Babylon Will Always Fall

In Daniel 8, Daniel has a strange vision of two creatures—a ram and a goat—with the goat trampling the ram. These creatures represent human empires and illustrate one political reality giving way to another. With the shifting empires comes persecution for the people of God in the centuries leading up to the time of Jesus. The vision also implies an end to the persecution and God’s sovereignty over history. We are reminded that, although the political realities of our world rise and fall, and the social favor toward or opposition against the people of God comes and goes, our hope lies in the alternative kingdom that Jesus inaugurated because God triumphs over all of the kingdoms of this world.