Who was in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?

The effect upon the king is immediate. He rises up in haste, declaring that he sees four men "walking in the midst of the fire … and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." This was the true secret of the three captives walking unscathed in the midst of the fire — they were in the company of the Son of God. What can the saints not do in His company? In His company they can walk on the water (Matt. 14), and in His company they can walk in the midst of the fire, thus fulfilling the promise made to the prophet, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee … when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Isa. 43:2).

And now, when the deed is done, a new marvel passes before the eyes of the king. It was no vision now, but the manifest power of God. When the sword of the king was drawn out against God, how miserably futile it was! In the midst of this burning fiery furnace was a sight which arrested him. Astonished, the king "rose up in his haste, and spake, and said to his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said to the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt." What was to be said of the power of Nebuchadnezzar now? What did it avail to be the mightiest monarch of the world, surrounded, too, with all that constituted the sinews of his force and the grandeur of his empire? There were these men, who had been bound and cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace, apparently the most pitiable case in his realm. But now he is obliged to behold their bonds burnt, and themselves only set free by what he meant for their destruction. But not this merely. There was another to be seen, and that other he can but say is like the Son of God. "Lo, I see four men loose … and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

Just as God might use a Balaam or a Caiaphas to speak the truth when they little thought of it and had no communion with Himself in it, so, in this expression of the king's, "the Son of God," there seems to be amazing propriety. We cannot suppose that he entered into its meaning with intelligence. Still there was striking propriety in this respect. There are other titles he might have used. He might have said, "Son of man," or "the God of Israel," or many more. But "Son of God" seems exactly suited to describe the scene: and therefore, I think, the overruling power of the Spirit of God was manifest in leading the king to use this expression. In the New Testament, where all truth comes out with distinctness we find our Lord Himself referring to these two titles, both of which occur in Daniel — Son of man and Son of God. Son of man is the title of Christ in His judicial glory. He is Son of man "because all judgment is committed to Him." As Son of God He gives life: He quickens in the midst of death. As Son of God, He frees those that were bound: and "if the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." That verse seems to me a doctrinal commentary upon this very scene. There was the Son, and He was making the prisoners free. Man had bound them, had attempted to execute his threat of vengeance against any who should acknowledge the true God. These three men had jeoparded everything upon the truth of God Himself against all rivals and images; and God had come in for them with delivering power. The proud king not only owns his word changed, but associates their names with the most high God, who was not ashamed to be called their God.

His commands were instantly obeyed, and "because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." What was human life to this wilful, raging king? But God will teach him by the very contrast, that what is death to His enemies cannot injure those who are under His protection. (Compare Exodus 14; Mark 16:18.) "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace — and, their confidence in God vindicated, they were not destroyed. The men who had cast them into the furnace were overpowered and killed by the scorching flames; but they themselves though in the midst of the furnace were unharmed. Their God was able to deliver them. There was another thing to fill the mind of the king with astonishment. He "rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God" (vv. 24, 25). Two miracles thus amazed the king: the fact of his intended victims being loose and unhurt, and the presence with them of a supernatural Companion, whom he designates as "like the Son of God."* Not that he understood his own speech; but we may conclude that the Spirit of God, as often in the Scriptures, controlled him, and made him proclaim the truth. Isaiah had said, speaking in the name of Jehovah to Israel, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; … When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Isa. 43:2); and this promise was now fulfilled to this believing remnant, as it will be to the remnant of a future day, of which these three children are a type. Jehovah was with His faithful servants in the furnace to sustain, to comfort, and to secure them from harm. Before the very eyes of the king, who had impotently and impiously dared Him to deliver out of his hand, He appears, and shielding His servants from the power of the flames, vindicates their confidence in Him, and their fidelity to His name. Has He not also said to us, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me"? (Hebrews 13:5-6).

*Whether the translation be accepted as it stands, or taken as "Son of the gods," the significance remains. He owns that some one, more than mortal, is with them in the furnace.

His commands were instantly obeyed, and "because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." What was human life to this wilful, raging king? But God will teach him by the very contrast, that what is death to His enemies cannot injure those who are under His protection. (Compare Exodus 14; Mark 16:18.) "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace — and, their confidence in God vindicated, they were not destroyed. The men who had cast them into the furnace were overpowered and killed by the scorching flames; but they themselves though in the midst of the furnace were unharmed. Their God was able to deliver them. There was another thing to fill the mind of the king with astonishment. He "rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God" (vv. 24, 25). Two miracles thus amazed the king: the fact of his intended victims being loose and unhurt, and the presence with them of a supernatural Companion, whom he designates as "like the Son of God."* Not that he understood his own speech; but we may conclude that the Spirit of God, as often in the Scriptures, controlled him, and made him proclaim the truth. Isaiah had said, speaking in the name of Jehovah to Israel, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; … When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Isa. 43:2); and this promise was now fulfilled to this believing remnant, as it will be to the remnant of a future day, of which these three children are a type. Jehovah was with His faithful servants in the furnace to sustain, to comfort, and to secure them from harm. Before the very eyes of the king, who had impotently and impiously dared Him to deliver out of his hand, He appears, and shielding His servants from the power of the flames, vindicates their confidence in Him, and their fidelity to His name. Has He not also said to us, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me"? (Hebrews 13:5-6).

*Whether the translation be accepted as it stands, or taken as "Son of the gods," the significance remains. He owns that some one, more than mortal, is with them in the furnace.

The king recognized that there was something Divine and God-like about 'the form of the fourth.' The way in which he expressed his conviction was doubtless controlled by God. Before this, Balaam had said things that he never would have uttered apart from Divine compulsion. After this, Caiaphas uttered things that had a different meaning to that which he intended, as recorded in John 11:51. So it was here, Nebuchadnezzar recognized that God had intervened and manifested His presence with the men he had sought to slay, and he used just the right expression, though not understanding the true force of it. While it is the Father who forms the purpose, it is the Son who manifests and acts. This we learn when the New Testament is reached.

In Daniel we read of one like unto the Son of God in the midst of the fire. Why should the same statement be used there?

The New Translation clears that point by showing it more correctly as, "a son of the gods". What Nebuchadnezzar saw was a supernatural being that he, being a heathen king, could only describe as "a son of the gods".

The king's command was now obeyed, and these "servants of the most high God" came forth; and the truth of their preservation — the miracle wrought — was verified by "the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellors," who were "gathered together," it would seem, to examine the reality of this miraculous preservation; and they "saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them" (v. 27). The deliverance was total and complete, for the fire had only been allowed to burn the bonds wherewith they had been bound: at least they were seen, notwithstanding they had been bound, walking in liberty in the company of their Deliverer and Preserver. Overwhelmed by the undeniable character of the evidence offered, and owning his own impotence and defeat before such a God, Nebuchadnezzar said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent His angel, and delivered His servants that trusted in Him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God" (V. 28). He thus paid honour to God, who had rescued His servants from the king's wrath, and he justified those who, in fidelity to "their own God," had refused to worship the image which he himself had set up. He made a decree, moreover, "That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort" (v. 29).

In the midst of the furnace of fire the three witnesses walk unharmed in the company of the Son of God. Surely to them this must remain a never-to-be-forgotten moment. Never previously had they been so wonderfully privileged and so highly honoured. How veritable, indeed, is His holy Word which says, “In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them” (Isa. 63:9). When in front of that fiery furnace they were being bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, to be consigned to that raging volcano that opened its mouth to devour them, they had the support of the Almighty God; but in the furnace itself they had not only His support but His company. The cords that bound them and the men that gave them to the fire were both consumed. The fire did nothing but set them free from their bonds. And now, instead of three men being quickly reduced to ashes in the flames, Nebuchadnezzar sees four men walking about loose in their midst, and the form of the fourth, he says, is like the Son of God.

Thus is Nebuchadnezzar faced with the intervention of the living God on behalf of His faithful and beloved servants and smitten upon his brazen forehead by the gauntlet of the Almighty in answer to his impudent challenge, “Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hand?”

We may observe that faith and obedience are as absolute as the will of the king. Nothing can be finer and more calm than the answer of the three believers. God is able to deliver, and He will deliver; but, happen what may, they will not forsake Him. The king in his fury defies God. "Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" God allows him to take his own way. The effect of his headlong rage is that the instruments of his vengeance are destroyed by the fierce flames prepared for the faithful Hebrews. The latter are cast into the furnace, and (outwardly) the king's will is accomplished. But this is only to manifest more brightly the power and the faithfulness of God, who comes, even into the midst of the fire, to prove the interest He takes in the fidelity of His servants. The effect, to them, of the fire is that their bands are consumed, and that they have His presence whose form is like the Son of God, even in the eyes of the king who denied His almighty power. The result is a decree forbidding the whole world to speak against the God of the Jews, the glory of that weak and captive people.

Well, into the furnace this noble band of non-conformists go. In their own garments they are bound, then "cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace." But the fire that was meant to consume them but burns the bands! Their mad persecutor, beholding them unharmed in his glowing furnace, was compelled to cry to his counsellors, "Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God"" Yes, they company with the Angel of His Presence, as on other occasions He appeared to His tried and faithful saints in His precarnate days. So will it be with all who refuse to bow to the image, whatever its form; they will walk free; their souls will be in liberty; and, best of all, they will have His company who hath said: "He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death."