Naked Bible 416: Paul’s Use of the Old Testament Series: The Son of Man in Daniel 7

[Music] You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, we've got to make it BiblePodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Hyde's Recoach to the Bible, click on New Start Here at NakedBiblePodcast.com. [Music] Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast episode 416, Paul's Use of the Old Testament Series, the Son of Man, and Daniel 7 with Dr. Matt Haustead, the layman, Trace Trickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Iser. Hey Mike, what are you doing? You know, my brother actually sent me a text this week asking specific questions about the settings of my Naked Bible fantasy league in baseball. I don't know that he was trying to take me out of the dead zone. I mean, we're in the dead zone here where there's no baseball, there's no football. Because I'm not a basketball guy, but my brother apparently is of the same ilk. So that's about it. I've had a little bit to chew on there. He's making sure that my mind is entertained somehow by thoughts of fantasy baseball. But you know, we're kind of setting this up. Just called into question. I mean, what is he wanting to add something? Offensive categories. You know, of course, the big ones always the date for the draft, because we do the draft live. But offensive categories that we kind of he and I disagree about. We we pick her about a little bit. A lot of like a certain thing. So, you know, time to reconsider those again and say either yes or no. Yeah. So what he's complaining about. Yeah. Well, I guess he wins the neck and Bible football league and he's getting kind of a big head kind of dominating baseball league now. Is what I take it. Is that right? Yeah. He's thinking he's a big shot so he can bossy around a little bit. Yeah. He wants to keep going with his streak here, I guess. Taking advantage of it. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. Brothers. I don't have one, but I assume that's what they're what they do. Yeah. It's part of what they're here for. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Mike. Well, we're going to get into Daniel seven today. Can you give us little heads up over to talk about. Well, Daniel seven is a passage that we've been in a lot on this podcast because of divine counsel stuff. It's a divine council meeting. But in this case, we're going to be looking specifically at the son of man term. And how that becomes a messianic profile element. So that'll be our connection to Daniel seven. Well, we're glad once again to have Matthew Hallstead back with us. This is our sixth sit down discussion on really a couple of things. I mean, we've broadly talked about the new testament use of Old Testament texts, you know, to articulate who Jesus was and the gospel program, you know, sort of angling in on how we talk about messianic prophecy. And Messiah ship Messiah and is him generally. So we've done this six times and Matt specialty, you'll recall his Paul's use of Old Testament in his writings. So he gets into this whole issue of Messiah ship or messianism quite a bit in his research. So to this point, we've we've tracked through a number of songs. We've tracked through the servant songs and Isaiah. We tracked through a few passages and Jeremiah. We've been to Genesis. We've been to Ezekiel. Again, trying to get listeners to realize that the way we should talk about messianic prophecy or Messiah in the Old Testament should not be restricted to the term itself. This is where a lot of critical scholars want to focus the discussion because. If you do that, the picture that of the Messiah that emerges is largely only a historical figure without much, you know, vision of a future deliverer, you know, the way we would think of as Messiah in a broader sense, especially in the New Testament. So we're we're objecting to that and saying there's a whole lot more to building the messianic profile or filling out the messianic resume. Then just the term Messiah in a handful of Old Testament passages. There's a lot to reconsider. Just a number of motifs we've talked about, sunship. We've talked about the seed and offspring. We've talked about the servant aspect, the branch, the shoot. We've talked about star imagery that it gets associated with certain, you know, kings and individuals. So there's a wide net to cast to talk about Old Testament messianism. And that informs New Testament messianism. And so what our argument has been and will continue to be. And we've talked about the profile of the Messiah that you get in the gospels that you get in the writings of Paul and other New Testament writers is quite consistent with the Old Testament understood its own original context. It's just you have to include this wider net of passages in that context to make that correlation. And I don't think you would say he coined either of these are either of these are original to him, of course, but just as he has gone through his research, he's found taking a story to approach to the Old Testament is really helpful. And that's just another way of talking about focusing on the meta narrative. What is the story that's being told and how is it being told and if we approach scripture that way, we're naturally going to pick up on vocabulary and themes and motifs and repetitive patterns that are going to inform our understanding of messianism. And the other one was I think we got into this last time, especially was the notion that there are a lot of things in the Old Testament that we need to look at as the event, but then we should expect a reenactment of the event to inform our understanding of what that passage originally was was was meaning and what it was what it could mean. So we looked at a number of these things, especially with the servant aspect, where we have an act and then a reenactment an event and then a repetition and some of some sort of the event, but with new details, new understanding that that that glom onto it, but that are consistent with how this would have worked way, way back in the Old Testament. Today, we're going to do more of this, but we're going to go into the book of Daniel and Daniel is important because it is set in an apocalyptic time time when Israel is wondering what's going to happen to us, you know, what's what's is this the end of our destiny are we approaching the end of days and all this sort of stuff. We're going to be talking about act and reenactment a lot when we get into Daniel and we're going to be talking a lot about that second century. Now, regardless of what you take an authorship, whether you think Daniel was written in the second century, whether you think it was written in the sixth century and is looking forward, you know, to some of these intertestamental second century BC events. So, regardless of which view of authorship you take, it's going to be important to pay attention to how things get acted and reenacted for messianic prophecy. So Matt, I'm going to bring you in here. We didn't have you do this last time, but briefly again, tell the audience who you are, what to teach, and then we'll get into Daniel seven. Yeah, thanks for having me on again, Mike. It's been a lot of fun just chatting through some of these issues and working through the Bible and yeah, again, thanks for having me on it so much fun. Just a little introduction with me again, I have a PhD in hermeneutics, biblical studies, specifically on how Paul interpreted the Old Testament in Romans. So I'm finishing up an expanded and revised version of my PhD. And it's going to be published probably in a couple of months, two, three months, and it's called Paul in the meaning of scripture. And I essentially go all the way through Romans and look at every instance where Paul either quotes or alludes to the Old Testament. And I try to make sense of what he's doing, offer a few proposals and it's sort of ended up being somewhat of a commentary of sorts. But anyway, so that's my research, that's my background. Like I said, did a PhD and currently I teach for a classical Christian school in Oklahoma City. I teach dialectic Bible and a couple of other courses and have been with eternity Bible College for five, six years, something like that. And so I've taught a range of courses for eternity, anywhere from penitute to profits, to revelation, New Testament background, just sort of all over the place. So yeah, been doing this for several moons, it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, good. So why are we bothering with Daniel? Yeah, but he's everywhere. Daniel seven, specifically, I think I think a lot of our audience are going to sort of sniff this one out. Might as well raise the question. So what's up with that? Yeah, Daniel is super important for you know a stack that Messianic profile that we've been doing. And essentially he's gonna introduce a new motif. We've talked about several motifs, offspring, David, servant language and all of that. But Daniel's gonna contribute to that Messianic profile with the language of Son of Man. And of course that famously occurs in Daniel chapter seven. And this is a motif that is super important with respect to that meta-narrative you mentioned and that story arc of the entire Bible because in the New Testament Jesus will refer to himself as the Son of Man. And Jesus will actually quote and refer back to some of the Daniel prophecies in Daniel seven. And even Daniel nine too. So anyway, Daniel becomes super important for the New Testament view that Jesus is the Messiah. And so you were mentioning earlier that we can't restrict Messianic expectation down to just the word Messiah and which is something we've been talking about for several episodes now. And that's absolutely true because the Son of Man language and the concept of Son of Man and the things that the Son of Man is doing in Daniel really goes a long way in giving us a more complete picture of who Messiah really is. And it gives us categories for which to think about Jesus, right? In the New Testament. So that's super important as we go into the New Testament, as we grapple with Son of Man language and all that that entails. So I would say that's why that's important. If we look, here's the deal. If we wanna read math, the gospel of math to you and if we wanna read the New Testament, you're gonna have to take a road through Daniel at some point. And so that's what we're doing this one. - Yeah, you know, it's lately I've been doing a lot of reading in Targomic matters. Targomic literature. Actually prepping a course for the Awakening School. That's gonna be kind of unique. It's gonna be sort of beyond unseen realm or unseen realm to level stuff. And it's amazing how much in this period, especially with the proliferation of Aramaic, to the level that it was, the lingua franca of the day. And then you get these Targomic concepts, even though the Targoms themselves are first century or later. But you get a lot of these concepts in the Targomit that you find in Second Temple literature, but they're clustered in a Targomit. This is one of them, a human figure who is at the level of deity, who rules with God. It's the old two Yahweh's thing that I wrote about an unseen realm. The two powers in heaven and Judaism. Son of man is part of that whole idea. And not even before you get the vocabulary, son of man or human one, you have a number of beliefs circling in the period that involved exalted humans from the Old Testament, ruling with God on his throne. Moses is sort of an obvious one, but you have Abraham, you have Adam, Jacob, or Israel, personified as a single figure. It's really startling how much of this kind of stuff there is. And you're right, Daniel is really important because circulating in Judaism, again, this concept of a human one, sharing and receiving rulership authority, kingdom authority from God himself, and then ruling with alongside God is something that Judaism trafficked in. This is not a brand new idea with the author of Daniel, even though he makes the specific contribution with this phrasing that becomes so well known, but you're right, it's pretty important. Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. He does bring in this whole new concept of son of man, but there's still some continuity in what Daniel's gonna discuss with these other texts that we've looked at. I mean, this whole, having dominion over the nations, which is important for Daniel 7. You get that of David in Psalm 89. Yeah. Yeah, I immediately think of even Abraham's calling in Genesis 12, that he'll be a blessing to the nations in Daniel 7. And a father of many nations plural. Yeah, that's exactly right. The whole concept of fatherhood for the king, in the ancient world, there you go. I mean, that was part of the profile, a father, this father language. Yeah, that's a really good way to settle this discussion is to bring in that father language because sometimes we can get hung up on the part in Daniel 7 where it says that the son of man will have dominion. We think of dominion in very negative terms, almost totalitarian type language, but that's not the point. It's dominion in the sense of caring for the nations and restoring health to the nations and taking care of them and taking them back from their bondage to the false gods, right? And then bringing them back under the care of the one true God, the most high God, Yahweh. And so that's the idea. And so when you have the nation's language and the kingdom language, this really reminds us of, what you said, David, Abraham, King Ship Stuff, and I've got to mention too that the word Messiah does occur in Daniel as well, right? So this obviously makes it a very important stop that we make and try to discern what Daniel's doing with this Messiah language in chapter nine, but yeah. So anyway, yeah, you're right. There's continuity, but there's new stuff too. - Let's jump into context here, a quick overview of where Daniel seven sort of situates, what Daniel is, what the book is telling us. - Yeah, so most scholars recognize that Daniel is, again, if you take the early date or the late date, either way, most scholars are gonna say that he's talking about second century BC issues and crises, specifically with the Greek kingdom, the Antiochus epiphanies, the fourth, who had this whole program of Hellenization. He wanted to make all of the Jews conform to his program and to become good Greeks essentially. And there's lots of political controversies, there's lots of killing. And some assassinations and things like that at that time. And the Jews are really wondering, my goodness, what's going on? And it really comes to a head when the temple is desecrated in 167 BC, when, according to some texts, that there was an abomination of desolation, there's the, maybe the putting of swine or pigs on the altar and all of that. - Yeah. - Completely desecrates it, right? And this is the start of the famous Maccabee in Revolt and the fight for independence and to come out from underneath the pagan rule. And so most scholars recognize, just due to the similarities and the language that Daniel uses about the characters that he's talking about, most people are just very convinced that, okay, yeah, we're talking about this second century BC crisis. - The evil lines very well. - Yeah, it's so easily so. - Yeah, absolutely. - Someone who would take the early date would say, well, look at Daniel, you know, foresaw. I mean, it was given fore knowledge of these events. And the person who says, it's a second century date. It's no Daniel's writing an enclosed proximity to these events. But either way, you've got those events. You know, it's the anti-accent crisis. - Yeah, exactly. And the issue, you know, it really is about, you know, what do we think about prophecy? So whether he's forecasting or predicting, okay, that would fall under the category of prophecy and prophesying, or if he's living around that time, you know, a prophet minister to his own time, all the time, you know, you look at these prophets. So even such as like Elijah, right? I mean, he's ministering and saying, and giving words from God to, you know, the current political powers of the day. So either way. And he's still going to make that connection. He's still going to identify what's going on with the sovereignty of God. Here's what God's up to. - Exactly, exactly. And yeah, so Daniel's definitely, you know, talking about the second century BC. I think that's pretty well established among scholars. And part of it is, as we get into maybe some New Testament stuff later on, just to help the audience kind of keep their eyes sight into the distance here is this becomes very important as prophecy because even Jesus will reappropriate, repurpose, reenact these prophecies that Daniel talks about, right? So that's going to be important for later, but it's just good to keep our, yeah, keep our gaze down the road. But yeah, essentially Daniel, Daniel seven starts off with this vision. It's an interesting vision in many respects. He sees the monsters come up from the sea, right? This later becomes repurposed even later on in Revelation, which I know your audience is familiar with, the beast and so forth. But really, I think the best place to dive in is just chapter seven verse one. Yes, so you want to read it? - Sure, yeah, I'll read it. So I'm going to read for me, S.V. In the first year of Belish's R, King of Babylon, Daniel, saw a dream in visions of his head as he lay on his bed. And he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. Daniel declared, "I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of the heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. As I looked at his wings were plucked off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet 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 three ribs in its mouth between its teeth and it was told a rise to bow our much flesh. After this I looked and behold another like a leopard with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads and dominion was given to it. After this I saw the night vision as it behold a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth. It devoured and broken pieces and snapped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it. And it had ten horns. I consider the horns and behold there came up one, came up among them another horn, a little one before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things. And that takes us to the scene that we're what I know you're going to want to focus on. Yeah, yeah. Just real quick it's super helpful whenever we read these prophetic texts that seem so difficult to understand because oftentimes if you keep reading on the author will actually give us the interpretation of these texts. And you see this in revelation from time to time and you also see this here later on in verse 17. He's given an interpretation of this. These four beasts represent four different kingdoms which scholars are pretty you know there is a pretty big consensus that these four kingdoms represent Babylon, Babylon, media, Persia and then the Greek empire. Those four that that's kind of a consensus really. There's some or some will combine media Persia. Right. Yeah. And move from there into the fourth position. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And we even have that in another literature outside of the scripture too that you know some were doing that that very thing bringing Roman as number four. So yeah, but but these are definitely for four kingdoms. And if we place this you know for other reasons inside the second century PC era then it would make sense why the concern would be Greece or the Greek empire as the fourth position because that's the one that's tormenting them and in beating them up and giving them lots of trial and tribulation. And so but anyway but that's not to say it can't be repurposed later you know by say the New Testament or others because that's just how prophecy works. But if we just get into the context of it I think I think we're talking about Greece essentially the that empire. But yeah, like you said so we jump into verse nine where right after seeing these kingdoms these ferocious looking kingdoms these scary fighting kingdoms. Something happens in verse nine there's another part of the vision that the prophet sees and and this is really where it's at so verse nine I'll read verse nine it says as I looked thrones were placed and 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 its wheels were burning fire a stream of fire issued and came out from before him a thousand thousands served him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the court sat and judgment and the books were open now I'm sure you have a lot to say about those two verses yeah yeah we said a lot about those right yeah this is the this is a court scene judgments about to happen and then he goes on he says I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking and as I looked the beast was killed its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire and asked for the rest of the beast their dominion was taken away but their lives were prolonged for a season in a time so the idea here is that the court has settled judgment the kingdoms of the earth represented by these beasts have been judged and their kingdoms are taken away but it's not a vacuum right there's it there's it's not that everything's just white clean and there's nothing left no the nations are regathered and put under the authority of another which is where the second part of the vision comes in in verse 13 this is 13 and 14 is the key it says 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 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 in his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed so the one like the son of man verse 13 he's coming to the ancient of days and he's presented before him this is this is where we see this figure this you know someone that we haven't quite defined yet son of man who inherits everything that was left over from these four beasts that were killed right and he was given the dominion over everything this is clearly some sort of eschatological vision right he sees talking about someone special someone important there I say some sort of messianic figure right now there's there are a range of views here on on who the son of man exactly is I mean depends on what's scholar you ask I was just looking at Robert Alters uh Old Testament translation and some of his comments and um he was saying let me see here I can just read read the little quote he says that in his translation he doesn't use son of man he says he uses the the phrase one like a human being and he said that this translation avoids like the son of man because of its strong and debatable tilt toward a messianic interpretation that's interesting we wouldn't want to do that exactly and then he goes on he says quote if traditional Christian interpreters have understood this as a reference to Christ some Jewish interpreters have seen it as a collective representation of the Jewish people which he says is equally unlikely likely as well so so just stopping there for a moment and he picks up on the the two two views one is that this is talking about Jesus you know which is the Christian position then some Jewish people would say well no this is collectively this is Israel collectively son of man is like this representation of the entire nation or something and so Israel will inherit the world Israel will inherit the nations and he he dismisses that one too but then he goes on he says quote Collins after a thorough and scrupulous survey of all the possible readings plausibly concludes that the term refers to an angelic being most likely Michael descending onto the scene with the clouds this would explain the force of like this figure looks like a human being but is not more than that so the other three views that okay it's Messiah or B it's Israel the collective nation or C it's Michael the you know some sort of spiritual being so those are the three three major scholarly opinions here I I'm okay with certainly number one and I think this is talking about Messiah for many reasons we can get into later but I'm I'm even okay with this corporate model this idea that Messiah represents or son of man represents the people of God as a whole like I'm okay with that in many respects I don't I just don't see this as representing Michael I don't know I don't either I think I think three is really hard to defend yeah two two gets a little gnarly when you get down to verses 26 27 28 this seems to be redundant yeah good point yeah yeah I'm more I'm much more comfortable with number one but I view this to the lens I can't help myself anymore of the two powers and heaven thing is Daniel seven was such a big deal in articulating that theology right yeah yeah and and the point of going down to would you say verse 27 where it says that let's see yeah that the saints the people of the saints are the most high everything will be given over to them too so there there is this idea here that that there is a corporate aspect and I think just for me personally I think I think it's it would be okay to understand son of man this being as some as somehow tied intimately to his own people almost as a representative figure and maybe that's just the way I'm reading this through the lens of Paul who sees you know the church as temple the church as body of Christ and so maybe my my Pauline of prejudices are coming coming out here but but either way this is this is this is definitely an eschatological singular figure who is going to inherit all the nations for all time yeah at the end of verse 27 we have all the dominion shall serve and obey him yeah yeah so you know you can't you can't squeeze out the singular individual here which I think the view number two tries to do it tries a little too hard sure yeah now that's it ends up overstating its own case yeah yeah okay so even when we go with this singular individual which I think we have to to. I mean, this is clearly an individual, like you said. I think the important piece here is to understand what he's actually doing. This is a political text, right? This is a text that is intended to give hope to people in crisis and that there's an end to the reign of terror, essentially, which is why this is actually going to become very important for later on in the New Testament because the Christians will find themselves in crisis, right? And so they're going to need to hope in this eschatological figure. You know, it's interesting here because when we do read the New Testament, if we don't have this background in place and if we don't understand the vision properly, then I think we'll actually really mess up for later in the New Testament. There's a lot of confusion about this Son of Man coming to the ancient days, you know, coming on the clouds is a piece that reoccures in the New Testament as well. And there's so much confusion about that. And I think the confusion just comes from not understanding this text personally. It also comes from not reading the Targums. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. The clouds are a big deal. The second power, whether it's the memra or the glory, the Shukhinah or the Son of Man or some other deified figure, they're always in the clouds. Yeah. Right. Well, and the whole cloud writing motif is something that's really big for your audience knows this very well. If it's okay, I think maybe if we did just jump briefly to the New Testament, we can kind of see some of this confusion come to the fore. So, Matthew 24, which, you know, at first glance can be a pretty difficult text to understand. But once you get into the actual context of what Jesus is talking about, I don't think it's that difficult to understand. But suffice is to say just briefly, Jesus is answering the disciples question about, hey, when is the temple going to be destroyed? Because he, Jesus makes this statement that after looking at the temple and his, and hearing his disciples just fawn over how beautiful the temple was, he says, hey, look, there's going to be a day when this temple is going to be knocked down, not one stone is going to be left on the other. And then they're like, well, when will these things be? And then Jesus goes on to his famous all of a discourse, which oftentimes gets taken to be all about the future. Right. And I do think that there are elements later in the discourse that are about future. But, but primarily, at least up to verse 36. So, you're talking about this, you're talking about distant future. Far distant future. I mean, like Eskitan, the second coming kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good point to make too, because it's all future from the perspective. Even 70 AD would be future. So, yeah, future for us passed for them. And I'm sorry, future for them passed for us. As we're reading, we need to constantly be asking, okay, whose future are we talking about? Because that's sort of the problem we have when we read Jesus or these texts. When Jesus says, this will happen. We immediately think, oh, this will happen from my perspective. When in fact, it's only this will happen from the disciples for a century perspective, right? So, yeah, that's a good point to make. But, but Jesus down into verse 29, Matthew 24, 29, he says something that's really interesting. And this, this is the piece that's always taken to refer to his second coming. And I'm, I don't agree with that interpretation. But anyway, he says, quote, immediately after the tribulation of those days, which, which pause for just a minute, I think that's a reference to the destruction of the temple of 8070 that he had been predicting. But he says, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven. And the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then we'll appear in heaven the sign of the sign of the Son of Man. There's our phrase, Son of 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. So, so there's the quote, there's the reference back to Daniel 7 coming on the clouds of heaven. And a lot of Christians, you know, will interpret this as his second coming when Jesus comes back, he'll be riding the clouds and so forth. And, and I think that's, that's a misunderstanding. And it's partly in due to not knowing what Jesus says elsewhere about his coming on the clouds of heaven. I'll get to that in a moment. But it's also due to not knowing and understanding Daniel 7. So, if we recall that in Daniel 7, we have the Son of Man coming to the ancient days. That that is, it seems a movement from earth to heaven or at the very least it's a movement that ends in the heavenly realm. It ends at the throne room of God. It's an enthronement text. The Son of Man is enthroned. And a lot of times people will come to Jesus's Matthew 24 quotation, coming on the clouds of heaven and interpret that as his coming from heaven to earth. When, in fact, I think the movement is his going from earth to heaven. I think that's a very important piece here. He's talking about his enthronement. He's not really talking about his second coming. I do believe that Jesus is going to come back physically, bodily one day, but I just don't think this is the text to talk about that that points to that reality. It would have to be, well, it would have to be filed under reenactment anyway. I think that's right. I absolutely think that's right. For sure. And it's important too that typically in the New Testament the word that refers to the second coming as parcia, which literally means like his presence saying, right? That's not always the case. Sometimes, you know, another word is used, but here, he doesn't use that word. Like in First Thessalonians 4. 4. Yeah, that's right. Here, it's Erichelmai, which can mean coming or going actually. So I think you can interpret this as the Son of Man going on the clouds of heaven with Pound Great Glory. And the implication is going to the ancient days to Yahweh to be enthroned. Now, now, and that's the kingdom already, as opposed to the kingdom not yet. So, you know, the act reenactment idea goes very well with the already but not yet, you know, approach to prophecy that's very familiar to this audience anyway. Exactly. Yeah. And the other clue here, by the way, is this is not the only time Jesus quotes Daniel. So if you jump a couple of chapters ahead to Matthew 26 around the verse 64 mark where Jesus has been arrested and he's standing before Caiaphas, Jesus, he's actually accused of, you know, saying that he's going to tear down the temple and then three days later he's going to raise it up again and that's a real problem for some of his listeners. And so he's accused of that of saying that. And so Caiaphas is really upset. And so Caiaphas and the looking around, I'll just read verse 61 and following. It says Matthew 26 verse 61 says that a witness says to his Caiaphas, this man, Jesus said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, I assure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus said to him, you have said so. 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. Then the high priest tore his robes and said, he has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do he need? You have now heard his blasphemy. So why why in the world would Caiaphas do that? Why would he accuse him of blasphemy? Well, it's because Caiaphas was a Jew who understood Jewish text way better than some of us Christians do. He knew that this was an enthronement text. This was a Yahweh text. This was about who is sovereign. And Jesus has made himself to be Daniel, Son of Man here. Now the point is that he is the second power. So that would be offensive. Highly offensive, highly offensive. And this is just a point to make. If you read this text where Jesus says, I'm coming on the clouds of heaven and sitting at the right hand of power, if that doesn't strike you as a claim to deity, then you're not thinking Jewishly. Really, right? I think Caiaphas understands the text like I said better than we do sometimes. Well, the tearing of the robes and the blasphemy accusation are pretty clear indicators. Oh, for sure. The reason I point to this text is just because Jesus has told Caiaphas from now on, you will see the sentiment, see that the right hand of power coming on the clouds. And I think what Jesus is referring to here is his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. He's telling Caiaphas the events that are about to follow. Like right now, you are seeing, you should interpret that as the sentiment coming on the clouds. You're going to be a witness to it. You will be a witness. So, you know, rewinding back to Matthew 24 when Jesus says that he, you know, he will be coming on the clouds. I think what Jesus is referring to is his own vindication. He is referring to his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, of course. But part of what vindicates Jesus as a prophet and as the prophet, the son of God, what vindicates his identity is the fulfillment of his prophecies in one of them being the destruction of the temple in AD 70. So, you know, if you have a person going around claiming to be the son of man and son of God and forgiving sins and doing all the things that Jesus is doing, and he also predicts the temple is going to be destroyed. Well, whenever he is resurrected, that proves his claims all along and when the temple is destroyed, that also validates his identity and vocation as a prophet. So, I think what's happening here when Jesus says, you will see the son of man coming in the clouds. He's saying, you will see me vindicated, you will see me enthroned. You're going to see me for who I am. I think once we go back to the Daniel text, Daniel 7, all of this really begins to make sense because it was through his crucifixion that he is enthroned and that he does conquer the powers. And remember in Matthew 24, remember what he said, he uses the cosmic language of the stars and all of that, right? Why is that important? Is it a strong moral of a sudden? Over the gods, yeah. Victory over the gods. This is a cosmic language. It's important too for Caiaphas because Caiaphas isn't going to be privy necessarily to some of the other things that Jesus said would happen that would be vindicated prophecy. But this one, the thing about the temple, he is certainly aware of. We as readers are aware of the whole grocery list. Jesus did predict that he would rise again. The whole Lazarus incident, all this stuff that's preceded. Caiaphas doesn't necessarily, there wasn't an audience to all of that. He's probably heard little bits and pieces, but this thing about the temple, he's fixated on that. Yeah, this is an assault on the very essence of the Judaism of the day, right? Along his office. Yeah, he's got money involved. He's got a loss at stake. He's skin in the game, yeah. Exactly. When Jesus is vindicated in crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, you just take those crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, that's where the powers of the world are destroyed, right? He disarms the principal, he destroys the powers through his crucifixion and resurrection. And for those who are familiar even with Revelation 12, right? When the sun ascends, what happens in heaven at that point, when the sun takes his throne, sets it right into power. There's a war in heaven. Yeah, there's a war in heaven. And so this idea that at the end of the war, what happens, Satan gets kicked out, right? And he falls to the ground and begins his torment of the people of God and all of that. But yeah, you have this idea of Jesus ascending to the Father and assuming his role. That's his enthronement. Now, I think what's important is we understand the whole concept of cloud writing, in the ancient world, even in Old Testament as well. It's not about Jesus coming back on the clouds, like literally, at least here, right? That's not what's being talked about. Even though, as I said earlier, I do believe in a second coming of Jesus and when he shows up again, his power, his presence, I do believe that's going to happen. But here, I don't think that's what's going on, because the hiccup is among a lot of people, particularly evangelicals, is that, look, don't think that cloud writing here coming on the clouds needs to be interpreted literally. There's something else going on here. And I know you're audience who, as they've read, Unseen Realm, right? You have a nice little section on what it meant to the cloud writer. Daniel 7 follows the bail cycle, which is about kingship. Yeah. Who is going to be installed as the vice-region in Eucharetic Literature? It's ultimately as bail. When's the status of vice-region? Which for them, he was called the most high, even though he had to see us to get L's approval to do different things. But he is King of the Gods. He's also Lord of the Nations, which a lot of people aren't familiar with the Eucharetic Literature miss. A bail is actually referred to in these ways. And so, when you have Daniel 7, mimicking, and it does, it mimics this quest for kingship seen in the Eucharetic bail cycle. That's ultimately what it's about. Who is King? Who is enthroned? And of course, it turns out to be the Son of Man. Right. Yeah, the Son of Man. And even in those depictions of y'all way writing the clouds, right? There's several of those texts. And I like the way you put it in your book. And I can't remember the exact reference. I quoted in my book, though, because it's so good. But there's had you put it, you say, this is the Old Testament's way of dethroning bail or something like that by depicting y'all way as the cloud writer. And that's the important point is that y'all way is the cloud writer. And here Jesus is depicted as the cloud writer. Of course, he's drawing from the Daniel text, but I think there's this idea of just shared. And he comes, he's given King ship from heavenly authority. So so you're naturally going to be using terms like heaven and stars and clouds. And it's up there. This is where the authority comes from. It comes from up there. Take a look, dude. You know, there. Right. Yeah. And going back to Daniel. So the metaphors just are sort of they're obvious. At least they should be obvious. They should be when we put on the right glasses. And we read the read the text with the right at those right assumptions, right? And when you when you go back to the Daniel seven text, it's a divine coursing, right? So I think council scene, yeah. This isn't just, you know, y'all way all by himself sitting on a throne in heavenly loneliness, right? No, this is this event is it has a lot of witnesses. The court and all those gathered around, yeah. Yeah. And so judgments being taken it's taken place essentially. And again, I keep thinking of Revelation 12, the war in heaven when the sun has ascended. This is this is a big event and it's a it's a turning event. And when you go going back to Daniel seven, that piece that you mentioned earlier at the end of the chapter where it talks about this the where's that verse 27. Or it talks about yeah, it says in the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high. His kingdom shall be in everlasting kingdom and all dominion shall serve and obey him. This this this idea of the kingdoms being given to the people of the saints of the most high. I think it's very important even as we think about it in with respect to the church because once once the temple is the great commission. It is the great commission. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly right. It's all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Absolutely. Go there for yeah. And I think Jesus is inviting his people to participate with him in the shared dominion as well. Right. And so I maybe that's where maybe a corporate idea could come into play. Right. And you see this in Revelation toward the end of Revelation two in the end of Revelation three. Mm hmm. Like 226 324. I think it is. But yeah, this this audience haven't gone through Revelation a lot. You get the shared rulership, the shared dominion thing pop up here and there. And that makes sense of the larger categories that you've constructed over the years with divine council stuff reorganization of the council and you know the the sons of God motif, you know, with Christians being called sons and daughters of God, right? So so holy ones. Yeah. Holy ones. Yep. That's exactly right. You know, and and and this is congruent with Matthew 24 and all that Jesus has been saying because once the old the the second temple was destroyed in 8070, you know, there's still a temple around. It's called the church, right? And the church is united with Christ and they are the church by virtue of being united with Christ. And so it does make sense, you know, taking a larger perspective on all this, how the saints are taking back the kingdoms because we are united with Christ and we're sharing his gospel. And essentially, you know, when you think about the word gospel, we we really need to think about it. Perhaps more more like a first century person would, you know, gospel is not a, you know, about how a person can just what's the good news? Yeah, what is the good news? Right? Well, most of us at least in the tradition I've been raised in has turned the gospel into just saving my soul so I can go to heaven when I die, right? There's really nothing more than that, just the forgiveness of my individual sins. And while all of that is important, forgiveness of sins and a relationship with Jesus, all of that's important. If you just reduce gospel down to that, then you've missed so much. The fact of the matter is, a word like gospel, Oon Gelihan, well, let's just put it this way. It was stock vocabulary of the Roman Caesars and the imperial cult. So one example of this, I'm just thinking off the top of my head, I'm thinking I get the date right here, but in 9 BC, there was an inscription found at Prin, and this inscription describes the birth of Caesar, Augustus Caesar, as gospel, and the word is Oon Gelihan. And his birthday is described as good news for the world because he brings peace to the world. And what's really fascinating about all that is when you compare the claim about Caesar's rule and reign as gospel and you compare it, just a few years later with Jesus's announcement of his birth as gospel who brings peace to the world. Look, the word gospel in the first century was essentially used by the pagan Romans as political propaganda. It was politically charged. Yeah, and so when early Christians come around and say, Jesus is Lord, his birth is gospel, and his ministry is gospel. What they're saying is that Caesar's gospel is no gospel at all. - This is the ministry that brings peace to the world, not Caesar. - Right, of course, you know, the Caesar's claim to have brought peace, Pax Romana, right, the peace of Rome, but you know, it turns out that the way they achieved peace was by a sword. - It's going to be my last story to center. (laughs) - Exactly, right, yeah. It's terrible. And so, but that idea of gospel, and another aspect of gospel is, it was a military term to announce victory over a defeated foe, right, so you would go announce gospel in good news in that respect as well. So once you bring in that, there's so much more evidence to this that we can talk about, but just that shows us that the word gospel is not about just going to have it when you die and forgiveness is since. This is a political statement. It's a statement about a kingdom and the invasion of a kingdom, the kingdom of God. And in all of-- - It's a statement about you, the individual who's been reconciled to God and had your sins forgiven. You are now part of the divine family, the divine court, the reconstituted council, and they're all about dominion. - Yeah, right. - Right. That's the exact-- We never get to that part. - Going back to imaging, you know, having to mend over the earth, stewarding the earth, you know, everything comes full circle, that God gets what He wants. He shares it with you, you know? There's so much packed into it. - Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, if we are the Jesus people and if Jesus is the exact imprint of God, He is the image of God, and we are being made into the image of God, and of course we already are the image of God in that sense too, but you're going back to the Genesis motif of image bearing, and I know you say this a lot, it has nothing to really do with, you know, certainly the way we look, right? It's a call to vocation, and it's a call to carry out a purpose on the earth, and that is to have dominion, a loving dominion of course, but dominion nonetheless, in the sense that we participate with God in caring and loving the creation and all that is in creation. The second aspect of that is that showing forth the image of a king, especially in the ancient world, was to show who is sovereign, right? Images in the ancient world were often used, you know, to carry out the functions of deity, and so I think this whole motif of image bearing is very important as we think about this as well. We, as a gospel people who participate in the loving dominion of the Messiah, we are doing that by virtue of carrying our vocation of bearing the image of God. - So we should talk about how to, let's bring this around full circle. How would you summarize the importance of Daniel 7, especially as we're gonna take a look at Daniel 9, we'll do that in our next episode, our next conversation. How would you tie this up, put a bow on it? - Yeah, I think I would tie this up to say, remember the story that we've been crafting all along with Abraham. We haven't really mentioned Abraham at this point, but his whole calling, his election, was for the purpose of being a blessing to the nations, precisely because the nations have been divided, they've been cursed at Genesis 11, but in Genesis 12, God promised to be the rescue plan. And that rescue plan comes through Israel, and here we see this Israelite, the Son of Man, who is finally, as we've been waiting for a long time, he is finally being crowned and he's being enthroned, and he's tasked his holy ones with having dominion overall that he is inherited. That's how we tie it up, I think. Go back to the Abraham story. - Well, in Daniel 9, can you give us a little, a little bit of a teaser here? Is there where this is gonna go? - Yeah, Daniel 9 is fun. It's fraught with lots of debates, of course, but it's fun nonetheless. I think the teaser here is that, well look, Daniel uses the word anoint, the verb, masoch, but he's also using a masochioch too. And so we have to deal with that. What does he mean by the Messiah there? And I think that we'll discover that, yeah, there are seconds in true BC references to those words, but there's a lot there that's gonna be repurposed and repackaged during the first century in the ministry of Jesus. And so Daniel 9 is super important in that regard. - Well, Matt, this is a good place to wrap it up. And I wanna thank you again for being with us and we look forward to our chat about Daniel 9. - All right, Mike. I know you've covered Daniel 7 quite a bit. Like you said, it's divine council stuff. So it was interesting to hear what Dr. Hoss had to say about it. - Yeah, and I mean, he recognizes the divine council elements as well, not just because he's read unseen realm, but because he's read a lot of the material that led me to articulate eventually in what would become unseen realm, this whole area. I mean, once you study Daniel, serious commentaries in Daniel are gonna take you into things like the fact that Daniel 7 follows the bail scene in the egregatic bail cycle. And what that might mean? And it'll take you into the two powers in heaven, discussion, and Judaism. So he got there through different means and I think unseen realm helped a little bit for him, but you can't help but getting into it. But in our case, specifically how this helps build out the messianic profiles, what we're shooting for. - We're gonna stay in Daniel next week and Daniel 9, that isn't looking forward to that. And all right, well, with that, I wanna thank everybody for listening to "Necca Baba Podcasts." God bless. Thanks for listening to the "Necca Bible Podcasts." To support this podcast, visit www.nacca BibleBlogs.com. To learn more about Dr. Heizard's other websites and blogs, go to www.brmsh.com.