The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Associate Pastor
“As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them…And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed…It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold” (Dan 2.34, 44b-45a).
Twice Daniel mentions to King Nebuchadnezzar that the statue he saw will be destroyed by a stone “cut out by no human hand.” Why is he told that? Why are you told that? What are you, in your bible reading, supposed to be connecting?
In the scriptures, uncut stones, stones no iron tool is used on, are “altar stones” (Ex. 20:25; Dt. 27:5–6: Josh 8:31). So this is an “altar stone” that destroys the statue in the days of the iron and clay feet (Roman oikumene/empire). Say what?
Since the “stone” grows to be a “great mountain that fills the whole earth” and a “kingdom that shall never be destroyed” (vv. 35, 44), we can surmise that this kingdom is built upon worship, since worship took place at the altar, where the sacrificial offerings were placed. Particularly the worship of the stone, the rock of God, Jesus himself, the Son of Man, who receives the kingdom later on in chapter 7. Jesus appears during the Roman iron/clay era, is worshipped, and then the Apostles expand the worship of Jesus by planting churches, places of singing, praying, fellowshipping, feasting and teaching, all “altar” associated activities in the temple, where altars are normally found. So the kingdom expands, filling the world; and it does so through the worship of the gathered body of Christ!