Daniel 3:16-18 - Resisting the temptation to relativize God's absolutes

"Until you follow God expecting no personal benefit, you're not really following God." (Theologian Tim Keller)

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18

The three Hebrew men insist they will never worship the image.

1. We have no need to answer you: They had no need to defend themselves. Their guilt in the matter was clear – they clearly would not bow down to this image.

a. "Some issues emerge in life in which the answer has been given long before the matter confronts us. We must love God and obey his commands no matter how the world seeks to draw us from these transcendent absolutes." (Nettles)

2. Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us: In this, the Jewish men showed a good understanding and appreciation of God’s great power. In fact, they knew that God was able to save them from both the burning fiery furnace and from the hand of Nebuchadnezzar himself.

a. "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not presume to predict what the outcome would be in their case. If God were our servant, or our accomplice, He would be predictable: He would always do our bidding. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego understood that since God is sovereign, however, it was His choice whether He opted to be glorified in their deaths or through their dramatic deliverance. Either way, it didn’t make a difference to their decision. Whether they were miraculously delivered or left to burn in the fire, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would not compromise their commitment to the Lord. Live or die, they would be faithful to their God. Their example confronts every believer with the question: Am I going to declare the Lord to be my God, my primary allegiance, come what may, or will I bow down to the multitude of glittering idols that the world presents to me? These idols are not physical statues in our setting, of course. They are the various pleasures, the desires, and the attitudes that society tells me I need to have if I am to be fulfilled and lead a worthwhile life. They promise to bless me if I will bow down to them, but to curse me and ruin my life if I fail to meet their demands. When we do stand up to our idols, we had better be prepared to experience their wrath." (Duguid)

3. He will deliver us from your hand, O king: "Nebuchadnezzar had never in his life before encountered such studied defiance. As it began to dawn upon him that there was a very real sense in which he was powerless against these men, his anger knew no bounds. Of course he could kill them, but that was not the point. What he could not do was to force them to bow. Up to now he had thought that human beings would do anything to save their lives. His whole scheme of getting his nobles to bow depended on the assumption that, for each person, life was of absolute value. To his utter amazement he discovered that this was not always the case. Even in his own very administration there were men, men of proven ability and high office, who regarded their lives as of relative value compared with the absolute value of God." (Oxford professor John Lennox, Against the Flow, 144-145)

How faith and loyalty to God protect against all manner of compromise.

1. But if not: In this, the Jewish men show they had a good understanding and appreciation of submission to God. They knew God’s power, but they also knew that they must do what was right even if God did not do what they expect or hope Him to do.

a. We often complain about our rights and what is fair. Often it is better to make a stand and endure our difficulty, leaving our fate in God’s hands.
"Faith does not regard death or any other tragedy to be a mark of its failure, either of God's faithfulness or of ours. We are called to follow Him, to trust in Him and leave the events to Him." (Scholar J. Ligon Duncan III)
b. They did not doubt God’s ability, but neither did they presume to know God’s will. In this they agreed with Job: Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him (Job 13:15). They recognized that God’s plan might be different than their desires. I have my own desires and dreams and I pray that God fulfills them. But if He doesn’t, I can’t turn my back on Him.

c. These were men who did not love too much. There are popular self-help books that hope to help people who seem to love too much, yet many Christians are hindered because they love too much. Remember that early Christians were not thrown to the lions because they worshipped Jesus, but because they would not worship the emperor.

d. In our day, many do love Jesus and think highly of Him – yet they are far from God because they also love and worship the world, sin, and self. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15).

2. Let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up: It took great faith to say this. God brought them to this place of great faith by preparing them with tests in less dramatic areas.

a. These men stood firm when challenged to eat impure foods and they saw God bless their obedience. That gave them the courage to obey now, when the stakes were much higher.

b. Many fail in their obedience because they wait for something “big” to test their faith before they really start to obey God. Some fill their life with many small compromises; yet tell themselves that they will stand firm when it really matters. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego show us that obedience to God in small things really matters.

3. Let it be known to you, O king: The statement of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego is also remarkable for what it does not have – any hint of an excuse. In a time of testing like this it is easy to think of a thousand excuses that seem to justify compromise.

a. They might have said, “There is nothing to gain by resisting; wouldn’t we do more good by living?” It is easy to say, “We must live,” but in reality, we all must die – so why not die making a stand for God?

b. They might have said, “We are in a different place; in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Yet they knew that God has unlimited jurisdiction. We must do more than “perform” acts of religious obedience when we have an audience.

c. They might have said, “We will lose our jobs and our standard of living.” Often when God blesses us, we make the blessing an idol and compromise God to keep what we have.

d. They might have said, “After all, we are not being called to renounce our God.” They did not have a super-elastic conscience that said, “We are not bowing down to the idol, but only bowing down in respect for the king, or in honor of the music.” Excuses like this are common but prove the principle that anything will serve as an excuse, when the heart is bent on compromise.

e. They might have said, “Everybody else is doing it.” Instead they cultivated brave personalities, willing to stand alone with God.

f. They might have said, “It is only for once, and not for very long. Ten minutes, just for the king. It is stupid to throw our lives away for ten minutes.” These men knew that ten minutes could change an entire life. Ten minutes can chart the course for your eternity.

e. They might have said, “This is more than can be expected of us; God will understand just this once.” It is true that God understands our struggle with sin – that is why He loves the sinner and made provision at the cross for freedom from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. Knowing that “God understands” should be a spur to obedience, not a license to sin.

g. “I am glad that the three holy children were not ‘careful to answer,’ [the KJV has, “we are not careful to answer thee” here] or they might have fallen upon some crooked policy or lame excuse for compromise. What have we to do with consequences? It is ours to do the right, and leave results with the Lord.” (Spurgeon)

4. Summary: "Here is a classic case of speaking truth to power. These men were thrown into events that they had no control over, yet their history rooted them in God and gave them the courage and determination to choose the right thing in spite of the obvious consequences. I am confident that silent prayer, deeply ingrained memories, and their reflection of God’s character contributed to their ability to stand. Specifically, these three men knew that God was real, holy, and in control. They recognized that their lives were in danger, yet they were not willing to compromise. They knew God could deliver them, but they did not know if He would. Either way, they would not compromise or dishonor God. Maybe we want to psychoanalyze Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and ask why they were so extreme. Perhaps we assume they were just among the courageous few we see occasionally in history. I don’t think so. I think this narrative in Daniel 3 is given to cause us to reflect deeply on the nature of reality and truth. If we don’t have some sense of what is really real, then we cannot live truthfully or in correspondence with reality. Once again, Alister McGrath captures this well: In effect we are forced to turn our eyes from contemplation of where we would like to see God revealed, and to turn them instead upon a place which is not of our own choosing, but which is given to us. As the history of human thought demonstrates, we like to find God in the beauty of nature, in the brilliance of an inspired human work of art or in the depths of our own being—and instead, we must recognize that the sole authorised symbol of the Christian faith is a scene of dereliction and carnage. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego learned that this is a God-created and a God-governed world. Because it is created, they knew that living in conformity to God’s will was the only way to truly function. Their view of reality was fuller than that of Nebuchadnezzar, and because of this they were confident that doing the right thing was the right thing. Because God governs the world, they knew that justice was ultimately in God’s hands, not the king’s. They were, therefore, willing to make a hard choice no matter where it would lead.” (Stuart McAllister, At the Border Crossing of Doubt and Hope)

Resources

Audio/Video: Symposium on the Intermediate State

The resurrection of the body is one of the central doctrinal claims of the Christian faith. It is also the source of Christian hope when faced with the death of a loved one. But what happens between now and then? When a child asks their parent where a departed loved one is “now,” how should Christians respond? Do the souls of those who have died in faith go to be with the Lord now, awaiting to be reunited with their resurrected bodies? Or are traditional Christian beliefs in an immaterial soul that is separable from the body misplaced—an unscriptural incursion of Platonic metaphysics that has misshaped our expectations of the afterlife?

Unpublished EES biblical papyri

Some twenty New Testament inedita have been identified, none of them apparently earlier than the late 2nd to early 3rd century AD. They have all been assigned to editors, and will be published in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series as the editors complete their work over the next few years. There may be more small fragments still unidentified because, like the Mark fragment recently published (LXXXIII 5345), their identity only emerges from much more detailed study than is feasible when cataloguing. We note that Grenfell and Hunt were particularly keen to find New Testament texts, and so sorted out possible cases as they processed their finds in Egypt and back at Oxford, and published many of them.

PDF: Science and Origins

Our understanding of the first chapters of Genesis has implications for the way we understand the rest of Scripture. And very real, practical matters are caught up in how we answer this question. What is a human being? What is God? How should we think about caring for the natural world? How should we treat our neighbour? How should we treat our dinner? Our starting point has a great deal to say about where we end up.

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