After Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar about the kingdoms to come in history, he interprets the most significant part of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream that he described in Daniel 2:34, the part about the stone that comes loose and eventually destroys the whole image. The special thing about this stone is that it breaks free and starts rolling without any human hand involved. It cannot be explained as an act of humans that this stone collides with the image and pulverizes it. At first, this stone does not seem all that big, it feels that it cannot be a threat to the image. It appears as if human powers can stand against this stone. Yet this is not the case, because when this stone collides with the image, it shatters the whole image. Nothing of human power or human empires remains. The stone even becomes so large that it covers the whole earth.
How are we to understand these things? What –or better yet– who is this stone in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream? We see that it is the Lord Jesus, the Son of God who came into the world and became man. How did the Saviour come into the world? He was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary, without the involvement of a man. It was the Lord himself, the Holy Spirit, who conceived him. Without the intervention of human hands, the King of kings is brought into the world. He seems so insignificant when he is born. His father and mother are plain, ordinary people in Israel. The stone seems so small and insignificant. Even when the Lord Jesus later performs his work in public, it appears as though he is no danger to any human power. Why would the rulers of this world regard this man as a threat? The Jewish Council, Herod and Pilate end up trying to prove he is powerless. What did this little stone mean in world history and world politics? Earthly powers mock at him, spit at him, flog him and then crucify him. Jesus looks no more than a good yet powerless man. Pilate mocks both Jesus and the Jews when he places a sign above the head of Jesus on the cross proclaiming, This is the king of the Jews
, Luke 23:38. It is Pilate’s way of telling the Jews that he has the power to do as he chooses.
Yet every earthly power draws the wrong conclusion with regards to the Lord Jesus. Every ruler who opposes Christ will one day find that he has made a serious mistake. That small stone grew larger after his death – the death that at once strikes every human being on this earth and silences them. Death could not hold on to the Lord Jesus. He rises from the dead as the mighty prince of life. After forty days he ascends into heaven as the mighty king, there to sit on the throne. He rules from heaven as the King of kings. The stone has taken on grand proportions. It is not the case that his Kingship will remain hidden from many people in this world forever. It will not be for all time that Christ is enthroned in heaven and people on earth do not recognize him as such. The day is coming when Christ will come in Person from heaven to earth for all people who have ever lived. He will come visibly in great glory. Then everyone will see that this stone has become a great rock, a high mountain. Christ will rule and all earthly power will disappear and no longer represent anything. Christ will come as King and Judge from heaven to earth and with his Kingdom, with his rule, he will fill the whole earth, all creation. No opposition or adversary will be able to stand then. When the great day of judgment comes every human might and every power of the devil opposed to God will be destroyed forever.
We read in Revelation 17:1–18 and Revelation 18:1–24 about the great city Babylon. This is the kingdom that people are building to live according to their own sinful hearts in this world. This is the anti-Christian power that seems so beautiful and attractive. When Christ comes this kingdom will collapse like a house of cards. Nothing will be left of it. It will be like the chaff that can be seen at the end of summer when the wheat is threshed. A bit of wind blows the chaff away. Nothing remains of it. Every human being and every human power that is not heartily serving Christ’s Kingdom will turn to dust and vanish. Christ will take care of that. He will clearly demonstrate on the day of his great return what John the Baptist says of him, His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire
(Luke 3:17). World politics is also ultimately under the government of Jesus Christ. The future is firmly in his hands.
45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”