The Form of the Fourth 8

 in Bible

Dear Friends,

Sitting in a waiting room about 5 years ago, I pulled out my laptop and started a blog called The Form of the Fourth. Recently, I’ve been writing about fear, and so my blog’s namesake Bible story has been calling out to me ever more insistently.

God willing, I’ll make some helpful comments about “fear” through the lens of this story…but like an ampm convenience store, there’s just too much good stuff here. So, we’ll visit several different “aisles”.

Also, it’s that time of year, so if you want a Christmas angle on this story, here’s a Christmas angle: the manger scene wasn’t Christ’s first appearance to us 🙂

In any case, here is my one-word summary of this story: WOW!

Open series outline: A survey of fear in the Bible
 

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Was it something I didn’t say?

We are supposed to pray for a “quiet and peaceable life”. I pray for this regularly, and you should too.

But, because of the wickedness of man and the angels that sinned, we find both in Scripture and in the world around us that even if we are not looking for war, war sometimes finds us.

In fact, sometimes all you have to do to attract the ferocity, the vitriol, the full fury of hell is stand. Are you reflecting the light of Jesus Christ to a crooked and perverse world? Be warned, for “…every one that doeth evil hateth the light…” When the emperor is completely naked, few things are more aggravating than someone who refuses to say he has clothes.

“Hey Hananiah: Don’t do anything stupid!”

Things had FINALLY turned around for Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (AKA Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego ). Their native country of Judah had been destroyed, but their friend Daniel had helped them go from captives in Babylon to rulers of Babylon.

In chapter 1, we also learn that the Jewish captives (except for Daniel, Hanaiah, Mishael and Azariah) chose to defile themselves with the king’s meat. In light of Jesus’s words in Matthew 7, it seems they were simply going down the same broad road to destruction that most of us choose. So…what do you think these present-world-lovers said after their three kinsmen got promoted?

Could it have been…”You’re set! Just make the king happy, don’t rock the boat, and marry well [assuming Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t castrated them ☹️], and your family will be established for generations to come. You may be in a precarious position as Jews in a strange land, but you have a chance now to solidify your position in the upper class. Your kids will go to the best schools in Babylon, you’ll live in a gated community and your 401k will be bursting at the seams. Most importantly, you’ll be in a position to help our poor captive Jewish brethren who didn’t get invited into the palace. Just don’t do anything stupid!!!”

It’s not being savvy…it’s knuckling under

The Bible is funny to me…just like real life. When my kids want to know why I’m laughing for no apparent reason, they’ll preemptively forbid me from saying “Just the comedy of life!”

Right after their big promotion in chapter 2 to rulers of Babylon (yaaay!!! ), king Nebuchadnezzar kicks off chapter 3 by demanding that all the rulers bow down to a huge golden image or be incinerated (boooo!!!).

You can dress up cowardice as savviness, you know. “Let’s just go with it, Mishael! Wait until you have accumulated more power and influence, and THEN make your move. But right now you gotta pay your dues! Be savvy!”

But, if we want to be precise, those other Hebrews’ fundamental problem was not a high-level fear of the incinerator. It was a low-level fear of God.

Properly sort your fears…THEN decide

It may surprise you to learn that, in Bible terminology, several types of fear are commended. If I read Romans correctly, obeying the government out of fear of being punished is actually a good start:

[Rom 13:3 KJV] 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be AFRAID of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:

So, yes…Biblically speaking, we should be afraid of (among other things) both the government and God. But because we don’t want a disordered fear, we must ask the question: Which one should we be more afraid of? The king or the King of kings? The question should answer itself. And if you want an object lesson, look up Shiphrah, or Jack Phillips, or just keep reading.

Let’s see, who is being the voice of reason here?

So, these three Jews decided to put it all on the line for God. And with good reason, if you consider the various examples of divine intervention in the previous two chapters.

The foolish ones were the ones that went ahead and bowed down, not the ones who were standing!

The foolish, unreasonable, reckless one was Nebuchadnezzar, who had already admitted in chapter 2 that the God of the Hebrews was “a God of gods, and a Lord of kings”, but still thought he could pull off a ridiculous power play with his stupid statue and his little Fisher Price oven. While the three faithful Jews were throwing themselves at the feet of a merciful God, Nebuchadnezzar was risking divine judgment on his whole kingdom by institutionalizing idolatry.

The next time someone tries to push you, intimidate you and frighten you into doing something you know is wrong, and refuses your attempts to make peace while still honoring God, think of the Fisher Price oven and say no.

Hananiah does something “stupid”

As I alluded to earlier, the simple decision to stand was, ahem, not well-received by king Nebuchadnezzar:

[Dan 3:13 KJV] 13 Then Nebuchadnezzar in [his] rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king.

Skipping the king’s bloviation, we arrive at the trio’s immortal words:

[Dan 3:16-18 KJV] 16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we [are] not careful to answer thee in this matter. 17 If it be [so], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver [us] out of thine hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that WE WILL NOT SERVE THY GODS, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

In other words: “We’ve already won.”

But the Most High was just getting started

Yes, they had already won a victory through faith in God…

[1Jo 5:4 KJV] 4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, [even] our faith.

…but in His infinite wisdom, God decided to also grant a “Joshua victory” that day (a victory in the physical realm…see Hebrews 11:28-35 and contrast with later verses):

[Heb 11:34 KJV] 34 QUENCHED THE VIOLENCE OF FIRE, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

If I think of the first four chapters of Daniel as the process of God ironing out Nebuchadnezzar’s wrinkled worldview (epic climax in 4:34-35!), God’s decision that day to unmistakably show Nebuchadnezzar His supremacy makes sense to me.

In any case, the Nebuchadnezzar of chapter 3 was still accustomed to decisively crushing any form of opposition, and old habits die hard.

[Dan 3:19 KJV] 19 Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: [therefore] he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated.

For a visual of what happened next, imagine a few of your favorite, super-tough, chiseled action stars…all burned to death simply because they got close enough to the furnace to throw the Hebrews into it.

It was hot.

The Form of the Fourth

God can do whatever He wants. If He wants to strike down a murderer and then turn him into the most prolific New Testament writer, He can. If He wants to press the pause button on our entire solar system, He can (what? you didn’t know our solar system had a pause button? classic mistake…). And if He wants His only begotten Son, the 2nd Person of the Trinity, the One Whose goings forth have been from of old, the blessed and only Potentate, the One Who dwells in light which no man can approach unto, the Word of God, the eternal Logos, the Captain of our salvation…in short, Jesus Christ…to appear in a fiery furnace long before His “official” incarnation, to save three of His saints from immolation and to reveal Himself to the most powerful man in the world as part of a 4-chapter object lesson in theology, He can.

[Dan 3:24-25 KJV] 24 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, [and] spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. 25 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and THE FORM OF THE FOURTH IS LIKE THE SON OF GOD.

Yes, the richest truths can be accidentally spoken by the most unexpected people.

Which brings me full circle to my one-word summary of this story:

WOW!

Merry Christmas,

TFOTF

P.S. : To the dear preacher who wisely said that we are all little Nebuchadnezzars, amen, I love you brother

P.P.S. : To the dear brother who echoed this story back to me when I was in a furnace of my own, thank you

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8 thoughts on “The Form of the Fourth”

  • Reply ↓
    Mark Lofgren

    WOW! (Written•Orated•Well)
    Not sure I understand the “Fisher Price oven” analogy but I laughed none the less when I read that. Perhaps the tests and trials that most of us believers go through daily are like FP ovens compared to the one the Four were in; or for that matter the “oven” of wrath that Christ endured on behalf of His people!
    Thanks for sharing that!

    • Reply ↓
      Mark Lofgren

      I meant also to add that what Nebuchadnezzar said:
      “The form of the fourth is like the Son of God” was no accident. He could not have known intellectually that it was the Son of God lest the Holy Spirit inspired (breathed those words) it.

      [Admin note: Mark’s comment is against an earlier version of my post where I said Nebuchadnezzar’s statement was an accident. Mark convinced me it was not an accident, as you will read below…]

      • Reply ↓
        TFOTF

        Dear Mark, I have a question for you about verse 28. Nebuchadnezzar refers to God sending His “angel” to save the three Jews. Do you think that he was divinely inspired to speak the trinitarian truth in verse 25, but in verse 28 the inspiration has passed, and so he is reverting back to his patchwork theology?

        God bless, thanks!

        • Reply ↓
          Mark Lofgren

          TFOTF, with regards to the use of the word “angel” in v.28; that is a good observation and I hadn’t noticed that before. I’m inclined to say “no” to your idea but the word is still theologically accurate. That same word is used only one other time in the OT and it happens to be in Dan.6:22.
          However it’s similar word (Strong’s # 4397) is used 213 times and the Son of God is named all of them in various places of the Bible (archangel Michael, King, messenger). It’s all the work of God to deliver His people from certain death and danger even if He dispatches heavenly angels to do it.
          I think in v.25 God is drawing our attention more to the teaching of the atonement and what His son did to deliver us from the Lake of Fire. Essentially it is a “shadow of things to come”; a figure or type of the true. As I write this I am thinking it also maybe a proof text to support the doctrine that what Christ did on Cavalry in 33AD worked backwards in time also for God’s elect of the OT – the forbearance of God of sins past (Rom.3.25)

          Feel free to email me for quicker responses or further communication. I didn’t think of looking back except that I just heard a good sermon on that event in Babylon and it reminded me of your’s.
          Incidentally, I think Nebuchadnezzar was saved and became an adopted son of God although I used to think not because God portrays him also as Lucifer (Isa.14:4,12)

          • TFOTF Post author

            ****Hi Mark,

            We already corresponded over email, but I thought I would also share my thoughts publicly for those who are interested. Basically, I think you are right and my original interpretation was wrong.

            I looked up H4397 as you suggested, and one of the hits was Exodus 3:2
            [Exo 3:2 KJV] 2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush [was] not consumed.

            So, the angel appeared as a flame. But the voice that spoke to Moses was God’s:
            [Exo 3:4 KJV] 4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here [am] I.

            So…the angel appeared, but God spoke.

            Going back to Daniel 3, looking at v. 25 and v. 28, maybe I should say that God appeared (v. 25…the 2nd person of the Trinity) and the angel protected (v. 28)! That would fit perfectly with Nebuchadnezzar’s comments. His comments were correct as intended…they were not accidentally correct.

            So the idea is that in one particular scene in the Bible, you can have an angel doing something, but God is also doing something at the same time.

            I got my original idea in the blog post from a Fausset commentary:
            ” ‘Son of God’ in his mouth means only an ‘angel’ from heaven, as Dan 3:28 proves.”

            I’ve already addressed his appeal to 3:28. But I also want to address his appeal to known pagan beliefs of the Babylonians. He argues:

            “The Chaldeans believed in families of gods: Bel, the supreme god, accompanied by the goddess Mylitta, being the father of the gods; thus the expression he meant: one sprung from and sent by the gods.”

            My objection to this argument is that Nebuchadnezzar didn’t say “a Son of God”. He used the definite pronoun “the”, whereas I’d expect him to use “a” in light of Fausset’s mention of a plurality of divine offspring of Bel. So, I do think it fits the passage better to say that Nebuchadnezzar was intentionally, by divine inspiration, referring to the 2nd Person of the Trinity.

            So…I think the commentary is wrong on this point.

            Thanks again Mark. God bless you.

            TFOTF

    • Reply ↓
      TFOTF

      Thanks for your encouragement Mark!

      Trying to see Nebuchadnezzar through God’s perspective, I thought it might be the same way a man would look at his three year-old son who is angrily threatening to put his father in the son’s [Fisher Price] oven if his father doesn’t give the son an extra cookie 🙂

      God bless you Mark, and thanks again!

      P.S.: I’ll get back to you on the other comment