GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
DANIEL 7:11-12
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11 “I kept watching because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept watching until the beast was killed and its body was destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. 12 The authority of the other beasts was taken away, but they were allowed to live for a certain period of time.
Here again Daniel describes the Antichrist. The emphasis is on his boastful speaking. Luther laments in the Large Catechism: “The Word of God must undergo the most shameful and spiteful persecution and blasphemy; it is contradicted, perverted, misused, and misinterpreted. It is the blind world’s nature to condemn and persecute the truth and the children of God and yet consider this no sin.” The work of the Antichrist will endure “until Christ comes to judge and by the glory of his coming destroys the kingdom of Antichrist. Meanwhile all those who truly believe the Gospel should reject those wicked services invented against God’s command to obscure the glory of Christ and the righteousness of faith” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XXVI:98).
The blasphemies of the Antichrist are especially meant to lead Christians away from Christ for salvation. Since the Antichrist rises up from within the church– which we saw depicted by the horn coming up from out of Rome, and which Paul confirms by saying “he will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4)– this means that he will rule and hold office in the church.
We should remind ourselves, for the comfort of those who are distressed, that since many Christians will be deceived by the Antichrist, that there can and will be people who might not fall even though he himself might have baptized them or offered them the Lord’s Supper with his own hand, for it is one of the certain and sure teachings of the Holy Christian Church that the sacraments receive their power from the Word of God and not from the faith or the life of the man who delivers them, therefore “We may legitimately use sacraments that are administered by evil men.” But if we recognize a false teacher, or a church with false teaching, we should separate ourselves from them, as Paul teaches in Romans 16:17, “Watch out for those who put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned, and keep away from them.”
In his vision, Daniel saw the beast killed, destroyed, and thrown into the blazing fire. This was especially for his comfort regarding the eleventh or little horn, the Antichrist, but notice that he says “the beast,” meaning the whole beast of the fourth kingdom. This is the complete overthrow of the beast. In Aramaic, the text says that the beast “was thrown into the blazing fire,” not “burned to nothing by the fire.” This indicates the ongoing, eternal punishment of hell and not simply the death of the thing, even though he also says that “it was killed.” For hell comes for most unbelievers after death, and surely God will punish the Antichrist with hell as well as death, since he devoted himself to the destruction of the souls of believers.
The other beasts, the earlier kingdoms, had their authority taken from them each in turn. This happened during the natural course of the march of time. But their time was under God’s control, so that he also says that they were allowed to live “for a certain period of time.” This is two terms put together, a general amount of time and a more definite, measured amount of time, “a time and a season,” in a manner of speaking. Together they mean, “quite a while by human reckoning, but ending just when God had planned.”
The preaching of the law in this verse is clear: the revelation of the righteous will of God, “for everything which condemns sin is and belongs to the proclamation of the law” (Formula of Concord, Epitome V:4). So there is no mercy on the Antichrist at all. He is judged in much the same way that Satan was judged. The difference is that Satan, who was one of the angels and who saw God face to face in heaven, was not spared in the least and was condemned immediately upon his fall into sin. There was no salvation for the angels who sinned; they are eternally damned (Revelation 12:8). But the Antichrist, wicked and evil though he is, he is human (or a series of human men over time). Therefore his judgment will come at the end of time on the last day along with all other human beings. But the words and work of the Antichrist will come to an end, finally and completely.
We have the assurance of hope, forgiveness, and salvation, with the blood of Christ to cover our sins. All of our attention on the day of judgment is focused on Christ and not on ourselves; it is his righteousness that is ours by faith. We have no suffering to dread, but only owe him our thanks “to make that coming hour o’erflow with joy and pleasure.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Daniel 7:11-12 into the blazing fire