Jesus Today . . .

THE SON OF MAN: WHAT JESUS CALLED HIMSELF

Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.—Acts 7:56

One interesting thing about this passage is that it is the only instance out of 82 occurrences in the New Covenant Scriptures that the name Son of Man is not from the lips of Jesus himself (or a quotation from him as in one case). In fact, except for this instance in Acts the title is found only in the gospel records. One would suppose that since Son of Man is so tied to the self-disclosure of Jesus that the apostle Paul, so eager to exalt the one he met on the Damascus road, would use this significant title. But he does not, not even once. There may be a reason for this—a reluctance to speak of him in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” as the son of man.

This reluctance has pervaded the church until now. The title Son of Man has never been used by the church to describe the messianic character of Jesus. From our pulpits today Jesus may be exalted as the Son of God, the Savior, and as the Prince of Peace, but not as Son of Man. Even though Jesus hardly referred to himself in any other way, we hesitate to call him what he called himself. If you ask yourself if you now and again refer to Jesus as the Son of Man, the answer is probably no. If this is an oddity, it must have been just as odd when Jesus described himself in this way to the people of his time. It must have blown the minds of the Pharisees and Sadducees when Jesus referred to himself in this way, usually in the third person. It is remarkable that they never took it up with him, as they did when he presumed to forgive sins. The Son of Man entree seemed to have caught them off guard. They didn’t know how to handle it, so they left it alone. This study may help us to understand why.

Stephen’s use of the term Son of Man, in the very face of death, is not without its significance, for it reveals that he was witness to the Messiah now occupying the throne of the universe and that believers have a way into the presence of God more satisfying than the temple ritual. It also shows that he realized that the term Son of Man had cosmic meaning and implied far more than that the Christ had come in the flesh. T. W. Manson, the British scholar who made a long study of such terms, may be right when he sees Stephen as saying that the vision of Dan. 7:13 (where the Son of man comes from the presence of God to receive the kingdom) has been fulfilled and that all the institutions of the past were thus antiquated and superseded.

While Jesus’ hearers were more or less familiar with the idea of Son of Man, we cannot be sure what it denoted in their minds. It is used frequently in Ezekiel as the way in which God addressed the prophet, but it hardly means more than man, and it certainly has no messianic or supernatural connotation. But the reference in Daniel does, for one like the Son of Man comes with the clouds into the presence of the Ancient of Days. God gives to him “dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” While this man is not described as suffering, he brings the kingdom to the suffering saints on earth, or so it seems.

This reference in Daniel must have influenced Jewish thinking, for it continued to be interpreted in terms of a coming Messiah in the inter-testamental literature. In the Book of Enoch the Son of Man is a pre-existent heavenly figure who descends to earth to sit in judgment against the wicked and to deliver the righteous. The righteous will reign with the Son of Man in a kingdom of glory forever. Enoch must have been widely read. Fragments of it were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book describes the heavenly creature as having “the appearance of a man” and the face of an angel. It describes him somewhat like Rev. 1 depicts “one like a son of man,” including such a detail as his head being of white wool.

While it is clear that Jesus did not pull a title out of the air or invent a new concept when he referred to himself as Son of Man (oddly enough, the only term he freely used!), it is uncertain as to how much this background influenced his use of it. He sometimes used it in a very earthly way, nothing like its meaning in Enoch and Daniel, such as in Matt. 8:20: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head,” and Lk. 7:34: “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners. “, And sometimes he used it as if he were referring to someone else, for whom he was preparing the way, as in Matt. 10:23: “But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes.”

And sometimes he used Son of Man as if he meant simply man, or little more than that, such as his saying, “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Since he had already said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,” some scholars conclude that he was really saying that man is lord of the Sabbath rather than that the Christ is. This may also be the force of Matt. 12:32, where it is said that one can blaspheme against the Son of Man and be forgiven, but not the Holy Spirit. It clears up a mystery if Jesus is saying: you can sin against what man says and be forgiven; it is much more serious to sin against what God says through the Spirit. Otherwise it is difficult to see why sinning against the Messiah himself would be less sinful than sinning against the Spirit. Since Mark (the first gospel) does not use Son of Man when quoting this (Mk. 3:28), but says, “whatever blasphemies they utter,” it may be that Jesus is simply showing how much more serious it is to reject what God says than what man says (such as the Pharisees).

Sometimes Jesus referred to himself as the suffering Son of Man, which was not part of the Jewish concept, such as “the Son of Man should suffer many things and be treated with contempt” (Mk. 9:12), and “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mk. 9:45). It was in reference to his suffering and death that Jesus pointed to his resurrection, again in terms of being the Son of Man; “The Son of Man is to be delivered up into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise again three days later” (Mk. 9:31).

As the Jews were unprepared to think of the Son of Man as one who would be killed, so they were unable to think of him in terms of a risen Messiah. It helps us to understand why the disciples were unprepared for what Jesus taught them about dying and rising again. Even though they could see Jesus as the supernatural Son of Man, they could not see such a one as dead and again alive, even though Jesus told them again and again. Our minds simply cannot comprehend things that are too foreign. We can see why the disciples were actually surprised over the resurrection.

It was once a popular view that Jesus’ use of Son of Man was parallel to his being the Son of God, one being a claim to his humanity, the other to his divinity. Closer study showed this position to be erroneous, for Jesus refers to Son of Man as one would to the Son of God, such as Mk. 14:62: “You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven,” and Lk. 9:26: “the Son of Man will come in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” But it is clear that our Lord opted for the title Son of Man rather than Son of God, but we are not to conclude that this was for the purpose of emphasizing his humanity and minimizing his divinity.

We can conclude that Jesus used the title to point both to his messianic role as a suffering servant and his messianic dignity as one who shared the glory of God. In Matt. 16:13 Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” One view was that Jesus might be one of the ancient prophets risen from the dead (but this did not allow that the risen prophet should in turn be murdered and risen from the dead!)

The answers all indicated that Jesus was somebody cosmic or supernatural, and when Peter confessed him to be the Christ, this fit perfectly with the concept of Son of Man. And messianic dignity is strong in some of Jesus’ pronouncements, such as “In the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne” (Matt. 19:28).

Our Lord’s use of this title tells us something of his relevance both to his own time and ours. He chose a self-disclosing term that was both familiar and ambiguous, both known and unknown, so that he could do with it what he pleased. When he pointed to the suffering role of his mission, it was more understandable that the Son of Man would suffer than the Son of God. If he wished to point to the cosmic implications (“the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory”), the background had been laid by Daniel and Enoch.

Too, he took his enemies off guard by referring to himself in this way. Reluctant to refer to himself as Son of God, which would have laid him open to their attacks, he chose a term that could have all the implications of deity. But who can be too disturbed over someone referring to himself as a son of man, or even the Son of Man, when it meant different things.

It points up the unpredictability of Jesus. Had you been writing the script, would you have ever dreamed of labeling the envoy from heaven, the Christ of God, the eternal Word, as the Son of Man? That he might have accepted the title had someone thought to identify him with the one referred to by Daniel and Enoch is barely thinkable, but that he would have made the title his virtual trade-mark, the only one with which he seemed comfortable, is impossible. But that is Jesus! Who can even begin to understand him? Or to trace out his ways?

Had the God of heaven waited until now to send the Messiah, one might wonder how he would draw from our culture to describe himself. A few possibilities cross my mind.

Ensign? (Look it up).

Ambassador? (Maybe, but it is not ambiguous enough)

Lone Ranger? (Perhaps, if he came to Texas).

Consul? (The ingredients may be there, but Counsel might be better).

There is no way to do it. It shows why the God of heaven “in the fulness of time” sent forth His son, after preparing Israel as the community that would give him to the world. But with or without Israel as “the situation,” there is no way to second guess Jesus. Even the Biblical scholars, who like to have the answers, are baffled by the way Jesus chose to refer to himself as the Son of Man.

And this he did when speaking in the tenderest and friendliest of terms. To the blind man that he caused to see, now battered and bloodied by jealous legalists, Jesus asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

Stymied only by the ambiguity of the question, the liberated man asked, “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” When Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man, the man believed on him and worshipped him.

What a story! And the hero is the Son of Man, not the Son of God!

While it never made its way into any creed, I gladly add to the church’s confessions: I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of Man, the risen Lord, who will come in clouds of glory.—the Editor