SRR 96 The Danielic Imperative Part 18

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A standard Roman Catholic argument with Protestants is that Daniel prophesied that Christ's Earthly Kingdom would be Roman, and thus, Protestants must return to His earthly kingdom, Roman Catholicism. However, that argument is based on the assumption that the Stone of Daniel 2 only struck the statue once. But it struck twice, a fact that overturns the Roman Catholic argument.

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I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.
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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.
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We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make,
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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.
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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said, woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.
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As opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. It is on.
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We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. Hey, welcome back to our listeners.
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And we're glad to be here. We're glad you're here, too. This is your host, Timothy F. Kaufman. And we're continuing our series on the
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Danielic imperative, inspired by our obligation to understand the eschatological timeline revealed to us in Daniel.
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So that we may understand the eschatology of Jesus and his disciples. Last week, we discussed the 70 year prophecy of Jeremiah.
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And why the commentaries have such a difficult time determining the actual 70 year period in history.
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Even though the scripture attests to it repeatedly. And this week, we pick up where we left off last time.
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To answer the question about why it is difficult to tell the difference between the heavenly kingdom of Christ and the diabolical earthly kingdom of Antichrist.
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You may not think it is so difficult. But a lot of Protestants have departed from the faith because they were unable to tell the difference.
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And other Protestants, although they are not deceived, are nonetheless puzzled about how we are to understand the powerful early church that wielded so much civil power after the collapse of the
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Roman Empire. Is that the church which Christ founded? Is that the church to which we should return?
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The answer is in the scriptures. And in particular, the answer is in the
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Danielic timeline. A very specific eschatological chronology was revealed to Daniel.
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And Jesus and his apostles relied on that eschatology to reveal to us the future of the people of God.
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When Peter said, the end of all things is at hand in 1 Peter 4 .7, he was actually saying something
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Danielic. When Paul wrote, they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come, in 1
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Corinthians 10 .11, he was saying something Danielic. When Hebrews says, but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, in Hebrews 9 .26,
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he was saying something Danielic. When the disciples asked, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel, in Acts 1 .6,
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they were asking something Danielic. When Jesus said, whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder, in Matthew 21 .44
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and Luke 20 .18, he was saying something Danielic. And importantly, when the people thought they were going to take
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Jesus by force to make him king, in John 6 .15, the people were misunderstanding something important about the
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Danielic timeline. Well, the eschatology of the scriptures is Danielic to the core, and it is imperative that we study and understand that Danielic timeline, so that we may understand
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God's revelation to us. And importantly, it is important that we not misinterpret the
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Danielic timeline in the same way as the Jews who wanted to take Jesus by force and make him king over an earthly kingdom ahead of his time.
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And on that note, this is probably the most important of all of our episodes on the Danielic timeline, because today we're going to discuss the most important period in all of eschatology.
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And that is the period of the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's statue in his dream in chapter 2.
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All the apostles and New Testament writers knew that something important was fast approaching, and that's why they believed that the end was near.
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In fact, Peter said the end of all things is at hand, and that's a pretty big statement. Why did the
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Jews want to make Jesus king? Why did Peter think the end of all things was at hand? The answer is pretty simple.
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The end of all things was at hand. In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar has seen a progression of four world empires, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, and in the period of the fourth empire, the
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God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, according to Daniel 2 .44.
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In Daniel 7, the angel tells Daniel, In fact, in Daniel 2, a great stone strikes the series of empires and grinds them to dust, and the stone fills the whole world, according to Daniel 2 .35.
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The world had trudged through four successive empires, Babylonian, Medo -Persian,
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Greek, and Roman, and then the saints were to take over, four empires, and then something amazing was going to happen, when
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God finally destroys all of these oppressive empires and puts his people back in charge. No wonder the
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Jews wanted to make Jesus king. The end of all things was at hand. So it all came true, right?
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After four empires, the Messiah came and set up a kingdom. But there was something else, something absolutely diabolical.
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After four empires, the Antichrist would come too. Both Christ's kingdom and Antichrist's kingdom were prophesied to come during the fourth empire, during the feat of Daniel 2, during the period of the fourth beast in Daniel 7.
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As Daniel said, Daniel said the saints would get the kingdom during the fourth empire.
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But Daniel also warned of another diabolical kingdom that would come as well. That Christ had come and announced his kingdom, there was no doubt.
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John the Baptist had come announcing it, Jesus proclaimed it after John, and his disciples proclaimed it after Jesus.
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The whole New Testament testified of this. He set up his church, and sure enough, the church grew up and spread throughout the world.
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The stone had come, and it crushed the preceding empires. And then, well, nothing definite so far as we've been able to tell.
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The Antichrist was either oversold by Daniel or was so stealthy, nobody seemed to notice him. Some of the early fathers were certain that he had come, but had not yet shown his face.
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Some were even fearful that he had come, but they had not the intellectual acuity to recognize him.
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So Daniel and Revelation began to be reexamined to find their true meaning. Some theories arose that Nero had been the prophesied
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Antichrist, that the prophesied Antichrist had, in fact, already come. Other theories arose proclaiming that the
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Antichrist was still a long way off. Some theories supposed that the world was still in the
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Iron Period of Daniel 2, and the feet were about to begin. Other theories suggested that we were already in the period of the feet, and the toes were about to begin.
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So when all the dust settled, it seemed that there were only two options. Either Antichrist had already come, or Antichrist was somewhere in the distant future, and wasn't a present cause for concern.
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The scripture just wasn't clear. Four successive empires had unfolded in crystal clarity under the patient eye of history.
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And the Messiah had come as promised, and then everything got fuzzy. What happened?
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Where was the Antichrist? Who was the false prophet? What was the image of the beast? The early church fathers assumed the wicked one would come next, and when he did not, they began to fear that they had missed him, or worse, that they had been fooled by him.
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At this point, we'll recommend to our readers that they check out an article we wrote called What the
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Fathers Feared Most. It's available at my website at whitehorseblog .com,
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and we'll provide the link to that in the show notes. But the church was doing great. All the kingdoms of the earth trembled before her.
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And when we look back as Protestants, we are left with a puzzle that has confounded us, and confronts us daily in our minds as we ponder the scripture, and pricks our ears as we listen to the siren song of the
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Roman Catholic apologist. What if Roman Catholicism is the stone of Daniel's vision?
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What if the early church, with all of its icons, incense, altars, candles, popes, veneration of relics, devotion to Mary, baptismal regeneration, sacrifice of the mass, prayers for the dead, prayers to the saints, and veneration of the true cross, really is the stone of Daniel too?
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What if Roman Catholics are right? What if the Roman Catholic religion really is the kingdom of heaven on earth?
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Well, that is certainly the perception we are left with when we look at world history. Babylonian Empire, Medo -Persian
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Empire, Greek Empire, Roman Empire, followed by the church. It is just as the angel in Daniel 7 described it.
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Isn't it? These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth, but the saints of the
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Most High shall take the kingdom. I guess we all need to become Roman Catholic. Daniel says so.
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In fact, that is how the Roman Catholic apologist interprets the passage, as do, it is embarrassing to say, a lot of gullible
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Protestants. In fact, the specific argument is the stock and trade of the
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Roman Catholic apologist, because it works, and works very well. That argument manifests in different ways, from the subtle, oblique suggestion of it, to the overt claim that the
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Roman church is the stone that filled the earth. And I want to give our listeners a taste of the argument in its various forms.
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Once we hear the argument, we'll revisit Daniel and show the utter futility of it, and we will show how the scripture is not actually unclear on this point at all.
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There is a lot of different testimonies that we could use, but I think these several examples will make our point.
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A very subtle use of the argument is found in the conversion testimony of Dr. Joseph Johnson, a former
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Presbyterian who converted to Roman Catholicism in 2013. Part of what influenced his conversion is looking back across history and watching the empires rise and fall.
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In particular, the Roman Empire collapsed in ruins, but the Roman Catholic Church has continued on uninterrupted.
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Here is former Presbyterian pastor Dr. Johnson explaining why he became Roman Catholic, and in particular, how deeply it affected him to hear a
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Roman Catholic cardinal's observations about the longevity of the Roman Catholic Church after the previous empire lay in ruins.
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I remember, I forget at what point, what year it was now, when
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Pope Benedict was installed, I guess is the right word, as the new successor of Peter. And he was waving at everybody, and there was this photograph taken of him at the balcony, and I don't remember the cardinal's name, who was kind of gazing off toward the left, or maybe right,
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I'm not sure, I've never been to Rome. But anyway, a journalist asked him later, he said, cardinal, whatever his name was, your eminence, what were you staring at?
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And he said, well, I found myself staring at the Colosseum in its ruins.
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And he said, I thought to myself, the Roman Empire came and went. He said, but I'm standing next to the 266th successor to St.
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Peter, and the Church is still here, having the Roman Empire collapse. That sunk deep within me about God's promise to lead and guide the
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Church into all truth. That audio is from the Coming Home Network, a
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Roman Catholic ministry that welcomes prodigal Protestants back into the fold. In his testimony,
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Johnson does not explicitly call out the Daniel prophecy, but the sense is the same, namely that the other empires rose and fell, but the
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Kingdom of Christ took over and has continued on in Rome, long after previous empires are left in ruins.
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The next example is a bit more direct, and it refers to the prophecy in the Old Testament about the fact that the
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Church would come and enjoy sovereignty over the earth, and specifically, would exercise civil power in a visible way.
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In this case, I'm referring to former Anglican John Henry Newman, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845, and eventually became a member of the
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College of Cardinals. I'm citing his essay, On the Development of Christian Doctrine, and again, he does not explicitly refer to Daniel, but it is clear that Daniel is the context of his observation.
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Newman's argument from prophecy was that the Church had been prophesied, quote, to be a power visible in the world and sovereign over it, unquote, so that the
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Church, which enjoys both earthly visibility and earthly sovereignty, ought to be considered the prophetic fulfillment of that prophecy.
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In one of his sermons, Newman is even more explicit. The stone that struck the statue is the heavenly
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Kingdom of God, through which Christ currently reigns on earth. Now citing Newman's Sermon 16,
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The Christian Church and Imperial Power, he says,
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Conquest is almost of the essence of an empire, and when it ceases to conquer, it ceases to be.
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Such is an empire of this world, and it is not difficult to show from Scripture that such also in its substance is the kingdom of Christ.
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In the days of these kings, says Daniel, speaking of the heathen empires, shall the
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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.
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Christ's religion was not a mere creed or philosophy. A creed or philosophy need not have interfered with kingdoms of this world, but might have existed under the
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Roman Empire or under the Persian. No, Christ's kingdom was a counter -kingdom. It occupied ground.
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It claimed to rule over those whom hitherto this world's governments ruled over without rival. And if this world's governments would not themselves acknowledge and submit to its rule, and rule under and according to its laws, it broke in pieces those governments, not by carnal weapons, but by divine power, without hands, to use the prophet
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Daniel's language. That's again paragraphs 3 and 4 from Sermon 16 from Newman, The Christian Church in Imperial Power.
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So there is Newman's argument that the prophet Daniel foretold that the church would rule on earth. After four empires, according to Daniel, the stone would strike the statue and grow up and fill the earth, exercising visible earthly sovereignty.
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Another example is from Roman Catholic apologist Dr. Brant Petrae in his lecture The Church and the
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Mystery of Pentecost in 2008. Listen as he explains that Daniel foretold the arrival of a heavenly kingdom during the fourth empire, but that the heavenly kingdom would have an earthly component to it and would thus visibly represent
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Christ's heavenly rule by ruling on earth in his place. Petrae starts with the dream explaining that the stone struck the statue in Daniel chapter 2, grinding it to dust and filling the whole world.
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And what happens with this stone? It is cut out by no human hand, and it strikes the image where?
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On its feet of iron and clay, and it broke them in pieces. So the whole thing, once you strike the bottom of the statue, what's going to happen to the top?
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The whole thing collapses. The iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold are all together broken in pieces. They become like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.
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So the stone hits it, breaks it at its root. They all come crashing to the ground, and it becomes dust in the wind.
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So they become dust in the wind. But the stone that struck the image became what? A great mountain.
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So a little stone becomes a great mountain, and it filled the whole world.
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This is the cosmic mountain, isn't it? Now, I intentionally included Dr. Brent Petrae's explanation that the stone struck the statue and turned it into dust in a single destructive impact, and we'll get back to that in a minute.
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But let's go on with Petrae's analysis where he interprets the meaning of that stone that struck the statue. It is both heavenly and earthly.
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The image of the kingdom is the stone. And the stone that's cut by what?
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No human hand. In other words, it's of supernatural origin.
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But it's not only heavenly because it has an earthly reality to it, right?
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Because the stone that comes from heaven hits the statue and then becomes a mountain that spreads throughout the whole what?
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The world. The whole world. So that's right. The kingdom, and this is why I think if you've ever studied the kingdom, it's hard to understand it.
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It's because the kingdom is mysterious. It's mysterious because it's both supernatural and natural.
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It's both heavenly and earthly. And if you don't understand the relationship between the heavenly and the earthly, you're going to miss the nature of the kingdom.
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So there you go. Christ established his heavenly kingdom, and the earthly kingdom of Roman Catholicism is a reflection of the heavenly reality.
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We'll throw in another example of this apologetic, and it is from Taylor Marshall, a former Presbyterian who became
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Episcopalian, and then finally Roman Catholic. He was so excited to learn from Daniel that God had told us in advance that the
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Church of Christ would be necessarily Roman. Now citing from Taylor Marshall's 2012 book,
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The Eternal City, here he refers to the dream in Daniel chapter 2. Marshall then goes on to conclude that the rock that destroyed the statue is the
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Roman Catholic Church. Notice again, if you will, that Marshall has depicted the stone crushing the statue and grinding it to dust in a single swift impact.
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So there you go. 600 years before Christ, the prophet Daniel foresaw that Christ would come announcing a heavenly kingdom with an earthly reality that is a visible and powerful kingdom on earth.
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And that heavenly kingdom with a visible earthly reality is Christ's Church, Roman Catholicism.
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Now if that doesn't convince you to sell all your worldly possessions and join the heavenly kingdom of Roman Catholicism, I don't know what will.
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It seems awfully clear from the scriptures that there was going to be a heavenly kingdom established during the fourth empire of Rome and that heavenly kingdom would enjoy an earthly dominion exercising power and sovereignty just as you would expect a kingdom to do.
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Upon that reading of the prophecy, I can understand why people like Jason Stellman, Taylor Marshall, Cardinal Newman, and Joseph Johnson and the rest fall for the argument.
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It sounds so compelling, but they are not the only Protestants to fall for it. Just to give a couple examples of diehard
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Protestant eschatologists falling for the lie that the Roman Church had originally and rightfully ascended to civil power as the successor to the
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Roman Empire, listen to Reformed Protestant E .B. Eliot as he writes that the Church eventually took over for the
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Roman Empire and wielded the sword of coercion among the heathen. He understood the elevation of the manchild of the woman of Revelation 12 to heaven to refer to the elevation of Christ's Church to political supremacy in the ancient world.
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Now citing E .B. Eliot from his 1846 Horae Apocalypticae, Volume 3.
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It seems clear that whatever the woman's hope in her travail, the lesser consummation was the one figured in the manchild's birth and assumption, viz.,
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the elevation of the Christians first to the recognition as a body politic, then very quickly to the supremacy of the throne in the apocalyptic world, i .e.,
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the Roman Empire, a throne which, as thenceforth Christian, might consequently thenceforth, just like Solomon's, be designated as the throne of God.
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Seated on this, it appeared the Christian body would, after a little while, coerce the heathens of the empire and rule them even as with a rod of iron.
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Again, that's E .B. Eliot commenting on the fulfillment of Revelation 12 and the elevation of the
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Christian church to a body politic in Rome. Now, I hate to judge
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Eliot so harshly, and I like E .B. Eliot, but it's a terrible interpretation.
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Christ did not authorize his church to coerce the heathen by the civil power to obey the gospel. We're going to come back to Revelation 12 later in the series, but the kingdom
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Jesus established was not commissioned to wield the civil sword, as he himself stated emphatically,
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John 18, 36. And yet, despite Christ's repeated insistence that he has no earthly kingdom and exercised no civil power, even
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Calvin saw Christ's kingdom and its earthly manifestation of the church as the fifth earthly kingdom in succession in Daniel's visions, and believed that Christ had already dismantled and destroyed all the preceding kingdoms, including
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Rome. That's from Calvin's commentary on Daniel, commenting specifically on Daniel 2, 44 -45.
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When even Protestants see the Christian church as the immediate earthly successor to the Roman Empire, we can see why some
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Protestants take it to what they think is its logical conclusion and simply convert to Rome.
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If the ascendant politically powerful Roman church is the successor to the fourth empire, then converting to Roman Catholicism is the obvious thing to do.
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But it is not so obvious at all, and in fact, the scriptures warn against doing exactly that.
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For to do so is to confuse two kingdoms that have two very different origins. One kingdom is heavenly and is not of earth.
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The other is earthly and is not of heaven. We told you in our previous episode that we would explain why the heavenly kingdom of God and the earthly kingdom of Antichrist are so commonly and easily confused with each other, and importantly, why a clear understanding of the
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Danielic timeline is the solution to that confusion. Many unfortunate people have mistaken the kingdom of Antichrist for the kingdom of God, and others, seeking to form an earthly empire as the foundation of Christ's gospel, have even gone so far as to depart from the true apostolic faith of Christ in order to join the wrong kingdom.
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Today we are going to examine the cause of the confusion and provide a very simple solution to it. And yes, there is a very simple solution to it, and it is remarkable for its simplicity.
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Here it is. The solution to the confusion between the two kingdoms is that the stone of Daniel 2 strikes the statue twice.
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Yes, that's right. The stone strikes the statue twice. Once we see that, we can see clearly that Christ's church is not to have earthly dominion until after the second strike, and the only kingdom to enjoy earthly dominion between the two strikes is the kingdom of Antichrist.
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And we are currently living between the two strikes of the stone. And it really is as simple as understanding that there are two strikes.
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You can find it even if you read Daniel 2 by itself, but it becomes even clearer when you compare it against Jesus' language in Matthew and Luke, and when you read
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Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 together in harmony. First, just look at Daniel 2 .34. The stone strikes only the feet, and breaks only the feet.
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Read Daniel 2 .35 under the traditional reading, and it sounds like the whole statue then crumbles under its own weight and collapses without its base, as the
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Roman apologists have said, or as even Calvin would suggest. But that is not what the text says.
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Daniel 2 .46 says the stone hit the rest of the statue and broke it in pieces too. The stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold.
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So there you go. The stone strikes the first time in the feet in verse 34, breaking only the feet into pieces.
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Then the stone strikes everything together, grinding all of it to dust in verse 35.
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Daniel 2 .34 depicts the first strike, and Daniel 2 .35 depicts the second strike.
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It's pretty straightforward, right? And yet the commentary generally insists that the stone struck the statue once and broke it to pieces, grinding it to dust in a single impact.
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And the two strikes are not found only in Daniel. Take a look at Matthew 21 .44 and Luke 20 .18
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in which Jesus appeals to this same Danielic imagery of a stone that causes someone to stumble, as if it had hit his feet, and then falls on him and grinds him to dust.
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This is Jesus from Matthew and from Luke. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
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That is very Danielic imagery, and significantly the language is used in the context of God setting up a new kingdom.
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For Jesus had just said in the previous verse in Matthew, Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
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That's Matthew 21 .43. These are things Jesus said would happen within the generation.
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And it all has to do with the kingdom of God being set up and given to the saints at the end of all things. The time was nigh.
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After all, it was the fourth kingdom. This is the eschatological event that had been anticipated, the transfer of the kingdom, in the period of the feet as depicted in Daniel 2 .44.
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And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. And importantly,
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Jesus' appeal to the language of Daniel 2 involves two strikes of the stone. First in the feet, causing him to stumble, and then on the whole man, grinding him to powder.
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So again, two strikes of the stone in Daniel chapter 2. And it is not just in Daniel 2 that the confusion arises by the assumption that there is a single act of judgment against all the empires together.
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In Daniel 7 it says, These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall rise out of the earth.
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But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom. That's Daniel 7 verses 17 -18. And the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the
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Most High. That's Daniel 7 .27. See? During the fourth empire, the saints get both a heavenly kingdom and an earthly kingdom, right?
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So here is a Roman Catholic apologist, again, Taylor Marshall, explaining that Daniel 7 proves that Daniel had prophesied that the church of Christ was supposed to be
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Roman. Now citing from his work, Eternal City, Rome, and the Origins of Catholic Christianity.
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If Daniel is inspired by God, and he is, then the true church of Jesus Christ on earth must be
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Roman. This fact compelled me to recognize the Roman Catholic Church as the true church instituted by our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Daniel's prophecy about the fourth kingdom and the Son of Man must be true.
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Moreover, history confirms it. However, Imperial Rome did not last forever.
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The Roman Empire expired, but the Roman Church lived on. Again, that's chapter 9 from Marshall's The Eternal City, Rome, and the
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Origins of Catholic Christianity. And here is Marshall again explaining that in the first century,
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Jesus and the saints received their earthly kingdom, just as Daniel prophesied. That's explosive theology.
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I mean, I read a trilogy, Crucified Rabbi, Catholic Perspective on Paul, and Eternal City, which is on Rome.
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And those second two books, Catholic Perspective on Paul, and then the third part,
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The Eternal City, talks about this shift that we see in Acts, we see it in Peter, we see it in Paul, where they begin to see that the prophecy in Daniel, where the
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Son of Man receives the Gentile secular kingdoms from the Ancient of Days, that this is the transfer of the
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Roman Empire, of all secular empires, to the Messiah, to the
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Son of Man. So now, Yahweh is no longer just, He's just the King of Israel, King of the
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Jews. Christ is now King of the Romans, King of the Persians, King of the
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Greeks. And that Peter and Paul go to Rome because they realize that Christ has received the
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Roman Empire. And they take over the Roman Empire. So there you go. It's in Daniel chapter 7 too.
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Four earthly kingdoms, and then the saints take over and rule the world. It's Roman Catholicism, folks. What else can it be?
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At least that's what Taylor Marshall wants you to think. So after four empires, the saints take over, and sure,
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Daniel also mentions some antagonist guy who comes up and makes life miserable for the saints for a few years, and he's going to be some kind of problem for Christ's people, but the reality on the ground is that during the fourth empire,
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God establishes a heavenly kingdom, and that heavenly kingdom has an earthly component to it that looks and acts and feels like a worldly kingdom with worldly dominion.
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How much it exercises its civil, earthly power is one of the major disputes between Roman Catholic and Protestant.
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Sadly, when you read the history of the Reformation, you'll find significantly less disagreement on that point than you'd expect.
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In some readings, the Protestants only disagreed on how much Rome was wielding the civil sword, but not on the fact that they were wielding it.
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And that is what happens when we read these passages under the artificial constraint of a single strike of the stone, or a single judgment executed by the stone against the series of empires.
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It is no wonder that Protestants and Catholics alike look back with wonder at the ascendancy of Christ's church and how powerfully it wielded its influence over kings and nations for centuries.
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It's almost as if Christ himself had set up his church to fail, imbuing it with such enormous civil power and influence that it could hardly avoid the corruption of worldly entanglements that followed.
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And yet, that is where the single strike theory leads us. Whether it is Eliot marveling at the elevation of Christians, first to recognition as a body politic, and then very quickly to supremacy of the throne in the city of Rome, or John Calvin invoking
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Isaiah 60 -12 to insist that all nations and kingdoms must obey the church of God, for the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish, or John Henry Newman arguing passionately that conquest is the essence of an earthly empire, and that visible earthly empire in its substance is the kingdom of Christ, you have a pretty broad concurrence from both sides that the church was destined to succeed the
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Roman empire and change the world. On the one hand, you have Protestants arguing for the temporal supremacy of the church as a fulfillment of prophecy, and of course later that powerful church is defiled by its worldly entanglements, but on the other hand you have
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Roman Catholics arguing for the temporal supremacy of the church as evidence of its heavenly origins. Now we are focusing so heavily on the fact that the stone strikes twice as a contrast to the typical interpretations, both
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Roman Catholic and Protestant, that have the stone striking only once, because that single strike theory is precisely why
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Protestants confuse Christ's heavenly kingdom with an earthly one, and convert to Roman Catholicism. Notice that in all the interpretations from Johnson, and Newman, and Petrie, and Marshall, the
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Roman empire, the fourth empire, is followed by a heavenly and earthly kingdom of Christ and his people.
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Roman Catholic and Protestant alike have the stone striking the statue once, and destroying all the preceding empires in a single blow.
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By approaching the text in that way, the Roman Catholics, and yes, even our Protestant commentaries, miss something very significant in Daniel 7, and that is the cause of the confusion which causes otherwise intelligent
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Protestants to fold up their tents and go to Rome. But, when we understand that the stone actually strikes the statue twice, world history comes into crystal clarity, and we avoid the temptation into which men like Stalman, Newman, Marshall, and Johnson stumbled.
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What is clear from Scripture is that there are actually two strikes of the stone, and the diabolical earthly kingdom of Antichrist is manifested between those two strikes, and Christ's earthly dominion does not begin until after the second strike.
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We know clearly from Scripture that there are two kingdoms established during the period of defeat of the fourth empire, one that was heavenly, but not earthly, and one that was earthly, but not heavenly.
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They are not, and cannot be the same kingdom. They are enemies. Christ's heavenly kingdom, which was to be established in the period of defeat, and which he repeatedly and emphatically insisted was not of earth, was one of those kingdoms, and his was established during the defeat of the statue.
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Another diabolical earthly kingdom that originates in the period of the toes of Daniel 2, and from among the horns of Daniel 7, and reigns over the whole earth, is the kingdom of Antichrist, and is finally eliminated upon the second strike of the stone.
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Those two kingdoms simply are not the same kingdom, but the single strike theory leads people to conclude that they are, and importantly,
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Christ's earthly kingdom, and the earthly kingdom of his saints, is not established until after the second strike.
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But the single strike theory leads people to conclude Christ's earthly kingdom is established immediately upon the first strike.
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That is why even some Protestants look back and rejoice in the civil power wielded by the ascendant Roman church, and why some take that to its logical conclusion and convert to Roman Catholicism.
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But what do we discover when we read the scriptures and find a two -strike revelation, not only from Daniel, but also from Jesus, and as we shall also see, from John the
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Apostle? We find that the saints receive a heavenly kingdom during the period of the feet, after which
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Antichrist and his followers receive an earthly one during the period of the toes, and thereafter the two are constantly at war until Antichrist is finally destroyed in the second strike, and only then do the saints receive their earthly kingdom.
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There simply is no earthly kingdom for Christ and for his saints until after the earthly dominion of Antichrist is taken away, and that earthly dominion of Antichrist is taken away in the second strike of the stone.
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To desire an earthly dominion for, and the civil power of, Christ's church prior to that is to long for Antichrist, which is what the
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Protestants do when they switch to Roman Catholicism, based on the arguments from Daniel.
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This becomes abundantly clear in the harmonization of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. Listen to the paradox introduced when we assume a single strike.
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In Daniel 2, the stone strikes the statue during the fourth empire, and all the preceding empires of the vision are ground to dust and permanently removed from the face of the earth.
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They're gone. In Daniel 7, there's a judgment against the fourth empire, and the preceding empires just keep right on going.
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They are not gone. Something is wrong in our reading when we arrive at such a contradiction. Let's compare the two chapters.
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Here is Daniel 2 verses 34 to 35, talking about what happens after the strike of the stone against the statue.
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Thou saw'st till that a stone was cut without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and break them to pieces.
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Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them.
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And I'm emphasizing that, that no place was found for them. All the preceding empires are ground to dust, and removed permanently from the earth.
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But here is Daniel chapter 7, verses 11 to 12, which seems to say the exact opposite after the strike against the fourth empire.
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I beheld, even till the beast, which is the fourth beast in succession, was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.
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As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
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In Daniel 2, after the judgment against the fourth empire, all the preceding empires are removed, for they have become like dust, and carried away in the wind.
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And in Daniel 7, after the judgment against the fourth beast, the preceding empires are allowed to live on.
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We'll just say it. If no place was found for them, then their lives were not prolonged.
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And if their lives were prolonged, then a place was found for them. Both cannot be true, but the single strike theory requires both to be true.
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The single strike theory actually requires that we maintain the paradox, and has actually allowed the beast of Revelation 13 to hide in plain sight, right under our noses.
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But there is a way to look at it that eliminates the paradox, of course. Both chapter 2 and chapter 7 actually depict two judgments.
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The first judgment against the fourth empire alone, and the second judgment against all the empires together.
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In Daniel 2 .34, the stone strikes the feet alone, and in Daniel 2 .35, the stone strikes all the kingdoms together, and destroys them from the face of the earth.
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And in Daniel 7 .11, there is a judgment against the fourth empire alone, the fourth beast, while the horn and the other kingdoms live on.
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And in Daniel 7 .26, there is a judgment against the little horn, and the dominion of the little horn is consumed and destroyed to the end.
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Both chapters have two judgments in them. The key to understanding Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 is that the little horn of Daniel 7 is all the other kingdoms combined.
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And thus, in both chapters, the second judgment is against all the other kingdoms combined. We know this from the
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Apostle John's description to us in Revelation. During the fragmented period of the fourth kingdom of Daniel 7, an antagonist arises, a little horn that comes up from among the remnants of the fourth empire, according to Daniel 7 .8.
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That antagonist, by the way, must also come up from among the iron and clay toes of Daniel 2.
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He is both iron and clay, and enjoys an earthly dominion, according to Daniel 7 .21
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-26, speaks arrogantly against God, according to Daniel 7 .8 .11 -25, and makes war against the saints and prevails, according to Daniel 7 .21
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-25. That little horn shares the same attributes with the sea beast of Revelation 13, which also has an earthly dominion,
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Revelation 13 .7, speaks arrogantly against God, Revelation 13 .5, and makes war against the saints and prevails,
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Revelation 13 .7, and significantly has ten horns in his entourage, according to Revelation 17 .12.
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And quite notably, the sea beast of Revelation 13 is comprised of all the preceding empires of Daniel's vision of chapter 7.
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Here's what John said, And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion.
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And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat in great authority. That's Revelation 13 .2.
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The little horn of Daniel 7 is therefore an aggregation of all the preceding empires, and it is in the little horn that the preceding empires were given a prolongation of life.
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Because the horn that came from the fourth beast is Roman, and that it arose from the fragments of the
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Roman Empire, but as an aggregation of all the preceding empires of Daniel 7, it is also
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Greek, Medo -Persian, and Babylonian. And to state it in terms consistent with Daniel 2, that little horn, therefore, is not only iron and clay, since it originates from the toes, but also brass, silver, and gold.
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That little horn of Daniel 7 that comes up and persecutes the saints is what Daniel means when he says that the lives of the rest of the beasts are prolonged.
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And the destruction of the little horn to end its earthly dominion in Daniel 7 .26, that is, they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end, is what
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Daniel is describing in Daniel 2 .35, which is the second strike of the stone, which says,
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Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them.
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Do you see it? There is one strike delivered against the fourth empire alone, and later there is another strike delivered against the little horn, which is the aggregation of all the other empires together.
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This same sequence of events is depicted in both chapters, and in both chapters there are two judgments depicted, and between those two judgments is the earthly dominion of Antichrist.
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Unless we recognize those two strikes of the stone for what they are, the Antichrist kingdom is allowed to remain in plain sight, but completely undetected, and the reason for that is simple too.
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If there is only one strike, Daniel 2 does not even seem to address the Antichrist, and concludes with the earthly dominion of the church.
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In that view, the church has an earthly dominion, and it awaits some future Antichrist to challenge the earthly dominion.
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That's the futurist view. But, if there is only one strike of the stone, Daniel 7 has the little horn removed before the church takes her earthly dominion, which she does during the fourth empire before it collapses, which would point to a past Roman Antichrist figure arising in the first century.
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That is the preterist view. Adopting both views, Roman Catholicism conveniently points back to Nero, and points forward to a future
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Antichrist, and attempts to occupy the eschatological middle ground as the sole defender of truth against those ancient and future threats.
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In fact, one of the apologists we cited earlier says exactly that. Taylor Marshall, in his book
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Eternal City, says that Nero is the satanic Antichrist of the Roman beast. But at the same time, he writes in the next paragraph that Catholic tradition of identifying
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Nero as the primordial foreshadowing of the future Antichrist is well documented. Notice that he occupies both positions.
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There is a previous manifestation of Antichrist arising during the Roman Empire, and a future manifestation of Antichrist in the indeterminate future.
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According to Daniel 2, the Roman church ascends to its earthly dominion, and there is yet a future Antichrist to be dealt with.
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According to Daniel 7, the Lord has already put down the fourth beast and all of its horns, at which point the
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Roman church ascended to its earthly dominion. Roman Catholicism is comfortable pointing backward to a past Antichrist, or forward to a future
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Antichrist, as long as the focus is not on her. But when we see that there are two strikes in Daniel 2, we see that there is an earthly empire between the heavenly kingdom of Christ and the earthly kingdom of Christ, and that evil earthly empire between the two strikes is as plain as a nose on your face.
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It is Roman Catholicism, the professed successor of the Roman Empire, wielding the sword of Caesar, and that is the historicist position to which we hold.
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So let's put all this together. The first strike of the stone is delivered against the fourth empire alone.
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It strikes the feet, breaking the iron and clay to pieces, and in Daniel 7 there is a judgment against the fourth beast, slaying it until its body is burned up upon the flames.
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Notably, the judgment against the fourth empire does not destroy the toes or the horns, it merely lays the groundwork for the rise of an antagonist among the fragments, a little horn that comes up from among them, being
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Roman in that it arose from the fourth empire, but it is also comprised of all the preceding empires as well, leopard, bear, and lion, according to Revelation 13.
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Or to put it in another way, in terms consistent with Daniel 2, it is iron and clay, because it arose from the toes of the fourth empire, but it is also comprised of all the preceding empires, brass, silver, and gold.
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As such, the preceding empires have been granted a prolongation of life in the form of the first beast of Revelation 13, and his dominion is the earthly reign of Antichrist.
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At the end of his dominion, he is judged, and his dominion is consumed and destroyed to the uttermost. In this context, its dominion is crushed and removed from the whole earth, or to put it in the language of Daniel 2, it is broken to pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried it away, and no place was found for it.
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And what we find in Revelation is that these two judgments are depicted in even greater detail, in two courtroom scenes, one beginning in chapter 5, and another beginning in chapter 17, the first being initiated against the
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Roman Empire from heaven, and the second being initiated against the beast and the ten horns aligned with him on earth.
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Those two strikes are depicted through all the scriptural eschatological literature, and between those two strikes is the earthly dominion of Antichrist.
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Between those two strikes is Roman Catholicism. And this is why it is so important to see the two strikes of the stone of Daniel 2.
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When we see two strikes, we see Christ setting up his heavenly kingdom in the period of the feet, breaking them to pieces, and Antichrist setting up his earthly kingdom from the resulting fragments in the period of the toes, or the horns.
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And finally, after Antichrist's earthly reign, Christ returning to destroy him in the end, grinding all the preceding empires to dust, consuming and destroying his dominion to the end.
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But it is what happens next in Daniel's timeline that reveals to us the utter futility of trying to find
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Christ's earthly dominion in the earthly reign of the church before the second strike of the stone.
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Take note that the kingdom the saints inherit after the first four kingdoms is not earthly, but heavenly.
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The language used in both chapters, Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, to describe the kingdom received by the saints in the days of those kings is actually heavenly language that makes no reference to earth.
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Daniel 2 .44, In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. Daniel 7 .18,
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These are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth, but the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom. In neither case does
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Daniel mention an earthly component. But now listen to what Daniel says in chapter 2. The stone made without hands in Daniel chapter 2 does not fill the whole earth until after the second strike of the stone, that is after Antichrist is destroyed.
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Listen carefully. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors.
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And the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them. And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
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Did you hear that? Filled the whole earth. The heaven and the kingdom of the stone does not fill the earth or have an earthly dominion until after Antichrist is destroyed, not before.
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And he says the same thing in Daniel 7. Again, listen carefully. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and destroy until the end.
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And the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the
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Most High. Did you hear that? Under the whole heaven. Christ and his saints do not have an earthly dominion under heaven until after Antichrist is destroyed, not before.
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And recall that the courtroom scene of Revelation 5 occurs entirely in heaven, corresponding to the first strike of the stone.
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And in Revelation 19, which corresponds to the second strike, John depicts an earthly battle between Christ and the beast and the nations with him.
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And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
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And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army.
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Christ reigns from heaven upon the first strike, he reigns from earth upon the second.
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He does not rule the nations with a rod of iron until the reign of Antichrist is utterly destroyed.
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And that earthly reign of Antichrist occurs between the two strikes of the stone. And that is the problem not only with the
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Cardinal Newmans and Taylor Marshals of the world who want to identify the earthly power of Roman Catholicism as the manifestation of Christ's heavenly kingdom on earth.
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It is also the problem with reformers who saw the Church's elevation to a political entity as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the earthly dominion of Christ's people, or desired, as Calvin did, for all nations after the fall of Rome to serve and obey the
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Church. Daniel did not foresee an earthly dominion for Christ and his people until after Antichrist was utterly removed from the face of the earth, and that still has not happened.
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To long for a Church empowered with civil authority that can coerce the Gentiles at the pointy end of a civil sword, or to seek in Roman Catholicism the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies of Christ's earthly dominion is to confuse the diabolical earthly kingdom of Antichrist with the glorious and heavenly kingdom of Christ that simply does not yet wield any civil power at all.
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As Jesus said in John 18 .36, If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.
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And we know from the Scriptures that Christ still does not have an earthly kingdom. There is no mention of an earthly kingdom for the saints before Antichrist is destroyed, for the kingdom the saints received during the fourth empire is heavenly.
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But the saints do indeed receive an earthly kingdom with Christ after Antichrist is destroyed. So when the
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Dr. Joseph Johnson's of the world talk about Rome lying in ruins while Roman Catholicism continues on, enjoying its earthly dominion, or when the
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Taylor Marshall's of the world talk about Roman Catholicism receiving the Roman Empire, and the
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Brand Petrie's of the world talk about Christ's heavenly kingdom having an earthly representation with earthly dominion, and the
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Cardinal Newman's of the world say that conquest is the essence of an earthly empire, just remind them that they have accepted an impossible paradox in Daniel, and that there are in fact two strikes of the stone upon the statue in Daniel 2, not just one.
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We are now living between those two strikes, and between those two strikes the only kingdom to enjoy earthly dominion in Daniel's visions is the diabolical earthly empire of the little horn
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Antichrist. Christ's kingdom is given to the saints, and it is heavenly, not earthly.
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The dominion of Roman Catholicism is earthly, but not heavenly. Until the second strike, it will remain so, and we will not stumble, as they have, into the very kingdom
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Daniel warned us to avoid. Indeed, Christ is a stone of stumbling for them, and he will grind them to dust as well, but he is no stone of stumbling to us.
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Now this will naturally lead to some questions, and probably the most important one is this, are we saying that the rapid spread of the church in the first three centuries is the kingdom of Antichrist?
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Of course not. The rapid spread of the gospel was the result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on men.
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But what you find in the early church is a consistent profession that the church did not wield the sword of Caesar.
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Our citizenship is in heaven. Our chief shepherd is in heaven. Our chief metropolis is the heavenly
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Jerusalem, not an earthly one. Our inheritance is in heaven, and the altar upon which we offer our sacrifices of praise is in heaven.
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We had no earthly civil power, and no one was trying to obtain it or exercise it except for an occasional heretical
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Roman bishop, and the rest of the bishops of the world rebuked him accordingly. The early church did not enjoy or even seek civil power.
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But in the latter part of the fourth century, the great falling away happened. The bishop of Rome finally realized his fleshly ambitions and became the chief shepherd, the
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Pontifex Maximus, and Rome became the chief metropolis of the church. The theory emerged that Peter had founded the three holy apostolic sees of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, and that Christ had founded his church upon those three holy sees,
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Rome, of course, being the chief. People started digging up bones and venerating them as relics. Mary was suddenly sinless and experienced no pain in childbirth, and was to be revered as the new ark of the new covenant.
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Ministers of the gospel were suddenly supposed to be either single or in celibate marriages. Christians were suddenly supposed to be venerating the true cross.
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Candles began to be used in worship. Water began to be mixed with wine during the Lord's Supper, and the bread and the wine of the
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Lord's Supper were suddenly being offered as a sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, and baptism was supposed to bring about actual rebirth.
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Shortly after that, they started using incense and venerating images in the church. It was in the last decade of the fourth century that bishops began to execute civil power.
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It was in the mid -390s that the Augustinian consensus can be traced. The Augustinian consensus being the consensus among the allegedly professing church that the use of force was justified in opposing heretics.
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And it was in the latter part of the fourth century that what we now know to be Roman Catholicism began.
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And as we explained in our first two episodes of this series, it was between 373 and 383
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A .D. that the Roman Empire was split into thirteen dioceses. And just as we noted in those episodes,
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Milan, Antioch, and Alexandria were the three metropolitan cities of those three dioceses of the thirteen.
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And one by one, the bishop of Rome usurped the authority of those three. First by claiming that Rome ought to be the chief metropolis of the diocese of Italy instead of Milan, then claiming that Alexandria was subordinate to Rome in doctrine, and Antioch was subordinate to Rome in chronology.
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And suddenly, the bishop of Rome presided over a sea of one, Rome, of course, being the chief among those three.
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So there you have it. One heavenly kingdom was established by Christ, followed by an earthly diabolical kingdom established by the
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Roman Catholic religion. And the siren song of Rome since then is that you should not have to choose between the two, for they are but two reflections of the same reality.
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But our prophet, Daniel, cries out to us from the ancient past and insists that we must choose between the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom, for they are of two different origins, one from heaven and one from hell.
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And how are we to tell them apart? From the Scriptures, that's how. The heavenly kingdom was to be established in the period of the feet, and the kingdom of Antichrist was to arise from the period of the toes.
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But if we cannot tell when the period of the feet begin and when the period of the toes begin, we will be unable to discern between those two kingdoms, because they both arise in the fourth empire.
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And by and large, the historical record shows just how difficult it has been to tell them apart. Even some of our
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August Reformers believed that the Roman state church was the earthly manifestation of the heavenly kingdom of Christ and just needed to be fixed.
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So how do we tell the difference? Well, Daniel tells us. And that is where we will pick up in our next episode.
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How do you tell when the period of the feet begin in Daniel's prophecy? And how can you tell when the period of the toes begins?
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Unless you can tell the difference, you can't distinguish between the heavenly kingdom of Christ and the earthly kingdom of Antichrist.
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The answer, of course, is in the Scriptures because Daniel has told us so. And so has the Apostle John.
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And John was himself appealing to the Danielic timeline to warn us. And we will show you how to distinguish between the period of the feet and the period of the toes in our next episode.
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Until then, this is Timothy F. Kaufman, and you've been listening to The Danielic Imperative. We'll see you next time.