Dear Woke Christian,
I was interested in digging into the Bible verses CRT supporters use. The next couple of posts will address them.
Daniel 9
Fun fact, I LOVE the book of Daniel. Double fun fact I love it not only because of Daniel. I love to see how God was patient and long-suffering with King Nebuchadnezzar. That guy was a trip. It only goes to show just how patient God can be and how far He’ll let us run away only to bring us right back to HIm. I love the stories in Daniel. The prayers in Daniel hit me. The images of our Lord really hit me as well. The entire book is GREAT!
I have researched co-opted Bible verses and I will admit I hadn’t heard this one until very recently. The chapter heading in my ible is “Daniel prays for his people.” He is confessing sin and at face value, it does seem as though Daniel is fitting the CRT narrative. There are just a few issues.
- Daniel is in the midst of Babylonian captivity. God sent His people there as judgment for sin.
- This was in real-time. Daniel isn’t praying about sins from 100’s of years ago. He’s talking about what’s going on now.
- The sins were quantifiable and real. There are no “unicorn sins” here Daniel is making it clear that he knows the people have sinned. Oh and that brings me to another point.
- Daniel recognized his sin. Though we don’t read that Daniel was a scoundrel at all, he knew his own imperfections and came clean.
So Daniel isn’t praying about a mystical “sin” of the past. He’s talking about what’s gotten his people into this deep soup right here. Oh yeah, one more thing.
Many people conflate Israel and the Church or even America. I’m not going to argue that case today. However, most hijacking of OT narratives is centered around this conflated idea that we can make anyone Israel that we want.
I tapped a good friend of mine a frequent commentor, Herb to add his thoughts as well. In verse 3, Daniel turns his face toward the Lord, confessing the sins of his people who have, verse 5, turned away from God’s commandments and rules. The prayer is about rebellion against God on many, many accounts. There were 10 commandments, but also 613 laws for the Israelite people. For this text to help the CRT argument, Daniel would need to focus on a singular sin. Then there would need to be a third party involved that had been hurt (either directly or by association) by that particular sin. The problem is that Daniel is lumping all sin and rebellion into one, and he is going directly to the Lord to seek mercy and forgiveness. Daniel completely bypasses the invisible third party. For this text to work for CRT, God would have to respond to Daniel by giving him a list of how he must atone for the particular sin with the particular people hurt by that sin. Once that is complete, then those people who had been hurt could now recommend to God that Daniel can be forgiven.
Daniel is doing what all OT people did, looking forward to a promised redemption. We live on the NT side, so we look back to redemption freely given in Christ’s atoning sacrifice. The work was going to be done for Daniel, therefore forgiveness was available, and the work has been done for us, therefore forgiveness is attainable.
That being said, I think there is modeling here that is beneficial as it will draw us closer to the Lord. That model is to pray for our people. Before we jump the gun and agree with a woke whoop of joy, we need to properly define “our people”. Believers in Christ should pray for other believers in recognition of how we collectively fall short of the glory of God. We should pray for all humanity, still caught in their sin (John 8:24) and destined to die in their sin without the gospel of Jesus. When I pray for my brother and my unbelieving friend, my heart will break for them as the Lord’s heart breaks for the lost. My eyes will be opened to my own depravity and God will be glorified all the more as I realize the depths that he has gone to for my salvation. All of this happens without any input, actions, or words from a third party. I don’t need to do anything to earn it, and I don’t need anyone to give me anything to make it true.
What do you think? After reading this in context do you still believe that it supports the ideas of group repentance and asking for forgiveness for someone else’s past sins?