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And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
Daniel 2:44
Here in Daniel we have expectations set high. In verses 36 through 43 Daniel describes a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, and then gives an interpretation of it. The interpretation describes the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian and Greek Empires, and then finally ends with the Roman Empire. After describing these empires, he gives this grand 44th verse, which indicates that all of these kingdoms will be broken into pieces and be consumed by another kingdom, a divine kingdom that shall stand forever. Daniel 2:44
If the interpretation of current Bible scholars is correct and if the final empire of the interpretation is indeed the Roman Empire, then their expectation of a Second Coming on behalf of Jesus is in jeopardy in regard to this verse. For we see here that the verse says, “and in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom.” The verse does not say “after” the days, but “in” the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom.
This may be another scripture that helped create a high pitch of excitement in the first century when it came to Messianic expectations. For the coming of the Messiah would have initiated the coming of this divine kingdom, in the eyes of the Jews. Though Jews did not accept Jesus as a Messiah, His coming at the time could be a fulfillment of this Daniel prophecy, because the kingdom He has set up has indeed spread throughout the earth, and has infiltrated every government on planet Earth with followers, starting with the Roman Empire. And as such, Jesus’ kingdom was officially established “in the days of these kings,” specifically the Roman Empire, the final empire of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue.
This is another verse that is very time-specific with respect to the kingdom promised to the Jews. The Roman Empire, at the latest, died out about the fifth century. Since the time of Jesus in the first century, there has been no Messiah figure who has captured the hearts and minds of people all over the earth, except possibly Mohammad, but he is clearly no Jewish Messiah. Jesus was Jewish, and because of that, and the fact that He was of the line of King David (Matthew 1:1-16), He can at least be considered as a Jewish Messianic figure. Name another well-known Jewish Messianic figure after the first century but before the fifth century, and we can start to talk about the fulfillment of the Daniel prophecy in somebody else besides Jesus of Nazareth. Because there is none, we leave this verse as yet another one pointing directly to Jesus as the Christ of the Jews and, as this verse points out, something much more than a Christ solely to the Jews, because His kingdom was to permeate the entire world, which it has.
For right now, one in every three people professes to be a Christian. These one in three are not located in only a few countries on planet Earth; they are spread out throughout all the nations of the earth. These various people throughout time are members of this earthly kingdom, which has broken to pieces the Roman Empire, and any other empire, even unto our day.