Debris from Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue Falls All Around Glasgow (Daniel 2)
Climate Bible Study: October 2021
Make no mistake about it: the negotiations of the COP26 climate summit are about what we worship, about what the systems of the world demand that we bow down to in homage. The world leaders who gather are representatives of empire, some who imagine that they are still golden, others that revel in their iron will. And COP26 is a marker, whether for good or ill, of the change of an epoch. Mostly though, COP26 will be about God’s intention to take up space, to push out the boundaries of his love, which is his glory. We’ve seen this all before, including once in a dream recorded in the Old Testament.
According to the second chapter of Daniel, the Babylonian despot Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. Court officials were able to find a man who had the spirit of the Living God in him who could not only describe the dream, but interpret it. Daniel described a statue with a head of pure gold, chest and arms of silver, and a belly and thighs of bronze. The legs however were iron, and the feet were a mix of iron and baked clay. Suddenly a rock appears and strikes the statue at its feet, but the whole statue—gold, silver, bronze, or iron—is pulverized. And that’s not the end of the story. The rock grows until it “became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.”
The interpretation is incredibly straightforward. Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar: “You are that head of gold.” But Babylon will be deposed and replaced with another kingdom, albeit one “inferior to yours,” like silver is to gold. Kingdom will follow upon kingdom, until a divided and mixed regime governs the planet, partly strong, partly brittle, but none of it united. What is remarkable about this dream is that we, as modern readers, are encouraged to place ourselves in its historical timeline. Gold was the Babylonian Empire and the Book of Daniel won’t end without recording its downfall by the Medo-Persians, three short chapters later. We then extrapolate that the Greeks (bronze) replace the Medo-Persians and the Romans (iron) replace the Greeks, “. . . for iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others.” Rome, of course is no more, and our present nation-states surely resemble iron and clay while still acting imperially and violently.
If we are encouraged to historically place each section of the statue, then surely we do the same with the rock, described by Daniel as “cut out, but not by human hands.” It is small enough to strike precisely upon the feet, but mighty enough to break the statue into pieces which “became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace.” Surely this is a messianic reference, since Daniel says, “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” As modern readers, we are encouraged to interpret the moment of the rock striking the feet as that moment, circa 33 AD, of the crucifixion and bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
But where does that place you and me? Where does that place COP26 as we are about to travel to Glasgow in November 2021 AD? Jesus struck the blow against sin and death, “while you were watching,” Daniel tells the king, just like we are watching, not only in our imaginations but in the unfolding of the history we bear witness to. The statue, we imagine, takes time to crumble at the blow. It takes time to break apart in pieces, to be pulverized further into chaff. The wind sweeps it away, but again, like wind does: over time. And then there’s the rock. It “became” a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. Nebuchadnezzar watched it grow. I once heard an old End-Times Prophecy preacher presume to tell me that the 10 toes of mixed iron and clay represent the European Common Market, back when it had ten nations, back before the EU or Brexit, I suppose. But I have no desire to try to apply Daniel’s prophecy in this speculatively detailed way to something like COP26. Instead, like any reference to the Kingdom of God, COP26 lives in that period between when the rock has struck and before it has grown into a mountain. In popular parlance, we live in the “Now and the Not Yet.” Evil structures are being ground down, but over time, and the Kingdom of God is growing, but over time. This was true in 1769 when Glaswegian James Watt patented the steam engine and helped launch the Industrial Revolution. This was true in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit when the UNFCCC was formed. It was true in 2015 when the Paris Agreement was adopted. It is true now in 2021.
People ask me whether COP26 will be a “success.” I don’t know how to answer that question, even after a whole year of praying with you, the Climate Intercessors network, for something like the “success of COP26.” I do hope. I do pray metaphorically that huge chunks of greedy and oppressive Empire will fall like shards into the River Clyde, get washed out to sea and sink into the Firth and the North Atlantic. I do pray that the mountain of God’s compassion and glory will grow during the two weeks of COP26 to eclipse the Scottish Highlands themselves. It will still, however, be part of the “Now and the Not Yet” of the Kingdom of God. But what this dream, its interpretation, and its application to our moment encourages us to do is to not be dazzled by the emperors, the kings, the silver-tongued orators, and the iron-fisted politicians who will descend on Glasgow in two short weeks. Keep your eyes searching for the rock. It might still seem small to your sight, but eyes of faith know that it has done its decisive work, and it is growing, growing, growing, growing, growing.
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss
On behalf of the Climate Intercessors leadership team