Don’t Give Up! Keep Going!
A blunt exposition of Daniel 12
What causes the most pain by far to Christian pastors, parents, and friends? Seeing a loved one fall away from the faith.
Jesus promised over and again that this would happen. But if this lessens the shock it does not remove the heartache which keeps us awake at night.
Yet we know that the temptations of the world, and the trials of living as Jesus’ disciples, make us all prone to falling away from him.
We must to be prepared and strengthened for these trials. We need to be encouraged to keep going. Daniel 12 does that.
Daniel 12:1a ‘At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.
“At that time”, “a time of distress”, refers to the Greek-Persian war shown to Daniel in the chapter 11 vision. This was the kinetic manifestation of the far greater spiritual conflict that would engulf the world in the “Last Days”, the time between Jesus’ ascension and return in final judgment, the time in which we now live.
Chapter 10 showed us Daniel’s devastated response to this revelation, and how the LORD strengthened him. In chapter 12 the LORD continues to explain the vision in order to comfort Daniel.
Michael is apparently a powerful angel whose name means “Who is like God?” In chapter 10 he helps the Messiah and here we are promised that he will strengthen all of God’s people during the unparalleled distress of the Last Days.
Daniel 12:1b But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.
Though the distress is severe God promises to deliver his people: the same word (מלט, mālat) describes Lot’s escape from Sodom and David’s escape from Saul.
Who are God’s people? Those whose names “are found written in the book.”
The fact that God’s people are named in a book goes back to Moses who prayed “blot me out of your book which you have written” (Exod. 32:32) – in other words “condemn me instead of Israel.” Jesus urged his disciples to “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). John saw that “anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15).
The Sovereign LORD, who decrees all that happens in his creation from beginning to end, must also decree who will be rescued from sin and granted everlasting life. (The doctrine of election is a subset of the doctrine of divine sovereignty.) This decision is depicted as God writing their names in his book. What God writes cannot be unwritten. Our salvation rests ultimately in the invincible will of God.
Amidst the fury of spiritual warfare God’s people can rest assured that their names are indelibly written in his book of life: he has determined to save us and “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).
Now the LORD describes his return in final judgment, the end point of the Last Days:
Daniel 12:2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
The grave is not our final resting place. Just as Jesus “awakened” Lazarus from his tomb he will awaken every person who has ever lived from their grave for final judgment and sentencing (Rev. 20:13).
This doesn’t imply “soul sleep.” At the moment of death our spirits are plunged into conscious torment apart from the LORD, or raised into conscious paradise with the LORD. This begins the “intermediate state”, after which our bodies will be awakened and reconciled to our spirits for final judgment.
Notice that the same adjective – forever – describes the length of this final state, whether everlasting life or everlasting shame and contempt. There are no second chances (Luke 16:26).
Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
Daniel loves the verb “act wisely” (שׂכל, sākal), which he uses nine times in his prophecy. It described young Daniel himself and his friends, “without any physical defect, handsome, showing wisdom for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand.”
Here it refers to those who come to understand and act upon this final apocalyptic vision.
God promised Abraham descendants more numerous than the stars, and here they are in eternal glory: delivered from lies, darkness, and death; to truth, light, and life.
They will in turn become “the light of the world” by which others will find God’s righteousness.
Daniel 12:4 But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.’
This emphasises that the vision – which “increases knowledge” – referred ultimately not to the immediate context of the Greek-Persian war, but to the Last Days.
Daniel 12:5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and there before me stood two others, one on this bank of the river and one on the opposite bank.
Here continues Daniel’s chapter 10 vision of Christ by the Tigris river – dressed in linen and a gold belt, his face like lightning, his limbs of burnished bronze, his voice like thunder. In the Old Testament the seas and waters signify the chaos and danger of evil. The Christ stands above “the waters of the river”, he owns and dominates them. He proved this later when he physically walked all over the Sea of Galilee. The two figures with Christ remind us of the Transfiguration.
Daniel 12:6 One of them said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, ‘How long will it be before these astonishing things are fulfilled?’
The question is vital. When will the Last Days – this spiritual terrible battle – begin and end? How long must God’s people endure?
Daniel 12:7 The man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, lifted his right hand and his left hand towards heaven, and I heard him swear by him who lives for ever, saying, ‘It will be for a time, times and half a time. When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be completed.’
Note the solemnity with which these promises are spoken.
This is the second occurrence of this time period (cf. 7:25). If seven is an apocalyptic number of perfection and fullness, the Christ describes the time of the Last Days as half of that: a relatively short and definite period.
Though the Last Days seem interminable and God’s people cry out “How long O Lord?!” They will come to an end, so don’t give up!
Daniel 12:8–10 I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, ‘My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?’ 9He replied, ‘Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end. 10Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.
Daniel himself struggled to understand these difficult words. “Go your way because the words are rolled up and sealed” means that the Last Days won’t begin in Daniel’s lifetime.
We are told again that the Last Days will be a time of testing, of sifting the wise from the wicked. The wicked will remain wicked but God’s people – here the same words as 11:35 are used – “will be purified, made spotless, and refined”:
Purify (ברר, bārar) means to cleanse, polish, and make bright and sharp like a new arrow;
Make spotless (לבן, lāban) also means to make white;
Refine (צרף, tsāraph) refers to purifying precious metal in a fiery crucible.
Note Daniel’s repeated juxtaposition of the wicked not with the good, but with the wise. God’s people are sinners saved by faith, which itself springs from God’s gift of understanding. Remember that Lydia believed because “the LORD opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”
Daniel 12:11–12 ‘From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.
These are apocalyptic numbers at their most difficult. 1,290 equals forty-three thirty-day months. This is almost exactly three and a half years: “a time, times, and half a time.” (It happens to be one month less than the forty-two months in Revelation 11 when the “two witnesses” prophesied amidst the ruins of the holy city.)
Again the Last Days are described as a short-but-definite period.
1,335 days adds one and a half months to 1,290. I interpret this to mean, “Don’t give up, run past the finishing line!”
Jesus said: “The one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” How happy and blessed (אשׁר, asher) are those who do so!
Daniel 12:13 ‘As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.’
Daniel would die and his spirit would go to be with the LORD nearly six centuries before the Last Days began. But he had the joy of knowing that at the end of those Days his body would be awakened and he would enter, body and soul, into the full eternal blessings of the New Heaven and Earth.
Temptations call us away from Christ. Trials threaten to drive us from him. Yet none of these things are outside of his plan for you. Be strong in him. Keep going. He will use these struggles to strengthen your faith.