at the end of all of this, there will be only two outcomes. It is the same message we see throughout the entire Bible, and one that I have commented on before. The choice is always for life or for death. Though there are several temporal examples of the consequences of this choice, Daniel makes it clear that there will be a final reckoning. Then the time to choose will be over and the consequences will be eternal. And until that time, “Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly.” (Dan 12:10a).
1 Tim. 1
I had another ‘duh’ thought when I read this passage this morning. It’s one of those things that seems obvious but I never really put into a solidified thought before. Anyone who has not accepted Jesus as the propitiation for their sins is still living under the law. I realize that the Gentiles never technically received the law. However, the general requirements of the law still exist (Paul touches on this a bit in Romans 2). In other words, there is a standard that they must live up to in order to be deemed righteous before God. Situation hopeless!!
What a blessing and a comfort to know that we who are in Christ have moved out from under that hopelessness and have a sure hope in Jesus! We know that Jesus is able to make us righteous. More than that, though, we can be sure that He will, because God is faithful to His promise and He will not fail. But this hope is only ours if we fully embrace it, taking it in to become the very heart of who and what we are. This means putting all the petty things of the law – the things that have no power to save – behind us and moving on toward a faith that changes us to the core.