DANIEL
Week 21, chapter 7 conclusion
The Son of Man. Who would have thought that such an innocuous phrase, one that most
Christians and Messianics have heard countless times, could have so much impact on our faith
and understanding of God’s Word. This will be our 3
rd
week that we’ve been in Daniel chapter
7; we’ll finish it and then we’ll move on to chapter 8. While I know that we’ve spent a lot of
time on the subject of the Son of Man, I think it is one of the most profoundly important
theological concepts in the bible, and ironically one of the least discussed, so we’ll spend a bit
more time today to wrap up some loose ends. And we’ll begin by seeing if we can summarize
what we’ve learned up to now.
We need to exit chapter 7 with this firm understanding: it is here in Book of Daniel that the
concept of a unique being that is both human and divine is brought forth and given a title.
While one might say that the concept of heavenly Angels was similar in that they were a
spiritual being that could apparently adopt the form of a human to one degree or another, they
were merely holy as opposed to divine. So the Son of Man as being closely associated with
God, being given divine status by the Ancient of Days, and whose essence was both human
and divine, was new with the Book of Daniel. What could be more important to the Jewish and
Christian faith systems than understanding the origin and impact of the Son of Man, and all it
entails, in God’s plan of redemption?
It is a premise of Seed of Abraham and Torah Class that one cannot possibly correctly
understand the New Testament without first understanding the Old Testament, and doing so
within the cultural context of the people who wrote the bible. The Son of Man concept that is
born and explained in Daniel is proof positive of this premise. Yeshua offers no explanation of
the Son of Man; He merely claims it for Himself. Further despite what you might have heard all
of your lives in Synagogues and Churches, Yeshua referring to Himself in the Gospels as the
Son of Man was not a warm and friendly reminder to His followers of His humanity so that His
followers could identify with him as one of them more easily; it was to signify His deity and
unmatched authority. And yet it was meant to accomplish something else as well.
The Son of Man was not a brand new title that Yeshua invented nor was it pulled off a dusty
shelf and used because it was catchy. Rather He put on the mantle of that title because He
was precisely the one like the Son of Man that Daniel had been shown in his vision. Yeshua
was Daniel’s prophesied Son of Man. And by Christ using that title, the Jews of that day knew
exactly what was signified by it. Yeshua was saying loud and clear that He was not only the
divinely appointed successor to David’s dynasty as the Messiah (the next king of Israel); but
that He was also divine. And this fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel chapter 7.
1 / 9

We also learned that ancient records within Judaism, including the Talmud, prove beyond
doubt that the concept of a Hebrew god/man who would come as Israel’s redeemer was
deeply embedded in mainstream Jewish thought and accepted by Jewish religious leadership.
This was not a fringe idea, nor a radical or heretical theology, nor did Jesus introduce it. It was
something that a large segment of the Jewish population expected, and then embraced, when
Yeshua did enough to convince them that indeed He was that god/man of Daniel’s vision. This
explains why so many tens and scores of thousands of Jews rather quickly embraced Yeshua
as the divine Messiah that He said He was. And as we’re told in Acts 21:20, these were no
ordinary Jews who were accepting Him. The tens of thousands this verse speaks of were
Judeans; they were those Jews who lived at or near the center of Jewish religious practice and
teaching in Jerusalem. Even more, they were well educated in the Scriptures as the verse
concludes: “And they were all zealous for the Torah.” It was that zealousness and
knowledge that led them to trust Yeshua, not merely because he was an exceptional faith
healer.
So these throngs of Judean Jews who believed that Yeshua was Daniel’s Son of Man
understood what those attributes must be to qualify him to hold that title: and Christ fulfilled
those qualifications (in their eyes).
Next we looked at a couple of well known New Testament incidents recorded in Mark 2
involving Yeshua and some local Torah Teachers who sought to challenge His claims and His
actions. The first concerned Him offering forgiveness of sins to a paralytic. The second
concerned His lack of concern over His hungry disciples plucking grains of wheat and eating
them on a Sabbath. In both cases He invoked His authority on account of He was the Son of
Man. And in connection with Yeshua’s Sabbath debate with some Pharisees we even spent a
few minutes examining an interesting debate among some revered and well known Rabbis
over the issue of saving a life on Sabbath, and whether it ought to be done or not, and if it was
done did it violate God’s Shabbat commandment. And what we found was that in general
there were a number of circumstances whereby these renowned Rabbis determined that strict
observance of Shabbat could be superseded, but those instances all involved saving life (in
one form or another).
What was even more interesting is that one Rabbi’s rationale for it being better to trespass the
Sabbath rules to save a life than to allow life to be damaged or even lost in order to be
scrupulously Sabbath observant, was that God didn’t make man for the Sabbath, but rather
that He made Sabbath for man. Thus all-in-all we find that most of Yeshua’s teachings and
claims were not new or unique within Judaism, although certainly some probably were. Further
that modern Judaism’s accusation against Christianity in general, and the reason that they will
not consider Yeshua as a valid candidate for Messiah, is that Jesus-worship is idolatry
because we worship a god/man. And this turns out to be disingenuous because in fact
Judaism of 2000 years ago fully expected the Messiah to be a god/man because that is what
Daniel envisioned, even if that expectation wasn’t unanimous.
One of the goals of our Son of Man study is to straighten out some misconceptions about what
it was that Yeshua did that so riled up various groups of Jews, and also raised the ire of their
Roman governors. So, let’s look at a few more NT passages that frames Christ as the Son of
2 / 9

Man but also involves other terms that we have more thoroughly defined: namely Messiah and
Son of God.
Let’s look again at Mark.
READ MARK 14:55 – 62

The question put to Yeshua is this: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One (The
Son of God)?” Notice from our previous 2 lessons on Daniel 7 that the High Priest included 2
critical but entirely separate elements in his question: 1) Are you the Messiah, and 2) are you
the Son of God? What this meant was: first, are you the anointed one? Are you the one who is
claiming to be a kingly leader of the Jews? And second by saying are you the Son of God he
meant are you of the royal line of David? So, the Cohen Hagadol’s question to this point is
strictly a political one: are you claiming to be the prophesied new king of Israel who comes
from King David’s dynasty? Yeshua answers, “I am’. No reaction just yet from the High
Priest.
But then Yeshua unexpectedly throws in a whole new element to the controversy by recalling
the precise description of the Son as Man as found in Daniel and claiming that He is that Son
of Man. At that the High Priest goes ballistic, calls that claim blasphemy and says nothing more
is needed to put Jesus to death. It is the Son of Man claim that is the issue, not the claim as
being Messiah or Son of God, because the High Priest understands that by Christ saying that
He is the Son of Man, He is claiming that he is God. And the punishment for blasphemy is
death.
Let’s look at another NT story of Yeshua in the Book of John.
READ JOHN 9:13, 18 – 25, 31 – 38
The crux of the story is that Yeshua had healed a man born blind and he did it on Shabbat.
Since the Pharisees had created many rules about Shabbat, one being that healing was work,
and therefore there could be no healing on the Sabbath. So from their perspective Yeshua was
a sinner for healing this man on Shabbat.
But even more, they were skeptical that any healing had actually occurred (it must have been
some kind of trick) since no healer had ever healed someone who was born blind. The healed
man insisted it was so, his parents verified, and the newly sighted man argued for Yeshua and
against these Pharisees who finally kicked him out (probably meaning out of the synagogue).
Notice that in verse 22, an edict was decreed that anyone who acknowledged Yeshua as
Messiah was to be banned from this particular synagogue. But that banning was only because
of the political consideration that they didn’t accept that Yeshua could be the new king, the
Messiah, they had been hoping for. Now that the man who was healed believed that His healer
was the Messiah, then he too has been banned.
3 / 9

Then in verse 35 Yeshua asked the man healed of blindness if he trusted the Son of Man. The
man said absolutely! By the way: Who is he? In other words, this common Jew, born blind, well
knew of Daniel’s Son of Man and that he was divine. But he didn’t realize that the one who
had just healed him (Yeshua) was that Son of Man. Yeshua says: “You have seen him and he
is the one speaking to you now”. The man bows before Yeshua, believing that he is Daniel’s
Son of Man.
Let’s read just one more and we’ll move on.
READ REVELATION 14:13 – 16
So here we again have the precise description offered in Daniel of one like a Son of Man, who
is coming in the clouds. This is course, the returning Yeshua, who has consistently called
Himself the Son of Man throughout the Gospels. And the Son of Man has come to reap, to
harvest, the final harvest of Believers before the End. And, by the way, this final harvest will, I
am completely convinced, coincide with (and fulfill) the prophetic Feast of Sukkot, the 7
th
and
final Feast, which is also called the Feast of Final Ingathering.
I pray that over the past 3 weeks I’ve achieved the goal of showing you that Daniel’s direct
influence is front and center throughout the Gospels, and even into the Book of Revelation.
And it especially shows itself in the constant mention of the Son of Man. And Yeshua believed
Himself to be, and openly claimed that he was, Daniel’s Son of Man. So if it is accepted, as is
the common mindset among modern bible academia, and has been adopted by a large
segment of unwitting modern Christian Pastors, that the Book of Daniel is a Jewish work of
fiction and that it was written 350 years or so after the time it claims to have been written; and
that the visions and prophetic events contained in it are contrived and false; and that the
mysterious Son of Man is a creation of the author; then Jesus Christ is at best a delusional
religious nut, and at worst a deceiver and a liar of the first degree. And even more the New
Testament is no more inspired Scripture than is the Left Behind book series.
However as I spent much time proving to you in our Introduction to Daniel, those who make
such arrogant and false claims against the Book of Daniel have utterly no proof whatsoever to
back it up; they rely only on their own speculations and love of their own intellect. But what
underlies their unshakable belief that Daniel can’t be true is their equally unshakable belief
that there is no such thing as predictive prophecy. There is no such thing as divine miracles.
And there is no such thing as spirit. For them the bible is history, legend and myth. Therefore
on its face Daniel can’t possibly be genuine.
So now you have a decision to make; and it’s a serious one. You can’t just pretend you don’t
know; you can’t try to find middle ground on the issue of Daniel because there isn’t any. If
Daniel is false, then so is Christ because they are so intertwined by the Son of Man concept. If
Christ is false, then so is the New Testament because the promises and hope of the New
Testament depends upon a real, true, divine Messiah who bears the attributes of Daniel’s Son
of Man. And if Daniel and Christ and the New Testament are false then indeed we have been
duped; we are alone, without hope, and without salvation. Here’s the good news: Daniel is
true, and everything predicted in it has come true, and what hasn’t yet is still future and in
4 / 9

process. Christ is who He says He is, and proved it by His resurrection from the dead and
ascension into Heaven as witnessed and attested to by many. And the New Testament is true,
because historically, spiritually, and factually the test of time has proved it to be true and
accurate, without apology and without fail and without need for revision.
But there is so much more left to discover in the Book of Daniel, so let’s move on.
RE-READ DANIEL 7:15 - end
The remainder of this chapter is mostly about the interpretation of Daniel’s vision. And we find
that this person in Daniel’s vision who says he’ll explain it doesn’t at all bring peace to
Daniel’s soul by what he reveals. Daniel remains perturbed and upset and confused by what
he has seen and has been told.
Verse 17 however is straightforward; the 4 beasts are four kingdoms and so we don’t have to
speculate about Daniel’s vision of the beasts being a parallel of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of
the statue of the 4 metals. However what needs a bit of explanation is that the “holy ones” of
the Most High will receive the kingdom and possess it for ever and ever…….meaning once
acquired it will never change hands.
How does this square with verse 14 where it explains that it is the Son of Man that will be given
rulership of this kingdom (this same kingdom) forever and ever? Quite simply, the Son of Man
will be the king and the holy ones will be the members of the kingdom. There is no conflict
here.
But now comes a divisive issue of the identity of the holy ones (some versions using the word
saints). The most common theological answer is that the holy ones are the Church, and it is
especially a rigid position held by certain Christian denominations who uphold Replacement
Theology. But as that wonderful bible commentator Robert Culver says so positively: “The
Kingdom of the Most High (Daniel 7:17) is Jewish in some definite sense…”
We must again remember that Daniel is operating from a worldview of Jews living in Babylon in
the 6
th
century B.C. What else would the holy ones be for Daniel other than for Jews, or more
technically, Hebrews? And what else would the human element of the Son of Man be than a
Jew? Can we honestly believe that heathen gentiles would anywhere fit in this Jewish
conception? Let us be humble to always remember that the concept of a Messiah, the concept
of a Savior, and the concept of Holy Kingdom of God is purely, uniquely, and only Hebrew.
Further, what is always happening in the Book of Daniel is the creation of a contrast between
the 4 gentile world empires symbolized by the statue of 4 metals and the 4 beasts, versus the
eventual ONE Kingdom of God that will replace this succession of gentile controlled world
governments. And this ONE everlasting Kingdom of God will be an ideal kingdom, ruled by the
ideal king, and the kingdom’s citizens shall be all that the ideal Israel embodies.
Let me be clear: will true Believers, Christians and Messianics, who worship Yeshua as
Messiah be part of this ideal Kingdom of God, and thus be some of the holy ones of the Most
5 / 9

High? Most certainly. But as Paul said in Romans 11, gentile Believers are grafted into this
ideal kingdom that is an essentially Hebrew kingdom. And that the root supports those gentile
believers, the gentile believers don’t support the root.
So from Daniel’s perspective the holy ones are only Hebrews; but by means of progressive
revelation we find out later that gentiles who, by faith, trust in the God of Israel’s Messiah
Yeshua, may join them.
Verse 19 returns us to the identity of the 4
th
beast. This is the one that terrifies Daniel the most.
It is so very different from the first 3 beasts, and is the most terrible of them all. But it is also the
FINAL beast before God’s everlasting kingdom is brought in. So even though Daniel was
(from a historical perspective) living and writing in the days of the 1
st
in the series of 4 gentile
empires, meaning 3 more were to come after Babylon, who wouldn’t want to know the identity
of the 4
th
kingdom when all hell breaks loose, and is the final one before the Ancient of Days
steps in to end it all?
Daniel wanted to know: What did the ten horns on the 4
th
beasts head mean? What was that
other horn, earlier called the little horn, which displaced 3 of the original 10 horns? But then
verse 21 has Daniel reveal a very important detail and one that is not so easily dealt with. It is
that the little horn is going to war with the holy ones, and that little horn will be winning. But
then the Ancient One comes to the rescue and judges in favor of His holy ones, because the
time had come for God’s holy ones to inherit the Kingdom.
Thus from Daniel’s perspective there is going to be a king who is associated in some
unspecified way with this 4
th
gentile world empire who is going to war with the Israelites. And
this king is going to be winning. Suddenly the Ancient One comes, disposes of the little horn,
and God’s holy ones are victorious. Now there’s a great deal of information here, and it has
birthed many different End Times doctrines. We simply can’t cover everything but I’ll try to hit
the high points.
First, this is no doubt speaking of a time future to Daniel, and as history has proven, still future
to us in the 21
st
century. Within Christianity, this prophecy of Daniel concerning this great war
and the Lord coming to bring victory is connected to Zechariah 14. It is a familiar passage
especially to that branch of the Church that is typically called Evangelical.
READ ZECHARIAH 14:1 – 9
It is clear and obvious that Daniel 7: 21, 22 are the same thing Zechariah is speaking of. But
here’s the thing that can become most difficult for us to deal with: almost without exception
when Zechariah 14:4 says that, “On that day His feet shall stand on the Mt. of Olives….” it is
said that this is speaking of the return of Yeshua, and so it is His feet who touch the mountain.
The problem is that Daniel says that this figure is the Ancient of Days, and Zechariah identifies
the figure as YHWH, Yehoveh. Now pay attention please: Daniel identifies two distinct figures,
one older and one younger, one called the Ancient of Days and the other called the Son of
Man who is summoned to come before the Ancient of Days. Zechariah specifically names the
person whose feet touch the Mt. of Olives as YHWH. And nowhere in the OT or NT is there a
6 / 9

claim that the name of the Messiah is YHWH; rather His name is Yeshua. Our English
translations mask this reality because where the word Lord is used (or Adonai in the CJB), the
original Hebrew is YHWH. God’s formal name. It’s just that “Lord” has become such a
commonly used title for Jesus, that anywhere we see the word “Lord”, modern Christian tend
to automatically picture Christ.
So we need to be a bit cautious with this and realize that the general mindset of modern
Believers about how the End Times plays out and who all the players are isn’t so clear as it
has been portrayed by various Church doctrines, commentaries and novels. And if rigidity and
full literalness is called for, then the one whose feet touch on the Mt. of Olives, and the One
who comes to intervene and rescue His holy ones is Yehoveh, the Ancient of Days……NOT
Yeshua the Son of Man… .because that is literally what the Scriptures say.
I’m not saying that I know the answer to this. I’m saying that nobody knows the answer to this
with any certainty. However the gentile led, so-called New Testament Church, generally (but
not entirely) has substituted Christ for YHWH to make it work better with certain doctrinal
agendas. And I think you can see that it might not be warranted. Time will tell.
Let’s skip down to verse 25 as in one way or another we’ve already pretty well covered the
subject matter of verses 23 and 24. What I want to focus on is something specific that the little
horn does (the little horn is usually thought to be the Anti-Christ and I agree with that). And
what he does is to attempt to change seasons and law. Some translations use the English
word time or times in place of seasons. The Aramaic word used here is zeman and we’ve
discussed this before. The word is the equivalent of saying appointed times. That is it is not a
generic term that means any old time, and it not a word that means seasons in the sense of
weather; spring, summer, fall, and winter. Remembering that this is Daniel’s vision, and this is
coming from the Jewish viewpoint, this can only mean God’s biblical festivals and Sabbaths.
And law only ever means one thing in association with God and the Hebrew people: the Law of
Moses. God doesn’t have regard for the countless and ever changing laws of the hundreds of
nations that have come and gone. There is, and has ever been, but one set of immutable laws:
God’s laws.
Thus what we see is that the Anti-Christ (the little horn) will attempt to do away with (or alter)
the Biblical Feasts and the Shabbat.
CJB
1 John 4:1 Dear friends, don't trust every spirit. On the contrary, test the spirits to
see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the
world.

2
Here is how you recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit which acknowledges that
Yeshua the Messiah came as a human being is from God,

3
and every spirit which does not acknowledge Yeshua is not from God- in fact, this is
the spirit of the Anti-Messiah. You have heard that he is coming. Well, he's here now, in
the world already!
7 / 9

John says that while the Anti-Christ may not be here yet, his spirit is. Let me paraphrase this
using Daniel’s terms: In fact this is the spirit of the little horn. You have heard he is coming.
Well he’s here now, in the world already.
So the thought is meant to convey that the spirit of the Anti-Christ will cause people and
institutions to go about changing God’s ordained Biblical Feasts and alter or do away with the
Sabbath, and abolish God’s Law. Has that happened? Of course it has. And so there are
many commentators who have determined that since the abolition of God’s law and the
changing of Passover to Easter, and the changing of Shavuot to Pentecost, and the doing
away with Sabbath, and the general prejudice against any Jewish holy day (meaning Biblical
Feast day) that is prevalent since the Roman Church was created, means that the Catholic
Papal system is the embodiment of the spirit of the Anti-Christ and that is what is prophesied
by Daniel.
Let me state that I don’t agree with that. Among other reasons, if we’re going to blame the
Catholics for this, then what excuse does the Protestant or Orthodox branches of Christianity
have for doing exactly the same thing?
And we can’t get around the fact that this verse in Daniel paints it as negative in the extreme
for any leader that would choose to change God’s appointed times and His laws. So while
Christianity, generally but not entirely, has done exactly this for the past 1600 years, it seems
as though the little horn, the Anti-Christ, will finally remove all choice in whether anyone on
earth may obey God’s laws and celebrate His festivals. There will be a one-world religion and
it will not include any of the biblically mandated holy days. And since the institutional Church
has long ago abolished most of these anyway, and declared that we can establish any days we
want to and declare them holy by our own authority, and change them anytime we choose to,
then I doubt that most Christians will so much as make a peep when the Anti-Christ does this.
Now the Jews on the other hand…….
From a personal standpoint, it is exactly what we read here (and from other passages) that
many years ago convinced me that something has to be done to right the ship of Christianity.
The molten core of Christianity is right and in line with God’s Word. But some important parts
of it are not and have succumbed to manmade doctrines, just as has happened to Judaism.
And perhaps the most egregious things that we as gentile Believers have ever done as the
body of Christ is to think that we can change or abolish the Sabbath, discard God’s ordained
holy days and substitute them with ones of our own design and making, and then decide that
God changed, declared His Law as inherently faulty and bad, and so we have no duty to be
obedient to His laws and principles because they are extinct.
I truly believe that despite our faults and flaws, and with full disclosure that we (and especially
I) do not hold all the truth and cannot see the future, the Hebrew Roots movement within the
Church is a sincere attempt to find our way home. It is a needed effort to reinstate a proper
reverence of God, obedience to His commandments, and observance of His holy ordained
days as best we can in the circumstances under which we live. All the while knowing and
declaring that Yeshua is our Savior, He is God, and that we cannot obey God as we must
without Him and without the Holy Spirit to indwell and guide us. And further acknowledging that
8 / 9

our faith was born from the Hebrews, and they remain our partners and elder brothers and
sisters of the faith.
Daniel ends this account by explaining that this vision literally sickened him. If ever the word
bittersweet could be applied, this is the opportunity. Daniel’s vision was full of the most vile,
violent, blasphemous, terrifying, catastrophic actions brought about by world governments and
then a final world leader that was evil personified. Yet, when things are the worst and
seemingly beyond hope, God arrives, reinstates His chosen people and establishes His
Kingdom on earth to its fullest. And never again will wickedness prevail upon mankind.
Daniel decided that he could not bear to try and communicate this to anyone; so he kept it to
himself and in time simply wrote down what happened. No conclusions. No doctrines. Just
mystery and no doubt many sleepless nights.
We’ll take up chapter 8 next week.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
9 / 9