Daniel 7:9-12--The Ancient of Days Reigns

Daniel 7:9-12
English Standard Version

The Ancient of Days Reigns
9 “As I looked,

thrones were placed,
    and the Ancient of Days took his seat;
his clothing was white as snow,
    and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames;
    its wheels were burning fire.
10 A stream of fire issued
    and came out from before him;
a thousand thousands served him,
    and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;
the court sat in judgment,
    and the books were opened.

11 “I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. 12 As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.

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Like Daniel, we often like to fix our gaze on the kingdoms of this world and the terror they inflict.  However, this passage is meant to redirect Daniel's focus away from the earth and into the throne room of heaven.  God does the same on a couple of different occasions with John when he gets overwhelmed with what he sees going from bad to worse on the earth.

Through Daniel's eyes, we gaze into the throne room of God and see the one who is called the Ancient of Days high and lifted up, and He is surrounded by other thrones.  Daniel is focused on the central figure whose clothing is white as snow and hair is as pure wool (pure white).  He is without stain, spot or blemish.  He is not only pure but holy, and that makes him inapproachable.  His throne is surrounded by flames of fire that will consume those who are unholy who try to approach him.  The wheels of the throne are burning fire (the reference to these wheels takes us back to the vison of Ezekiel), but where Ezekiel saw a River of Living water coming out from before Him to give life to the whole earth, Daniel sees a River of Fire coming from him to bring judgment to nations of the world that oppose Him.

An uncountable multitude stands before him and He sits in judgment.  I believe this is a picture of what we would call The Great White Throne judgment where God will judge all the nations of the world.  They will all stand before Him no matter if they believe in Him or not, He will be their judge.  There are multiple books that are opened--John will tell us more about these books, one book will be a record of the names of those whom Jesus has given eternal life--The Book of Life or The Lamb's Book of Life--and another will be the book that records all the deeds and the thoughts of every man, woman, and child.  Those whose names are not found in the Lamb's Book of Life will be judged according to their works, and they will all be found guilty for "There is none righteous, no, not even one."  "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Big picture here is that no matter how big and bad the nations that rage against the LORD and His people appear to be, God will have the final word in judgment and all of those who are part of the kingdoms of this world have no future kingdom to look forward to.  The kingdoms of this world will all be destroyed and those hoping for them to be strong enough to save them from God will be sorely disappointed when all of them stand before God on the day of judgment. 

This passage ends with Daniel looking back at the Antichrist who was talking such a big game and making such great boasts being destroyed and being cast into the Lake of Fire.  The other four beasts will be allowed to live for a bit longer making reference to the fact that Satan is not destroyed at the same time as the Antichrist and the False Prophet, and there will be a final rebellion by him and the people that will belong to "the world" after Messiah's Millennial reign.  At the end of that time, all the kingdoms of this world will be destroyed and only the Kingdom of God will remain, just like we saw in Nebuchadnezzar's dream.  But who is this Messiah who will be given the kingdom?  We'll talk about that next time, and Jesus will quote these very verses during His trial by the Jewish High Priest when He is compelled to testify and tell His true identity.  It is His quotation of this passage about Himself that makes them accuse Him of blasphemy, because they understood Jesus to be saying that He was the Son of God (the Second Person of the Trinity).  Don't let anyone tell you that Jesus never claimed to be God, because He clearly did at His trial when His life was on the line, and He chose to quote from Daniel 7 to let them know that even their attempts to kill Him would not be successful for God had promised to give Him an everlasting kingdom made up of people from every tribe, tongue and nation, and they are just moving that plan forward.