When God Writes "Finished" (Daniel Chapter 12)

In 1938 Orson Welles broadcast a drama depicting an invasion of earth by spacemen from Mars.  Ths program was so realistic thousands of Americans thought the end of the world had come.  Some lost their sanity; others committed suicide.  Until the public realized it was only a fictitious melodrama, pandemonium broke loose.

Men have talked of doomsday and the end of the world for generations, but any Bible believer knows God has great plans for the world which forbid the end of the world until Christ has reigned on earth for a thousand years.

Doomsday will come at the end of the millennial reign of Christ when the earth and all that is in it will be burned up to prepare for an entirely different order in the new heavens and the new earth (II Peter 3: 10-13; Revelation 21:1).

Daniel talks often about the end of the age, but I don't think he meant an interplanetary invasion, a global collision, or a geological catastrophe on a universal scale.  Rather, he refers to the termination of the times of the Gentiles, the end of the Russian aggression, the ruination of the European beast and his false prophet in Jerusalem, the end of wars and bloodshed, the end of Israel's dispersion, and the end of all Christ rejectors and God denying anarchists.


Part 1 (Daniel 12:1-9)

Michael's prominence (Daniel 12:1) should be associated with several factors: 

1. He is the guardian of the nation Israel--their protector and preserver.  He is responsible for the continuation of this ancient people who are the only nation to survive from antiquity.
2. He is somehow involved in resurrection.  Whenever a resurrection occurs, Michael is on hand to contribute (See Daniel 12:1; 1 Thess 4:16; Jude 9).
3. He is the initiator of a great war in Heaven between his angels and the devil with his demon hosts.  Revelation 12 puts this conflict at the midway point in the tribulation (vs. 7-12). Jesus alludes to the same event in Matthew 24:29.

The casting down of Satan to earth and the confinement of his activities here will commence the second half of the tribulation--called by Jesus the "great tribulation" (Matthew 24:21; Revelation 7:14).  Daniel 12:1 speaks of it as the worst calamity that has ever befallen or ever will befall Israel in her long and stormy history.

Michael will assert himself in Israel's defense in that unprecedented hour of trial that will come upon the earth.  There is a vast difference between "general tribulation" and the "great tribulation"--- in which God's fearful wrath will be visited upon earth dwellers.

General trouble has its source in the machinations of the devil against God's people; the great tribulation has its ultimate source in the wrath of God and is directed without abatement upon godless society.  Despite the terrible severity of the tribulation judgments, many of Daniels people (the Jews) will be delivered (vs. 1).

They will survive the disasters and be alive at the time of the inauguration of the kingdom age.  Those who see it through to the end of the desolation are declared to be "everyone that shall be found written in the book" (vs. 1)

We are assured from this expression and from countless other passages in the prophets only regenerate Jews will be left alive on the earth by the beginning of the Millennium.  All of earth's population will greatly diminish and the total number of Jews will be reduced by one third.

Verse 2 contains the first hint in the Bible... that the notion of a general, all-inclusive resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked at the same event is false.  "Many" will be raised, not all.  Many will not be raised at that time.

Those who do arise from the dead at the end of the tribulation will be counted among those who participate in the first resurrection.  Daniel calls it a resurrection "to everlasting life" (vs. 2).  Jesus mentions it in nearly the same terms (John 5:29).

Those bodies which are not raised at this time but remain in their graves until the end of the kingdom age will be raised to appear at the great white throne judgment for shame and everlasting contempt, or as Jesus puts it, "unto the resurrection of damnation."  The wicked dead will be raised but they will not have glorified bodies.  Even after they are raised they are called "dead" (Revelation 20:12).

Neither Daniel nor Jesus mentions the 1000 year interval which will separate these two resurrections.  But Paul leaves room for it in 1 Corinthians 15:23-25; John adds important details in Revelation 20: 4-6.

Daniel 12:3 alludes to a special group of saved Jews call the "wise."  The fulfillment of the promises to Abraham requires the existence of a remnant of elect Jews who will be saved during the tribulation period and become the children of the kingdom.

In addition, there is to be distinguished a remnant within the remnant--a special group of 144,000 Jewish instructors, preachers, and teachers.  They will be saved and sealed by the Spirit of God immediately after the church saints have been resurrected and raptured.  They will be commissioned to take the gospel of redeeming grace--with special emphasis upon the imminence of the coming kingdom--to the world.

Their witness during the first half of the tribulation will result in the salvation of countless Jews and Gentiles.  They will "turn many to righteousness," and during the millennial age they will enjoy a special prominence, shining "as the stars for ever and ever."

Some strange teachings have been based on Daniel 12:4.  Commonly it's taught as a prediction of the jet age and the phenomenal acceleration of learning.  Interpreting this verse in it's context would correct the popular notion.  The angel told Daniel the book--the book of Daniel--will be a closed volume for unbelieving Jews from that time until the time of the end.

The Jews read Daniel and the other prophets without understanding.  Today the nation suffers from spiritual blindness-- a condition which will not be altered until the event of the rapture of the church.

In the time of the end after the translation of church saints, judicial blindness will be lifted; Jews will search thoroughly ("run to and fro") the book of Daniel.  The Spirit of God will illumine them, and they will at last increasingly understand the significance of these prophecies.  "Running to and fro" I believe... refers to the action of the eyes in perusing a book; it has nothing to do with our travel-conscious age.

Implicit in verse 4 is an explanation of how people will become regenerate in the tribulation period.  They will be saved in exactly the same manner in which believers of the church age are saved.

No dispensation theologian who is careful would ever suggest God saves men in different ways in different dispensations.  The various dispensations are not different methods of salvation.

God the Holy Spirit is the divine agent; preachers of the grace of God are the human medium; the incorruptible seed of the Word of God is the instrumental means.  No one in any dispensation ever got saved in any other way except by the grace of God through His faith in His promises.  We are saved because we confess and believe in Jesus and His faith.

Part 2 (Daniel 12: 10-13)

At best we can only conjecture what may be the significance of the dates recorded in Daniel 12.  Verse 7 puts the terminal point at 1260 days after the erection of the idol in the temple at Jerusalem.

This length of time is coincident with the reign of the European dictator-beast (Daniel 7:25; Revelation 13:5), the Gentile control over Jerusalem (Revelation 11:2), the ministry of the two witnesses (vs. 3), and the hiding of Israel in the wilderness, possibly at Petra (Revelation 12:14).

We can safely assume, then, at the end of 1260 days the empire of the beast will collapse and with it the beast himself and his Jewish ally.

Daniel 12:11 adds an extra month to the 1260 days.  I wonder if this extra month represents a period of grace before Christ destroys the ungodly.  I've heard others think it refers to the time required for cleaning up the worst of the debris of the war (although apparently this will necessitate much more time--see Ezekiel 39: 9, 12).

One guess is as good as the other.  If the kingdom of the beast is destroyed by an invasion from the Far East, perhaps the thirty days represent the period of conquest by the Oriental armies and the marshaling of Western troops to confront them at Armageddon.  Conceivably, Christ will personally return at the end of these 1290 days to slay the armies of the Oriental host.

Then we are faced with a third date of 1335 days or 45 days beyond the 1290 days.  Some expositors have suggested this will mark the first celebration of the feast of tabernacles which will take place 45 days after the millennial age commences.

We can be certain the 75 days beyond the initial 1260 are essential as a period of preparation and conditioning for full kingdom blessings.  They must indicate some kind of transition period between the tribulation and the millennium.

A transition period separates the Mosaic dispensation from the church dispensation, and we can expect some similar interval between the judgments of the time of trouble and the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19).

Although the tribulation period will fulfill many purposes in the program of God, one of the chief purposes is the salvation and sanctification of a people to whom God can fulfill the covenant promises to Abraham, Moses and David.

What will God use to take away the dross and purify the people who are to become the residents of the millennial earth?  God will use the fires of the tribulation.  The prophets are filled with refrences to this refining process.  During the tribulation many will be cleansed.  God will regenerate them and work His own righteousness in them (Daniel 12:10).

Trouble has a way of bringing God's elect people to rely wholly upon the Lord.  The tribulation judgments will have no cleansing effect, however, on the apostate Jews.  The same sun that melts wax hardens clay.  The wicked will not repent amid the outpouring of divine wrath; they will increase in their wickedness (Revelation 6: 16, 17; 9:20; 16:10, 11, 21).

A special benediction is pronounced upon those saved Jews who patiently wait for the Messiah to come to deliver them from the distresses of the hour of trial (Daniel 12:12).  Those who survive until the 1335 days have passed will see the King coming in His glory to the Mount of Olives.  They will enter into the millennial age with all of its prosperity, peace, righteousness, and joy.

They will be present at the wedding feast celebrated on earth that he beginning of the millennium.  Christ and His bride have been joined at the wedding ceremony in Heaven, and now the ladies in waiting (Israel), the friend of the bridegroom (John the Baptist), and the servants (saved Gentiles) will all participate in the joy of the festive occasion.

The waiting regenerate Jews will be blessed because the ancient promises of a restoration of the kingdom to David will be fulfilled to them, and they will be delegated positions of jurisdiction in the kingdom government as a reward for their faithfulness to Christ during the terrors of the beasts' joint reign.

.... and they all lived happily ever after ;)