In yesterday’s reading we noticed two details about God’s people. The first is that they are going to experience opposition and the second is that they would, at one time, have belonged to the kingdoms that were opposed to God. Does Daniel’s vision have anything more to say about them?
Verse 27 describes their future: ‘And 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; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them.’ This verse states that the downtrodden and opposed people of God are going to have a kingdom that will be universal (under the whole heaven) and eternal.
This kingdom will be given to all of them, which means that the number who will belong to God’s people will be complete by then. They will also have to be in a fit condition to receive it, and the event which will bring this about is the future resurrection. When it takes place, all of God’s people will be gathered together and each of them will be glorified. So they will be complete in number and in condition.
The kingdom will be given to them. They will not have obtained it by force of arms which was how the other empires achieved their kingdoms. Instead it will be a gift from God. The sovereign Lord had given the earthly empires to subsequent rulers as well, but the bestowal had been an act of judgement on each previous ruler. But those who had suffered for his sake he will compensate with the eternal kingdom.
In this promised kingdom, the people of God are going to have the status of kings. This is an obvious difference from the earthly kingdoms in which the subjects of the rulers did not have such a high status. The people of God are going to experience great glory, glory that today is unimaginable.
No comments:
Post a Comment