NOTES for Dan 8:15-27
The prophecy in today’s reading about ancient countries and their rulers was fulfilled long ago. Kingdoms fell; rulers were killed or died a natural death, like Antiochus Epiphanes. At the same time, the explanation of the prophecy says that all of this concerns the end of time. Thus the Bible brings us back to the astonishing fact that for God there is neither time nor space. Time, which regulates and confines the bounds of a person’s earthly life, prevents us from recognizing that, from God’s point of view, our life is taking place at the end of time. The prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled in Christ, and after the establishment of the new and everlasting Covenant, we must live each day as though it were our last day before the Second Coming.