To understand the context of this question we must understand the context of the book of Daniel. Daniel wrote as a man who was taken from his home in Israel to live as an exile in Babylon. God had judged Israel for their disobedience and idolatry and had used Babylon to conquer his people, take them into exile and eventually destroy the city and temple of Jerusalem. The whole survival of the people of God was down to exiles living out 70 years in Babylon to turn their hearts back to God and return to the land in repentance.

In Daniel 1, we read that God was preserving his people from the very beginning by giving Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of those Babylonians over him. We see this favor working out by the end of chapter 2 as Daniel was given a position of esteem and audience with the king. God was moving in the heart of a Babylonian king to preserve the remnant of his children in exile.

We see God at work in this powerful king when we see Nebuchadnezzar’s responses to the work of God’s power before him. In Chapter 2, when God had revealed a mystery of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar says, “Truly your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.” (2:47). Note that Nebuchadnezzar does not claim Daniel’s God as his own.

As we move into chapter 3, we come to the famous account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. After God supernaturally delivers these three young men from Nebuchadnezzar’s rage, the king again declares, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants….(3:28). Note again that Nebuchadnezzar does not claim Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s God as his own. Further to this, Nebuchadnezzar then makes a decree that nobody from any nation, people or tongue under his empire shall say anything against the God of Israel. He even declares that no other god could rescue in this way.

Often when we see favorable decrees or laws like this, we may be tempted to identify the law maker as one of God’s own people. The moment we jump to that conclusion we have missed one of the most important factors in all of Scripture. The only way to forgiveness and reconciliation with God is through repentance of sin and faith in God’s provision of a substitutionary sacrifice for the appeasement of his wrath – Jesus Christ. In Jesus words to Nicodemus in John 3, “unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Nowhere in the text of Daniel do we see any explicit account of repentance and faith in Nebuchadnezzar’s life, though some believe that Daniel 4 implies it. The point that Christians should note is that while we might rejoice when God sovereignly gives us civil laws in favor toward us, we should never assume the word “Christian” without hearing an account of regeneration and seeing fruit of it. A king making an edict or law in some essence of favor or compatibility with God’s truth, does not make him a true believer. Laws do not equal faith. Morality and favorable attitudes about God does not equal salvation.

As we finally move into Daniel 4, we find the account of Nebuchadnezzar’s humbling when God made him like an animal for 7 years of his life. Most of this chapter is the first person account of Nebuchadnezzar as he retells the whole experience from his own perspective. Nebuchadnezzar recounts that at the end of this experience, he praised and honored God for his everlasting power and dominion. At the same time, he also talks of the glory of his own kingdom and “my majesty and splendor returned to me.” (4:36). It is very difficult to put all of his words together and discern if they are the words of a repentant heart or a king forced to his knees. The bigger problem in Nebuchadnezzar’s words is that at the beginning of chapter 4 as he is recounting his past experience, he also makes the statement that “he who was named Belteshazzar after the name of my god and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods” had interpreted his dream (4:8). In the present recounting of his past, he still speaks in terms of polytheistic idolatry.

While there is an acknowledgement of the greatness of God from Nebuchadnezzar’s lips, readers of Daniel are left with the absence, in any of these instances, of the king of Babylon proclaiming the God of Israel as his own in repentance and faith. We are reminded in Philippians 2:10-11 that one day…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.