The meaning of this passage, then, is simply this: that at some epoch during the lifetime of that human monster, or between the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the fall of the Roman Empire in the year of Christ 476, the God of heaven would set up a kingdom in the world.
After some discussion of the events of the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ, Brother Milligan says:
According, then, to the testimony of Peter, Jesus Christ was, on the day of Pentecost, seated on the throne of David, not in Jerusalem, as the Jews anticipated, but in heaven at the right hand of God. He was exalted to the rank and dignity of a Prince as well as a Savior. And hence, for the first time in the history of the world, those who gladly received his word were commanded to be baptized in _the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins_.
In his second article Brother Milligan quotes Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and Daniel’s interpretation thereof, and then comments as follows:
The image was then smitten upon the feet. The wound was mortal. The tyrant that had governed the world from the days of Nebuchadnezzar till that hour was slain. His spirit was subdued, and his whole physical organization, consisting of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and clay, was then broken into fragments.
Since that time Charlemagne, Napoleon, and many others, have attempted to revive the spirit and reunite the scattered fragments of this fallen image. But all such attempts have been in vain.... It is true, the spirit of war still exists: blood is often shed for the most trivial causes. But let any prince or potentate now attempt to revive the spirit of this fallen image; let him attempt, like Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, and Caesar, to subdue the world, and to govern it on the principle that “might makes right;” and if not treated as a maniac by his own subjects, he will, at least, find arrayed against him the combined powers of Christendom.
In view of what happened to the Kaiser when he tried to conquer the world, the last statement of Brother Milligan looks almost like prophecy. But it was not a prophecy, but merely a statement based on Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
I invite the future-kingdom advocates to consider the following: