There are various pastors who use their pulpits to promote their personal political agendas. I personally do not talk a lot about politics from the pulpit. I generally preach through books of the Bible and only address political issues when the occur within the context of the biblical book through which I’m preaching. Unfortunately, in today’s political climate, we are often led to believe that electing the right leaders or passing the right policies will fix everything. Politicians make sweeping promises and claim they have the solutions to all of the world’s deepest problems. Of course, when they fail, they make excuses. They ironically claim that there were unforeseen problems that they couldn’t overcome that stood in their way so that they couldn’t fix the bigger problems they claimed they could fix. All of this shows a lack of intellectual honesty, and yet we still put their faith in these leaders, believing that government can solve our deepest problems.
If government isn’t the ultimate solution to our problems, is there another place to which we can look?
In Daniel 2, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a dream. He recognized that this dream had a deeper meaning. Ultimately, Daniel, the main character in the Book of Daniel, makes the meaning of the dream known to the king.
In this dream, King Nebuchadnezzar sees a statue. The head of the statue is gold, the chest and arms are silver, the midsection is bronze, the legs are iron, and the feet are partly of iron, and partly of clay. Then Nebuchadnezzar saw a stock cut out without human hands that came and struck the statue in the feet and the entire statue is brought down. As Daniel reveals the meaning of the dream, he explains that the head of God represents Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire. The other parts of the statue represent kingdoms that will arise after Babylon. The stone that is cut out without human hands represents the kingdom of God that will come and ultimately destroy all human kingdoms.
Now, biblical interpreters have spent a lot of time focusing on the identity of these kingdoms. Everyone understands that Babylon is represented by the head of gold. Daniel says this explicitly. However, when we begin to look at the other sections of the statue, there are different ways of understanding it. There is a view in which it is argued that the fourth kingdom is Greece, and there is another view in which the fourth kingdom is understood to be Rome. Under the theory where Greece is the fourth kingdom, the feet with the ten toes with the iron mixed with clay represents various Hellenistic kingdoms after the death of Alexander the Great. Under the theory where Rome is the fourth kingdom, the feet represent the divided and unstable nature of the Roman Empire during its later stages.
If we are trying to understand the meaning of the text, when the text was originally written, the original readers didn’t have the benefit of our historical hindsight. They didn’t know what kingdoms would arise. Therefore, trying to figure out the identity of the kingdoms wasn’t in view for the original readers, and, consequently, the point of the text is not to underscore the identity of the coming kingdoms. While we understand that these kingdoms do correspond to the specific kingdoms that arose, the more important thing is that these kingdoms represent the kingdoms of the earth more broadly.
If we understand it in this way, the point is that the kingdom of God will overcome the kingdoms of man. Again, the statue itself is the form of a man, and not only is the statue in the form of a man, but the stone that destroys the statue is explicitly not of man—it is a stone cut out “without human hands.” The kingdom of God is superior to the kingdoms of humankind. When the kingdom of God comes, it will destroy every earthly kingdom that has been erected by man. Earthly rulers are flawed, and earthly kingdoms are built upon feet of clay.
So, don’t be tempted to put your faith and hope in politicians and government systems. Although we know that God sometimes uses political leaders and governments for the common good, we need to have modest expectations about the extent to which they can solve problems.
We need to, instead, remember the source from which our true hope and security flows. The kingdom of God that is represented by the rock that shatters the statue and grows into a mountain filling the whole earth is ushered in by Jesus Christ. This kingdom has been inaugurated through his life, death, and resurrection. When Jesus died on the cross, he defeated the powers of sin. He made a way whereby his people could be forgiven and brought into this coming kingdom. Through Christ’s redemptive work, the kingdom of God is established. It is a kingdom that is not made by human hands. It is a kingdom that will not crumble. It is an eternal kingdom that will stand forever. It is a kingdom where there is hope and salvation for all who put their trust in Christ. This is the kingdom where our hope rests. Jesus is the King in whom we find everlasting hope.
