Although the book of Daniel is short, it has many points, it speaks of many events and persons, and it contains many spiritual lessons for us. But above, behind, and within all these things, there is something else, and this is God's economy. Of course, the expression God's economy is not found in Daniel; neither is it found anywhere else in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, God's economy is revealed in this book. We all need to see God's economy in the book of Daniel. If we see this vision of God's economy, our whole being will be changed.
Christ is the centrality and universality of God's economy, and God's economy is for Christ to be the centrality and universality in God's move. This is what we must see in our reading of the book of Daniel. The various spiritual lessons and the historical details covered in this book are very good, but they are secondary. What is primary is that in His economy, in His plan with His arrangement, God desires to make Christ the centrality and universality of His move on earth.
Concerning such a Christ, the book of Daniel covers five main points: the death of Christ, the upcoming appearing of Christ, Christ as the Son of Man who comes to the throne of God to receive dominion and a kingdom, Christ as the Companion of the suffering witnesses of God, and the excellency of Christ. I would like to say a word about each of these points.
The first point is Christ's death, Christ's crucifixion. Regarding this, 9:26 says, "After the sixty-two weeks Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing." This word is simple, but it is rich in its implications.
The death of Christ was all-inclusive, comprising every item in the universe. The main item terminated by the death of Christ was the old creation. After God's work in creation, Satan came in to corrupt, poison, devastate, and ruin God's creation. As a result, the entire old creation became not only corrupt but corruption. Yet God still uses that corrupted creation in producing a new creation through Christ's death and resurrection.
Christ's greatest achievement in His first appearing was to terminate the whole creation by His death. In this termination, however, there is something rising up, that is, Christ's resurrection. In His resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) to enliven, to germinate, to regenerate, some of those in the old creation to be the new creation. This new creation begins with the believers as God's sons and Christ's members as the constituents of His Body. This Body will grow and eventually consummate in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21—22), the total aggregate and consummation of God's new creation. This is all involved in Christ's first coming with His death and resurrection.
In the entire universe, Christ's death with His resurrection is a great landmark of the ages. His death has cleared up the entire universe by terminating the old creation spiritually.
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