Interlude: The Experience of Nebuchadnezzar as a Symbolic Recapitulation of the Fall of Man
We
note that the history of King Nebuchadnezzar’s experiences and dealings with
God recall God’s dealings with Adam, and by extension, thus picture his
judicial and redemptive dealings with humanity in general.
I. His original dominion
and sovereignty.
o
Adam was given dominion over
Creation as God’s Vice-regent in the Garden.
Gen. 1:28: And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living
thing that moves on the earth.”
o
Nebuchadnezzar was granted an
astonishing potentially unlimited sovereignty over the earth; only his pride
would limit him!
Dan. 2:37-38 You, O king, the king of kings, to
whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the
glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of
man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule
over them all—you are the head of gold.
Jer. 27:5-8 “It is I who by my great power and
my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on
the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me. Now I have given all
these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant,
and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. All the nations
shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land
comes. Then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave. But if any
nation or kingdom will not serve this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and put
its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with
the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, declares the LORD, until I have
consumed it by his hand.”
Even the very beasts of the field are placed
under his over-arching dominion!!!!!
II. The occasion of his
Fall from grace: PRIDE!
o PRIDE—setting oneself in
God’s place (Gen. 3:5) and defying the revealed will of God (Gen. 2:16-17)—would
be Man’s undoing (even as it was the cause of Satan’s demise: Isa. 14:13-14
& Ezek. 28:17).
Hosea 6:7: But like Adam they have
transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt treacherously against Me.
o PRIDE would also be mighty
Nebuchadnezzar’s undoing.
Dan. 4:30: "The king
reflected and said, 'Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built
as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?'”
Dan. 5:18-20: “O king, the
Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father kingship and greatness and glory
and majesty. And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples,
nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he
killed, and whom he would, he kept alive; whom he would, he raised up, and whom
he would, he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was
hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne,
and his glory was taken from him.”
III. The effects of the
Fall: spiritual death, Original Sin, and Total Depravity.
o Man lapses from his original state
of dominion.
o
Creation rebels against his authority (Gen. 3:17-19); his
relationship with the Animal Kingdom is greatly modified both before &
after the Flood (Gen. 9:2).
o
Man inherits Death—both physical & spiritual
(cf., Gen. 2:17, 3:19).
Ezek. 18:4: “…the soul that
sinneth, it shall die.”
Rom. 6:23: “For the wages of
sin is death…”
Rom. 5:12: “Therefore, just
as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death
spread to all men because all sinned…”
Rom. 3:10-12: “…as it is
written, "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who
understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together
they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even
one."
1 Cor. 2:14: “But a natural
man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”
Eph. 2:1-5: 1“And
you were dead in your trespasses and sins…” 3“…and were by nature
children of wrath, even as the rest.” 5“we were dead in our transgressions…”
o
Natural
man, apart from the efficacious grace of God, is thus reduced a spiritually
beastlike state—unable to love God, recognize the voice of God, or
redemptively respond in faith and repentance unto God.
o Nebuchadnezzar lapses from his former glory
& dominion (Dan. 5:20).
o
The
supreme irony of the situation: the man who once exercised dominion over
the very beasts of the field is now transformed into something very much like
them—a beast-man—no longer exhibiting the distinctive mark of human dignity
(Gen. 1:26-27) and found utterly bereft of his higher senses. He is essentially
reduced to a sort of animal existence, without regard to higher,
spiritual things.
Sinclair Ferguson, Daniel:
“Having portrayed himself as superhuman
(Dan. 3:1-6; 4:30), he became subhuman; having set up his own statue to be
worshipped as the image of a god, he forfeited life as [man made in] the image
of God (Gen. 1:26-27) and the last remnants of true glory (cf. Rom. 3:23).”
A.R. Fausset, The J,F, and B Commentary:
“He would be more than man; God,
therefore, justly, makes him less than man. An acting over again of the fall;
Adam, once lord of the world and the very beasts (Gen. 1:28; so Nebuchadnezzar
Dan. 2:38), would be a god (Gen. 3:5); therefore he must die like the beasts
(Ps. 82:6; 49:12).”
o
This
is the supreme tragedy of Natural Man today; the chief concerns of his
life are generally in harmony with those of the brutes: food, drink,
shelter, pleasure, tribal supremacy, and procreation (Luke 12:15-21). What
vestiges of the spiritual life that remain are exclusively centered upon the
pursuit of false gods, and ultimately, the worship of self. He has, in
other words, like Nebuchadnezzar, descended into utter madness!
o
In
his absurd philosophical attempts to dethrone God and thereby usurp His
Throne, modern Natural Man has also unwittingly destroyed his own
dignity and worth with regard to the formal, propositional level—reducing his status
to that of a highly-evolved animal, destitute of inherent worth or intrinsic
value.
o
In
this context, the depiction of the worldly Gentile Empires of Daniel 7
as hideous & vicious subhuman beasts living in mad defiance of God Almighty
is indeed highly appropriate. As the ruler of Babylon, the mad Nebuchadnezzar
aptly serves as a representative for all of Gentile World Dominion—including
its final and ultimate Antichrist Beast form (Rev. 13), with its deified ruler
(2 Thess. 2:4; Rev. 13:8, 14-15).
 |
| A Portrait of Total Depravity: William Blake's famous depiction of Nebuchadnezzar as a Beast-Man |
IV. Regeneration,
repentance, and redemption!
o
That portion of Adam’s posterity who are the unconditionally
Elect of God (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 1:4, 5, 11) are the certain beneficiaries
of Divine intervention and rescue from their sin and depravity! God quickens
the dead through the grace of Regeneration—the implantation of a new heart
(Ezek. 36:26-27) and renewal of our capacity to love and turn unto God!
o Regeneration is the Sovereign Work
of the Holy Spirit, who is a free agent:
John 3:8: "The wind blows where it
wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and
where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Paul Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology:
“All men sinned in Adam and lie under the
curse, but God made provision for salvation through the death of Christ. The
fact that some and not others receive the gift of faith stems from God’s
eternal decree of election and reprobation. Election is unconditional, not
based on God’s foreknowledge; before the foundation of the world and purely out
of His grace and according to His sovereign good pleasure, God chose some to
salvation. The non-elect are left to condemnation, yet God is not the author of
sin…” “Man was created in the image of God, but through the sin of Adam all
mankind is corrupted. Sin has passed to the human race so that all people are
born in sin and are children of wrath. But while man is incapable of saving
himself, God accomplishes salvation for elect individuals through the operation
of the Holy Spirit. Those whom He has chosen in eternity, He calls effectually
in time. The faith that realizes salvation is itself a gift.”
o
Nebuchadnezzar was unconditionally among the predestined
Elect of God!
o He is graciously given
a new mind & heart (Dan. 4:34-37), constituting a “quickening of the dead”
and a spiritual resurrection that results in true repentance and genuine saving-faith!
o Note the symbolism of the
beast-vision of Dan. 7:4, in which the winged-lion represents Nebuchadnezzar—a retrospective
reference to his humbling and subsequent regeneration.
Dan. 7:4: "The first [beast] was
like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were
plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet
like a man; a human mind also was given to it.”
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