Text Reading: Daniel 12:1-7

Introduction:

Daniel 12 is a foundational chapter for understanding resurrection, judgment, and the end of the age. It is not pointing to a future event thousands of years away, but to something that was fulfilled in the first century, at the end of the Old Covenant age.

Main Points:

• Daniel 12:2 is the Resurrection
  
  

  • "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt."
    
    

  • This is the same resurrection that Jesus, Paul, and John spoke of.
    
    

• Daniel 12:5-6 - The question is asked: "How long?"
  
  

  • The answer does not point to the end of the physical universe but to the end of the Old Covenant.
    
    

• Daniel 12:7 - "When the power of the holy people has been completely shattered"
  
  

  • The holy people are Old Covenant Israel.
    
    

  • Their power was their covenant relationship with the Lord.
    
    

  • That power was shattered in AD 70 when the temple and city were destroyed.
    
    

Daniel and Jesus:

• Daniel 12:2 (Resurrection) = Matthew 13:39 (Harvest)
  
  

• Daniel 12:3-4 (Time of the end) = Matthew 13:39-40 (End of this age)
  
  

• Daniel 12 (Judgment and shining of the righteous) = Matthew 13:24-30, 43
  
  

  • "Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (Matthew 13:43)
    
    

Jesus tied the resurrection and judgment to the end of the age.

• That age was the Old Covenant age, not the physical world.
  
  

• Jesus said it would all happen in their generation (Matthew 24:34).
  
  

Daniel and Paul:

• Daniel 12 (Time of the end) = 1 Corinthians 15:24 – "Then comes the end"
  
  

• Daniel 12 (Resurrection) = 1 Corinthians 15:52 – "The dead will be raised imperishable"
  
  

• Daniel 12 (Everlasting life) = 1 Corinthians 15:53 – "This mortal must put on immortality"
  
  

• Daniel 12 (Righteous shine in the kingdom) = 1 Corinthians 15:50 – "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom"
  
  

• Daniel 12 (We shall not all sleep) = 1 Corinthians 15:51 – "We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed"
  
  

The end that Paul speaks of is the same "time of the end" that Daniel saw.

It is the end of the Old Covenant age, not the end of the cosmos.

Paul confirms this connection again in Romans 7:6-12:

• "But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound..." (Romans 7:6)
  
  

Daniel and Revelation:

• Daniel 12 (Time of the end) = Revelation 11 (Seventh trumpet)
  
  

  • Paul calls this the last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:52)
    
    

• Daniel 12 (Shattering of holy people's power) = Revelation 11:8 – The city where the Lord was slain
  
  

  • That city is clearly Jerusalem
    
    

• Daniel 12 (Kingdom time) = Revelation 11:15-16 – "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord"
  
  

• Daniel 12 (Resurrection) = Revelation 11:18 – "The time came for the dead to be judged"
  
  

All these texts tie together.

• The last trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15
  
  

• The seventh trumpet of Revelation 11
  
  

• The resurrection and judgment at the end of the age
  
  

• The shattering of Israel's power
  
  

All of it happened at the same time.

Conclusion:

The resurrection of Daniel 12 is not some far-off future event.

It was fulfilled at the end of the age, when the power of Old Covenant Israel was broken in AD 70.

• That is when the righteous were raised
  
  

• That is when the harvest came
  
  

• That is when the kingdom was received
  
  

• That is when the New Covenant was fully established
  
  

The New Testament confirms Daniel 12 over and over.

We are not waiting for resurrection or judgment to come.

It has come. The kingdom is here.

We are living in the age of life, not death.

Let us live in the power and victory of the resurrection already accomplished by Christ.

Amen.