One night I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. About 4:00 I got up and turned my computer on to study with my electronic Bible program. The verse that was selected was Dan. 2:34 about the stone hewn without hands. The verse got my attention, and I didn’t have anything in particular that I intended on studying anyway.
I started reading the chapter from the beginning. Verse 37 jumped out at me. In the interpretation Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, “thou, O king, art a king of kings…” That was a title fitting for Christ. Then the next verse has “…thou art this head of gold.” Previously in telling the dream Daniel said that the head was fine gold. Fine gold would be fitting to represent Christ.
The image clearly represented successive kingdoms over time. I knew that if Christ was the head of gold, then it would describe the Church age because He is the head of the Church. I was surprised when I started to test the idea. Here is the dream and Daniel’s interpretation with my comments inserted:
Dan 2:31-45 KJV Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. (32) This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, (33) His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. (34) Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. (35) Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. (36) This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
Daniel told the dream, and here is his interpretation with my comments inserted:
(37) Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. (38) And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.
It seems that Daniel is putting Nebuchadnezzar in the place of Christ.
(39) And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee,
The early Church would be after Christ, inferior to Him; yet represented by a precious metal, silver.
and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
For over a thousand years the Catholic church ruled the world; controlling doctrine, traditions, and even Scriptures. They came after the early church.
(40) And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
The reformers broke the Catholic church in pieces; and then the reformed churches broke in pieces giving us multitudes of Protestant churches.
(41) And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. (42) And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. (43) And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
We are to be clay in the hands of the Potter. The clay mingles with the seed of men, which would be their doctrines, but won’t cleave to them. The kingdom is divided and weak. Everything up to this has been fulfilled already.
(44) And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. (45) Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
The stone hewn out of the mountain of God without hands causes the image of Babylon to fall. The stone isn’t the work of men’s hands. It is the work of God. As much as the apostles established the kingdom of silver, and the church fathers joined with Constantine to start the Catholic church, and the reformers protested and broke it in pieces; I believe this stone carved out by God will be certain people chosen and taught by God who will smite the image until it falls and it all becomes one kingdom. Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17 will have been answered.
The Church started out with Christ as the head. We can see from history that there have been many power struggles within the Church and that men have taken headship. There are distinct ages of the Church which are represented well in the image from the dream. You could say that the king of Babylon is now the head of what we would call the Church, and I feel that is why Nebuchadnezzar was said to be the head.