Daniel and the King's Law Part IV

Daniel and the King’s Law Part IV

Daniel 6:22

My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.

Our fifth observation is that the lions, which represent death; and which, the enemies of Daniel intended to use against him: were turned on them, unto death, while the lions were turned to peaceful cohabitants unto Daniel.

First then we shall, as the Lord will, observe that death is made a friend of the people of God. Second we shall see the justice of God preserving the life of God’s elect as taught in this type.

First then, how is death made a friend of the people of God? Death is made a friend to the people of God through the fact that they have been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:3) and in that death in Christ, the punitive retributions of the law of God toward them is at an end. To the children of God death is release from the sorrows, sufferings, troubles, toils, and failures of this life. For the children of God, death is release from sin in our members, which war against the soul (Romans 7:23) and to the children of God death opens the door to the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not to say that the people of God do not have a natural dread of death, for it’s pain, it’s sorrows, it’s sufferings, and it’s separations from loved ones; but that natural death opens the way to a much better world, and a much more abundant experience of eternal life.  

The God of Daniel shut the mouths of the lions. The lions represent death in this type, so that, in type, God has shut the mouth of death for His elect. Death can no longer devour the children of God. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4). Death is but a shadow to the children of God, for the substance of death, that is, the just and eternal indignation, and fury of God: caused by sins committed against Him and His law, are put away in the body of Jesus Christ, “who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:” (II Timothy 1:10). For the children of God the separation of soul and body is but the shadow of death; for, our glorious Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, has conquered the grave, and spoiled death of His prey. As the Son of God has declared by the Prophet Hosea: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.” (Hosea 14:13); and the Apostle Paul has written; “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Corinthians 15:54-57). The Prophet Isaiah has written: “ Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.” (Isaiah 49:24-25).

Christ Jesus came to this world to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;” (Hebrews 2:14). Satan is said to have the power of death, in that, he deceived our mother Eve, to sin, and through her Adam was tempted to sin, and did sin in the partaking of the forbidden fruit. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” (Romans 5:12), that is, all men have sinned in Adam, who is the covenant head and spokesman for the race of men; and who sinned in the room of all the race of natural men. Our Lord Jesus Christ took hold of death, in His death, and broke it’s power to hold the souls of men, by His resurrection from the dead. Thus did Christ Jesus destroy the power of death, and in that destruction, Christ destroyed him that is said to have the power of death, that is, the devil. Now Satan is permitted to harass the children of God, for their good (Romans 8:28-29; Ephesians 1:11) but he cannot destroy them.

The children of God are “dead to the law by the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4) and therefore “dead to sin” (I Peter 2:24) in two ways. First legally: the law cannot condemn the children of God because they are crucified with Christ under the law already: whether they are Old Testament, or New Testament saints. This occurred in the decree of God before the foundation of the world (Revelation 5:6; 13:8; Ephesians 5:30; I Corinthians 12:27), but the debt must actually be paid; and so it was at the cross. In the reckoning of God, and as set before us in the gospel, Christ Jesus with all His members in Him was nailed to the cross under the sentence of God’s vindictive justice, fully enduring the curse of the law: (Galatians 3:13) such that, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Those who are, the members of Christ are not condemned by the law; and have been found not guilty under the law, and therefore justified by the law and made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 5:21). Those who are justified by the law, are by the precept of the law, entitled to eternal life (Leviticus 18:5; Galatians 3:12; Romans 10:5). Christ Jesus, with all His members in Him, have fulfilled the law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17-18; Daniel 9:26) and therefore He, and they in Him, have “right to the tree of life” (Revelation 22:14). Secondly: The children of God are “dead to sin” (I Peter 2:24; Romans 6:2) for, “sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” (Romans 6:14). “The motions of sins” are by the law (Romans 7:5), that is, the law is a provoking energizer of sins through the corruption of human nature, which corruption entered by the fall in Adam. Now therefore, in the children of God who are not under the law because they are dead to the law in Christ, their corruptions and depravity are less provoked, through the sin provoking law, and less energized, more passive, yet not absent; (Romans 7:23): grace gives a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26; Hebrews 8:10), which is not enmity against God and His law, (Romans 8:7) but rather loves God, because He first loved us (I John 4:19) and the new heart has a new desire to please God, this is the new nature. Not a Deified being, but a sinner who loves God, and earnestly desires fellowship with God in Christ, (I John 1:3) and is therefore a willing loving servant of Jesus Christ (Psalm 110:3; Philippians 2:13). To such persons sin cannot be imputed (Romans 4:8) for all their sins, past, present, future, sins of thought, word, deed, attitude and desire have been punished in body of Jesus Christ and put away forever (Ephesians 2:15-16; Colossians 1:22; Hebrews 9:26). Therefore the children of God are kept in perfect peace and rest, whose mind is stayed on Jesus Christ  (Isaiah 26:3), but when those children look away from Christ crucified for any portion of hope, and begin to look at themselves for any good thing, then their peace is ruined, all hope is lost, until they repent of that evil of self-righteousness and return to looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

The sting of death is sin, for, after death there is the judgment: as it is written: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” (Hebrews 9:27). All those who appear at the judgment of God, with no Mediator, there, appearing in their own person; with their mouth stopped by the law of God, (Romans 3:19) trembling and speechless before the August Majesty of God; (Matthew 22:12) and having rejected the sin atoning death of Christ, shall reap the wages of sin (Romans 6:23) which is death eternal, the second death. It is written; “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” (Revelation 20:14) The terrors of the law of God, the knowledge of sin imputed, the assurance of a judgment and vindictive justice, are the tormenters: of dying men who have not availed themselves of the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dying men, many times turn to the, Christ of their understanding, and make a profession of faith, thus soothing their conscience in the hour of death; but, whether the Christ of their understanding is the Christ of holy writ, is most unlikely, though not absolutely impossible (witness the dying thief, Luke 23:42) but very unlikely. The Christ of the scriptures reveals himself through the preaching of the gospel, so that those who wait until the hour of death to call upon the name of Christ, know not the Christ who reveals himself through preaching. As it is written: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching (what the world of the ungodly call foolishness verse 23, writer) to save them that believe.” (I Corinthians 1:21; see Romans 10:13-17) “Faith cometh by hearing” those who will not hear the preaching of the gospel, shut themselves out from the faith of Jesus Christ; and, through their own stubborn pride and self will shut the doors of hell upon themselves.

Second to be considered is the fact that the justice of God, makes provision for the life of children of God who have fulfilled the law in the body of Jesus Christ. As it is written “And the law is not of faith: but, the man that doeth them shall live in them. (Galatians 3:12) and again “(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” (Romans 2:13). And then again it is written: “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11).  And “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Romans 3:19). Therefore from these scriptures we learn, that no son of Adam is able to fulfill the law of God in his own person; and that the law commands that “the man that doeth them shall live in them” the man that fulfills the commandments of the law shall live by his obedience, so that, if we must be justified in the eye of the law of God by our personal obedience of the law we must perish, no exemptions, no exceptions. But the children of God are not, and never have been, in themselves, as far as the law of God is concerned, for they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world; and the law looks upon Christ and His people as one: therefore they are and ever have been in Christ Jesus as members in Him, as members of His mystical body the church (I Corinthians 12:12, 27). Because of this union in Christ, the church in Jesus Christ, does with Christ, what Christ does in Himself: when Christ fulfilled the law of God (Matthew 5:17-18) the church obeyed in Him, when Christ was crucified under the penalty of the sins of His members, His members were crucified with Him (Galatians 2:20) When Christ was raised up from the dead the church was raised up with her Head: as it is written: “But God, is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace are ye saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in  heavenly places in Christ Jesus:” ( Ephesians 2:4-6). 

When God shut the lion’s mouths, their mouths were shut to Daniel, there was no hurt in them for Daniel, but they dwelt peacefully with Daniel through the duration of the darkness. But in the morning when the light came, the enemies of Daniel were cast into the den of lions, with their wives, and children. And for Daniel, death was swallowed up in victory, so it is even now for the children of God: for, the separation of the body and soul of the children of God is but, to sleep in Jesus, as it is written: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” (I Thessalonians 4:13-18).

See the writers blog at www.hebrews915.blogspot.com hear the truth of the gospel preached at www.13thstbaptist.org webcasting live at listed service times.  

AJ Ison