Above every power. How dreams and beasts reveal God’s plan for the nations (Ephesians 1:15-23 and Daniel)

 The influence of the book of Daniel

The problem with the book of Daniel is that it hides in plain sight. Daniel is not quoted very often within the New Testament. But the ideas within Daniel are peppered around everywhere, and go right to the core of the gospel. Think, for example, of the phrase “Son of Man” - probably the most common name that Jesus used of himself - which comes up in Daniel chapter 7. It’s not really enough to be considered a “quote”, partly because it comes up fairly often in the rest of the Old Testament (especially in Ezekiel), but it seems most likely that Daniel 7 is what Jesus was thinking of when using the phrase on numerous occasions.

Many people have noticed Daniel’s large influence on the New Testament, but fewer people have pointed out that many of these key themes are traced straight from Genesis to Daniel to the New Testament.

The influence of the book of Genesis on the book of Daniel

We’ve already thought about Genesis a bit: in Genesis 12 and following, God promises that “in” Abraham’s and Isaac’s seed, all the nations of the world will be blessed. This promise of blessing to all nations is given just after the Genesis 11 story of the Tower of Babel (which we were seeing is partially reversed in Acts as the Holy Spirit at long last dramatically includes the nations in Abraham’s blessings).

These same Genesis 11-12 themes are picked up by Daniel in a big way. They share the theme of different languages: Daniel is one of two “bilingual” (Hebrew and Aramaic) books in the Old Testament, which is possibly because the Aramaic portions were designed to be read by non-Jewish nations in the Middle East at the time.

Daniel and Genesis 11-12 are also set in the same places. The main events take place in Babylon, which is the same Hebrew word as Babel. This is the same as Shinar, which is where both Daniel and Genesis 11 are set. Furthermore, the “land of the Chaldeans” (another synonym for Babylon) was also where Genesis 11 tells us Abraham originally came from.

Another similarity between these books is that the interaction between the character of Daniel and the non-Jewish rulers is similar to a very significant character within Genesis. The book of Daniel seems to make a deliberate effort to show that Daniel is like Joseph (of technicolour dream coat fame). The way that Daniel interacts with the foreign rulers he serves is very similar to the way Joseph does. They both act with complete integrity. They are both wrongly accused and punished. And, most importantly, they are both miraculously empowered to interpret dreams and visions.

Both Joseph and Daniel interpret dreams for other people. Joseph interprets a couple of them while in prison and is shown to have perfect accuracy in his prediction. Then, when he gets out, he manages to outshine all the other so-called wise men by interpreting Pharaoh’s dream correctly. Daniel is also faced by a highly distressed king with a dream in Daniel chapter 2, when God miraculously empowers him to guess the content of the king’s dream correctly, before interpreting it too. In so doing, he saved the skin of the Babylonian wise men who would have otherwise been on the chopping block.

Why speak through dreams?

There are plenty of prophecies in the Old Testament, but actually not a huge number of prophecies which start out as dreams. It is particularly odd that for both the Pharaoh and for Nebuchadnezzar, God gives a dream, but does not tell the recipients of the dream what it means. This distinguishes their dreams from the few other biblical dreams (e.g. to Mary and Joseph and to some prophets in the Old Testament). So why does God sometimes choose the potentially unclear method of speaking through uninterpreted dreams?

I think that God shows us through this Genesis-Daniel connection, that these uninterpreted dreams are God’s favoured way of communicating with those who aren’t already His people. When God is speaking to Israel or Judah, He prefers the precision and directness of prophets, or dreams with a handy angel nearby to give the interpretation straight away. But, when God is speaking to the Egyptian Pharaoh or the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar, He gives them dreams instead. This has a really helpful benefit: it forces those kings to search far and wide for someone who is part of His people, because only they can interpret them correctly.

Joseph is the interpreter of dreams to Gentiles, and Daniel is the revealer of mysteries to Gentiles. The only three places in the whole Old Testament which talk about someone being able to “reveal mysteries” are all in Daniel, and about Daniel. He is the revealer of mysteries (Daniel 2:19, 2:30, 2:47)

So, when we read about “mysteries” being “revealed” (in Ephesians 3 or Colossians 1) and about being given “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation” (in Ephesians 1), it is no surprise that the inclusion of the Gentiles (who are not yet God’s people) is precisely what Paul is talking about. Paul is saying that he is being a Joseph/Daniel figure, being the Jewish person to introduce non-Jews to the message the God of Israel wants them to know. He is praying for God to work in them, just as He has made himself clear even to the pagan kings of the past.

Here then, are some of the themes which connect Genesis and Daniel: multiple languages, Babel/ Babylon, Shinar, Chaldea, non-Jews receiving revelation from God, dreams and mysteries being revealed. But, there’s more…

The content of the dreams

We’ve spoken a lot about the fact that there are dreams in Genesis and Daniel, but what about the actual content of the dreams? In Genesis, the dreams largely make medium-term predictions. One prisoner will be freed, one will be killed. There will be 14 years of irregular agricultural yields. There are other dreams in the Joseph narrative too - Joseph’s own dreams. These dreams are also fulfilled within Joseph’s lifetime. (This is one part of the musical which is actually fairly accurate.)

The dreams Daniel interprets are different to Joseph’s. They are about what will happen over a longer timescale. Daniel chapter 2 is about the fall of Babylon and the earthly kingdoms that will replace it, as represented by a statue made up of different materials from head to toe. At the end, a stone cut with no human hand comes and destroys them all, representing a divinely initiated and everlasting kingdom.

The dream in Daniel 2 matches a dream Daniel gets in chapter 7. The interpretation of this latter dream shows that it too is about kingdoms which will be overthrown as new ones take over, until something more divinely initiated (by the Ancient of Days) comes and conquers them all, and the “saints” reign forever. Two great dreams about horrible earthly power struggles, and the eventual victory and reign of God.

What Genesis teaches us about beasts

But to understand this properly, we need to go all the way back to the beginning. All the way back to the early chapters of Genesis. In fact, we need to go back even further. (Not further than the events of the first chapters of Genesis, but further back than ever reading them.) We need to go back to the basic stuff that we learn at nursery: we need a lesson on the animals.

There is a little joke that a rather too clever nursery child once said to the person teaching them the animal noises, “Um, excuse me, but I can’t see how this language will ever be applicable in real life.” It’s a joke about educational systems, ultimately making fun of the stroppy teenager who asks why they need to bother listening in lessons about algebra. This “joke” (while not hilarious!) sort of makes sense in a Western, urban lifestyle. Many Londoners, for example, really could get through life fairly safely without ever knowing what noise a chicken or a sheep makes. But animal noises were not a dispensable part of the curriculum in the ancient world. You needed to know what noise a bear made, or a lion, or wolf... Because these things really could come and attack you. Even a young child who lived in a town in the ancient world would never have been too far away from genuinely dangerous wild animals.

Animals are scary. They can be stronger than humans, faster than us, with sharper teeth and sharper claws. We want to assert our power over them, for our own protection, but that has not always been easy throughout human history.

When God says that humans are to fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, birds of the air and beasts of the field, in Genesis 1 and 2, then, this is exactly what a reader of the book of Genesis would want to hear. Beasts are powerful, but God is the most powerful, and he has put humanity above the beasts, to rule over them in a similar way to God’s rulership over all of creation. We like it when humans are in control, not the beasts, and that is what God has intended.

From beasts to dreams about beasts

So when Daniel has a very scary nightmare all about beasts, it’s no surprise that the interpretation is linked to power and domination. The point is: these kings are all like beasts, they are powerful and scary, and we don’t really want them to be calling all the shots. Whether it’s Babylonians, Medo-Persians or ancient Greeks, they’re powerful, but they are out of place. They are all beastly, but God wants to give power and dominion to humanity, not to beasts.

Cue: the Son of Man. The Ancient of Days eventually says no to these beast-kingdoms. This is not how the world should be (as it was designed in Genesis 1-2). He will establish a kingdom that is ruled completely under His own authority, represented not by a beast, but by a human. A Son of Man. A human-kingdom will rule over all the kingdoms of the world and the saints will be safe forever.

When Ephesians 1:20-21 says “when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” I think that Paul is linking Jesus’ reign to passages like Daniel 7, where the Son of Man, and then also the saints, are given a kingdom with everlasting dominion. The language in 7:13-14 and 7:27 is strikingly similar to the language deployed in Ephesians. Again, as with “the Son of Man” in the gospels, this is not enough to be completely certain that it is a quotation, but the concepts are extremely similar.

Why the Son of Man’s reign is good for the Gentiles

This cashes out in Ephesians in a really exciting way. Paul knows that the Jewish people who believe in Jesus are blessed in the true seed of Abraham, in Christ, and so they don’t have access to any blessings that the Gentiles don’t also have access to (1:3-12). He also has seen again and again the Holy Spirit dramatically confirming this good news going out to the Gentiles (1:13-14). And now he prays. He prays that they would get it. That God would open their eyes to the wonder of this world-wide plan.

Jesus is not just the ruler of one nation, but all the nations, whether Jewish or Gentile: he is the true Human, the Son of Man, made in the image of God, to have dominion over the beasts. After all the temporary beast-kingdoms of this world, in the North, South, East and West, are finished, Jesus’ eternal dominion will never be taken away. This is true now, as Jesus’ resurrection has shown that He is the victorious Son of Man with all the authority the Ancient of Days has given Him. But it will be fully felt in the future, when our beast-kingdoms have passed away.

“We Jewish believers” are blessed in Christ. “You Gentile believers” also have the Holy Spirit. So “you Gentile believers” need to know that “we ALL” - the saints (1:18), us who believe (1:19), the church (1:22) – “we ALL” are united in this worldwide kingdom, ruled by the Son of Man, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

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