“IN SPITE OF PRESENT APPEARANCES, God is in control.” That, Tremper Longman tells us over and over, is the core message of Daniel. What an appropriate message for Daniel’s original hearers/readers. In exile in Babylon, it must have appeared to them that the great powers of the world—the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians—were in control. By writing of his experiences as a captive Israelite who gained power in Babylon through his ability to interpret King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, Daniel tells his compatriots that God, not a human king, is ultimately in control.
What an appropriate message for today also. When we look at our society and find overwhelming evidences of what William Bennet calls cultural decay and the Christian Coalition describes as the loss of a moral center, it is tempting to question whether God really is in control. Perhaps we are sophisticated enough to know that human kingdoms are not in control. The failure of Maoist China, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the steep decline in the fortunes of the United States—all impress on us daily that nations and states rise and fall. Still, we tend to see behind such misfortune powers that are anything but godlike—impersonal forces of fate, theories of deterministic science, Satan the master of evil. Can God possibly be in control?
Daniel said—and would say today were he with us—yes. In spite of present appearances, God is in control. Since this is the universal message of this book, the one that bridges the sixth century B.C. and twenty-first century A.D. contexts, it is worth our while to see how Daniel goes about convincing suffering readers of this hope-giving truth. He uses a two-pronged approach. He tells us six gripping stories of God’s providence, then gives us five mystical visions, which together blast our senses with impressions of God’s great power. Why this combination of literal historical stories and mystical visions?
Recently I sat by Long Lake in Mercer, Wisconsin, observing a loon feeding in the bay. At least I assume the loon was feeding. The bird would bob and float on the top of the water for some seconds, then suddenly dive, stay under water for two or three minutes, and then resurface, sometimes hundreds of feet from the diving point. My observation of the loon was of a series of lake-top appearances. But to understand fully the whole meaning of those lake-top appearances, I had to infer what the bird was doing on the long dives that filled the intervals.
The book of Daniel is doing something similar. The historical stories of how God took care of the prophet as he navigated the tricky waters of Babylonian court politics are necessary to show us that God really does take care of his own. God is in control. Not in some meaningless, abstract, pie-in-the-sky way, but in the here and now.
But stories like this have their limitations. God’s providence does not always show itself in “success” stories. Sometimes, as the book of Job attests, God is in control in cases where his children suffer mightily. “Success” stories are necessary to give us hope, but alone they tend to reify transitory elements of the stories—Daniel succeeded because he was a vegetarian, so if we all become vegetarians, we will succeed too. Daniel succeeded because he prayed in an upper room in full view of all the people of Babylon, so if we all pray in that manner we will succeed too. Not really. These stories are not irrelevant. They teach us important lessons. But they are like the appearances of the loon on top of the lake. In order to be fully understood, we must know that a great deal is happening under the surface.
Enter the apocalyptic visions, which communicate to us that a great deal is happening “under water.” God’s greatness can be illustrated through everyday stories but cannot be captured by them. We need something further to show us that God encompasses the ordinary and the everyday but also goes beyond it. Daniel’s visions can be understood up to a point, but cannot be completely understood in all details. They are specifically designed to communicate mystery. They leave us uncertain about specifics even though they clearly tell us that God is in control.
Daniel’s message about God’s control requires both the stories of the first six chapters and the visions of the last six. The stories give us comfort, the visions a sense of our finitude. Without the latter, the stories could lead us to believe in a false relationship between human works and God’s grace—if we do certain things, God must provide. Without the stories, the visions could lead us to an impractical, disembodied mysticism. With both, this book offers a hopeful confidence that God is indeed in control.
—Terry C. Muck