I want us to look at our main passage today as a starting point for exploring the what is essentially a event we should never come to feel like we completely understand. On the one hand it is simple to explain. God entered into our world and became one of us. On the other hand the implications of that statement should arrest our thoughts. Why? Because we are human. Because we can perceive our own limits. We should marvel at what God did. We know if we put too much of anything into our bodies they essentially overload and die. Too much water and you drown. Too much heat and you die of dehydration or burning. Too much cold and you freeze to death. Too much electricity and your heart seizes up and you are electrocuted. The list could go on and on but I think you get the picture. So think about what the incarnation is putting before us. God the maker of the universe. The one who called our thermonuclear sun into existence with the word of His power on the fourth day and not only our sun but every sun and and every expression of power in the universe. The God whose power was not diminished in any way by the act of creating the universe entered into the womb of a young woman and became a holy embryo. He appeared to be a normal man but He contained within Himself all the power to sustain the universe. God entered into our world and became one of us just doesn’t do justice to the magnitude of what took place. It is the greatest hero story in the history of the world and it is true! Jesus contained within His human frame more power than all the suns in all the galaxies in the universe.

We worked through chapter ten of Daniel which is really the first part of the section which ends in chapter twelve. In the last chapter we saw an amazing testimony to the reality of spiritual warfare. Daniel had been fasting from meat and wine and other delicacies for three weeks. He describes himself as in mourning. There is an angel which appears to Daniel and the contents of his message tell us Daniel must have been mourning over his fellow Israelites who were in captivity. The angel starts out by describing how he had been delayed by the prince of Persia for twenty-one days. Michael had come to help and this seems to be the reason this angel finally got through. The scene we see play out between this angel and Daniel sounds very much like the scene between Paul and Jesus on the road to Damascus and also has aspects of the meeting between Jesus and John at the beginning of the book of Revelation. Is this just another angel or is this the appearance of a pre-incarnate Jesus. If this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus it tells us something of the nature of spiritual warfare. There must be great power on display in the heavens. There appears to be a recognition of authority over regions on the earth, because he talks about the prince of the kingdom of Persia and the kings of Persia withstanding him. This doesn’t mean these beings are more powerful than a pre-incarnate Jesus but it would simply mean there is a regional right they were asserting which God Himself recognized, and these beings as angels had to work through. This also tells us God will do whatever it takes to get to his own and to respond to their prayers. This angel’s appearance is majestic and magnificent. Daniel’s response is to be undone and unable to speak or respond. The angel’s touch is enough to strengthen Daniel and remove his guilt before the angel. Again these actions seem to be pointing to this being a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus. The angel tells Daniel he is going to tell him the message he came to deliver and then return to fight the prince of Persia and how when he goes the prince of Greece will come. I personally believe the angel speaking here is a true Christophany.

We worked through the end of chapter 9 which deals with the 70 weeks for which Daniel is prophetically famous. It is an interesting chapter with a lot of mystery surrounding the exact meaning of the text. By the time Jerome was creating commentaries around 400 AD there were already 9 different understandings about what Daniel was pointing to with his 70 weeks. There are however several things in the text which clearly point to the person and work of Jesus. These are the things which we focused on as being really relevant for our study. There are 6 things listed as being fulfilled in the 70 weeks vision.
• To finish the transgression
• To put an end to sin
• To atone for iniquity
• To bring in everlasting righteousness
• To seal both vision and prophet
• To anoint a most holy place
Jesus is the only clear answer to the fulfillment of all these things. He brought an end to transgression and sin for many. He atoned for their iniquity. He brought in the dawn of everlasting righteousness. He is the culmination of the prophets and their visions. Through His death He established a new way to enter into God’s presence through the work He did on the cross. These things clearly find their fulfillment in Jesus. This is also clearly the most important thing about this chapter. If God had wanted us to be unified in our understanding of the 70 weeks He would have given us a clear interpretation like He did in the previous chapter by telling us the ram was the kings of Media and Persia and the goat was the future king of Greece. But God did not do that and because of the various understandings we should be careful about being dogmatic where we don’t have a solid foundation for doing so. Jesus fulfills the 6 items listed and that should be enough for us to be looking at the work Jesus has done and how that changes everything for us.