God calls his shots (Part 2)

A week ago I posted about the story of Daniel being a deliberate prophetic picture of Christ in the Old Testament.

Don't be surprised that the Old Testament is full of pictures of Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus said:

John 5:39-40
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

That's what the Old Testament is. It's all about Jesus Christ. Pastor Aaron put it nicely: The Old Testament is like a long red carpet that unfurls at the foot of the cross.

John 5:46-47
If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?

Now I know Moses didn't write the story of Daniel, but consider what Jesus did on the road to Emmaus:

Luke 24:27
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

No doubt the story of Daniel came up. No doubt Isaac came up, no doubt Joseph came up, no doubt Moses came up, no doubt the tabernacle came up. And much much more, I'm sure. (Not an exhaustive list.)

I thought about it some more and noticed some other parallels between Daniel's story and Jesus'. Notice how Daniel was also silent at his trial, just like Jesus (that point courtesy of Aaron). I also noticed that the circumstances were similar. Daniel was about to be set "over the whole kingdom" (Daniel 6:3), which infuriated the others. They didn't want him as their ruler. "We have no King but Caesar" comes to mind (John 19:15). Also, Darius is like Pilate in that he didn't want to execute Daniel, and even sought to release him, having judged him to be innocent.

Combine that with what I said in the last post:
Daniel is unjustly sentenced to death and is put in the den, which is sealed with the king's seal. Early the next day the King runs to the den and the stone is rolled aside and Daniel is found alive because he was "found innocent in God's sight" (Daniel 6:22)...

Notice how the whole story mirrors Christ's resurrection. Early on the day of resurrection the stone (which had been sealed) is rolled aside and Christ is alive because he was found innocent in God's eyes. God had inspected the sacrifice and approved of the sacrificial atonement, and raised him from the dead.

Isn't it pretty clear that the story of Daniel is a foreshadowing of the cross? Yes, God uses foreshadowing a lot in his book, and only God can do such a thing, because he alone knows the end from the beginning.