Lecture 19: Symbols in Ezekiel, Faithfulness in Babylon, and the Son of Man

The lecture, section by section

1. The river with no tributaries

   Ezekiel's river runs from a trickle to an uncrossable depth without a single tributary, which is not how natural rivers behave; and the tree of life stands there for healing in a world where no one will need healing. Schreiner reads both as symbols of the perfection of the coming city, the city that bears the name of the Lord. Ezekiel's promises were fulfilled in part at the return from exile; they are fulfilled ultimately in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth.

2. As literally as possible is not a rule

   Asked about the king of Tyre, Schreiner takes the figure as the leader of Tyre described in highly symbolic terms; he holds no strong opinion on whether Satan stands behind the portrait, and he doubts the prince is literally in Eden. This is poetry's way of saying you live in a lavish world, and he notes wryly that the modern West enjoys comforts kings never knew. The exchange yields a hermeneutical lesson he was taught to ignore as a young man: interpret the Bible as literally as possible is not a fair rule. Interpretation must follow the author's intention, and if the author intends symbolism, ruling that out in advance is cheating. You cannot make the rule before you read the text; deciding whether a passage is literal or symbolic is precisely the hard work of interpretation.

3. Why so much detail, if symbolic

   Why then do the temple chapters linger over measurements and ordinances? Because poetry can love its object: the long, careful description gives the imagination a sense of the beauty and holiness of what is coming, in a way a few lines never could. What Ezekiel's first hearers made of it is hard to know; these are difficult chapters. The literal millennial-temple reading carries a heavy cost: reinstated animal sacrifices. The older dispensational answer, that they would be memorial sacrifices, Schreiner finds very strange, since the church already has its memorial in the Lord's Supper, and a return to animal offerings sits awkwardly with the book of Hebrews. He notes that many dispensationalists no longer hold the view, including professors at the dispensational seminary where he studied in the 1970s.

4. Faithful in Babylon

   Daniel's frame is Yahweh's sovereignty over history, his deliverance of his own, and his humbling of the proud. And the book answers exile's great question: what are the people of God called to do under a foreign power? Be faithful. Daniel and his friends keep themselves from unclean food in chapter 1; the three men refuse the idol in chapter 3; Daniel goes to the lions in chapter 6 rather than stop praying. They stand as examples of covenant faithfulness in a generation exiled for covenant violation. Schreiner adds Jim Hamilton's observation that Daniel is in many ways a recapitulation of Joseph: the earlier exile anticipates the later one.

5. God humbles the proud

   Chapter 4 humbles proud Nebuchadnezzar and chapter 5 proud Belshazzar, rulers of one of history's greatest empires. The tendency of rulers in every age is to arrogate godlike properties to themselves and advertise their own genius, and Daniel's word stands over all of them: no matter how great the man or the nation he leads, God humbles the proud, and he does not brook rivals.

6. Four kingdoms, one schematic

   Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's night vision tell one story twice. The head of gold and the lion are Babylon; the silver chest and the bear, Medo-Persia; the bronze and the leopard, Greece; the iron legs, the clay-mixed feet, and the indescribable ferocious beast, Rome. A schematic of history, and its sting is this: the exile is not simply over. The other prophets taught Israel to expect exile's end with the return to the land; Daniel says that even in the land, the exile continues in the sense that other nations will be stronger than Israel.

7. One like a son of man

   Then the vision turns. One like a son of man comes with the clouds of heaven, and in the Old Testament the rider on the clouds is Yahweh himself; he approaches the Ancient of Days and is given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that peoples of every nation and language should serve him, an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, a kingdom that cannot be destroyed.

8. Beasts and the humane kingdom

   The vision's contrast is the point. The kingdoms of the world are ferocious beasts, lions and bears and leopards, and Schreiner makes the terror concrete: stand beside a Siberian tiger and imagine the bars gone. Is that really what governments are like? The twentieth century answers: tens of millions destroyed by their own rulers, in Russia, in Cambodia, and beyond; totalitarian power is rapacious, savage, fierce, and the appetite for total power belongs to human government as such. But a kingdom is coming that is humane, for son of man means human. A human kingdom, a king who actually cares about the citizens. Schreiner refuses to be simplistic: some governments are better than others, and by common grace some rulers have been relatively good. But the tendency of human beings holding absolute power is to destroy those who differ, and the Son of Man's kingdom is the end of that.

9. The saints receive it, the Son of Man brings it

   Now the fascinating turn: when Daniel's vision is explained, three times over, the kingdom is given to the holy ones of the Most High, to the people; the explanation never mentions an individual. Some argue the holy ones are angels; Schreiner holds they are the people, for the text finally says the people, the holy ones. To exiles Daniel says: the kingdom is coming to you. Who then is the son of man? Both-and. As the beast-kings represent their peoples, the son of man represents the people of God: an individual who incorporates his people in himself, corporate solidarity, exactly as the servant of the LORD is the true Israel. And this is why, when Jesus takes Son of Man as his name, his hearers do not instantly understand. Had he said, I am the Davidic king, all would have been plain; Son of Man made them ask what he meant, and that was part of its power.

10. Seventy weeks

    In chapter 9 Daniel is reading Jeremiah's prophecy of a seventy-year captivity, and the answer he receives is that Jeremiah was not wrong, but there is more time: seventy weeks are decreed, to finish the rebellion, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. Schreiner reads those goals as fulfilled in the cross. From the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to an Anointed One, a ruler, run seven weeks and sixty-two; the city is rebuilt in difficult times; and after the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One is cut off and has nothing.

11. The ruler who is not an antichrist

    Here Schreiner follows Peter Gentry's detailed article, holding the view with an open hand: the coming ruler of the passage is still Jesus, not a sudden switch to an antichrist figure as many interpreters read it. The people of the coming ruler who destroy the city and sanctuary are the Jews themselves: because of their sin they destroy their own city, the focus falling on self-destruction rather than foreign conquest. It is Jesus who makes the firm covenant with many, the covenant in his blood; it is Jesus who, in the middle of the week, puts a stop to sacrifice and offering, because he is the fulfillment of every sacrifice; and the abomination of desolation with its decreed destruction may well be fulfilled in AD 70, without denying some further echo. On this reading, Daniel 9 speaks mainly not of an antichrist but of the Anointed One cut off, whose death seals the covenant.

12. Loose ends before the New Testament

    Was Nebuchadnezzar converted? Schreiner tends to think his confession is a recognition of Yahweh's sovereignty rather than conversion, though he holds it lightly and is glad to be proven wrong when all is known. With Daniel's visions in hand, the course stands at the threshold of the New Testament.

1. Daniel's faithfulness showed in ordinary, visible habits: what he ate, when he prayed, whom he worshiped. Which ordinary habit is currently the test of your fidelity, and what would faithfulness there cost you?

2. The lecture says rulers in every age, and hearts with a little power, tend to arrogate godlike properties. Where has authority tempted you that way, and what does Nebuchadnezzar's humbling teach you to pray?

3. The saints receive the kingdom the Son of Man wins. How does citizenship in the humane kingdom change the way you endure, and engage, the beastly ones around you?