History as a parable (Daniel 8)

The question that I have been grappling with while meditating on this chapter is: Why has the Holy Spirit seen fit to record this vision of the ram and the goat for posterity in the Scriptures?

The ram, we are told, represents the kings of Media and Persia and the shaggy goat is the king of Greece (verse 21), the remarkable Alexander the Great, who conquered pretty well all the known world, never lost a battle, but died at the height of his power at the age of 32.

But what relevance does all this have to us in 2015, nearly two and a half millennia later?

One of the keys to unlocking this puzzle I found in a rather unlikely place, in Psalm 78. There the prophet Asaph says, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old (verse 2). But then, for the remainder of the psalm, he gives a history of God’s dealings with Israel. So where are the parables that he speaks about? The answer came to me like a shaft of light piercing the darkness: the history of Israel which Asaph sets out in the psalm is itself the parable.

Yes, all of God’s dealings in history are a parable for us to discern. In the New Testament Matthew (13:35) quotes Psalm 78:2 to show that Jesus fulfils these words. So, not only does Jesus explain truth by means of parables, but he also uses history as a parable to explain what he is doing. For example, the exodus of Israel from Egypt is a parable of God delivering people through Jesus from a far worse slavery, namely the slavery of sin (see John 8:31-36); the building of the temple under Solomon is actually a parable of Jesus coming to earth in a human body (John 2:19-22).

When we view history in this perspective, we start to see it in a new way. We see that the parables of history are repeatedly fulfilled in a cyclical manner, with the same cycle, the same parable, re-enacted over and over again, each time in different circumstances. This is why study of the Old Testament prophets is so useful: they describe the cycles of God’s activity, using their own situation as a basis for their words - and we can apply those cycles to our own situation. For example, thinking of Psalm 78, we can see the exodus cycle of oppression-deliverance-possession of the land-comfort and ease-backsliding-oppression repeated many times in church history.

Back to Daniel’s visions: although the ram and the goat are clearly identified as historic figures by the angel Gabriel, he also tells Daniel that the vision concerns the time of the end (verse 17), the vision concerns the distant future (verse 26). It is a parable for that time of the end. But Daniel is also told to seal up the vision (verse 26) and he tells us that it was beyond understanding - even his! (verse 27). So it is futile for us to engage in speculation as to the detail of its final fulfilment.

What then is the point for us? Firstly, these visions will prepare in advance the generation which will live through their final fulfilment - maybe that will be us, maybe not. Secondly, here and now we can identify patterns of history from the vision, and with this find encouragement for the present and the future. For example, we can see the spectacular demise of the ram so often mirrored in the dramatic and sudden fall of seemingly invincible dictators.

I remember spending a whole day in Tripoli in November 2010 because my connecting flight was cancelled. Muammar Gaddafi and his ‘revolution’ were omnipresent, in the airport, on billboards, on posters on the lampposts; he held an iron grip on every aspect of Libyan life. Yet within a year he was deposed and dead. Who could have predicted that? Does anybody remember the fall of President Ceasescu of Romania in 1989, from absolute power to execution in the space of a few days? Or how quickly the Soviet Union collapsed at around the same time?

So when, for example, we look at the brutal, authoritarian regimes which are persecuting Christians today, whether it is ISIL in Iraq, Syria and Libya, or Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, or the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or any one of dozens of others all over the world, we do not need to fear or lose our confidence.

We know that ultimately these regimes will collapse - and perhaps very suddenly - because they are built on sand. And great will be their fall (Matthew 7:27).