In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. Daniel interprets the dream, even though Nebuchadnezzar first insists that Daniel tell him the details of what he saw. He responds:
31 “Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. ...
44 “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. 45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands —a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
The interpretation is then clearly identified as those kingdoms which will rise up after Babylon - and historically speaking, these can be very closely ascribed to the Medeo-Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires. Indeed, the prophecy is so good that many scholars refuse to date Daniel to the time of Nebuchadnezzar because of it. Within the Protestant canon, there is no mention of Alexander the Great, nor of the rise of Rome.
The point of this vision, and the prophecy as a whole, however, is NOT the statue. Indeed, so much ink has been spilt over exactly what the kingdoms represent, etc... - but notice that the point of the dream isn't the statue. It is the rock, not hewn by humans, that destroys all the Kingdoms of the world.
What is this rock? Well, I think its pretty clear that upon that rock, Jesus built his kingdom, and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Rome, even divided into East and West, and later into many kingdoms, was clearly succeeded, not by an earthly kingdom, but an ecclesiastical one. It was not made by human hands. And while we may have witnessed its birth in Acts 2, its full flower was clearly not understood until well after the canon was closed. John the Revelator may have understood that the church would be triumphant - but it certainly wasn't going to be in his lifetime.
Want a prophecy that isn't attested to by Scripture alone? Look no further than the church, my friend.
