Son of Man (2)
Second of Two Parts
In the first part of this essay, we explored the meaning of the term “Son of man”, used by Jesus to refer to himself, as the key to his understanding of the titles “Messiah” and “Son of God”. When it is interpreted against its background in the Old Testament, especially Psalm 8 and Daniel 7, it is apparent that “Son of man” means a human being, who in suffering for his loyalty to God, and in his vindication and exaltation by God, is the representative of God’s true people. He suffers for them, on their behalf, and in their place; and in him, they too are vindicated and exalted. That’s the teaching about Christ’s person and work that we find in some of the earliest public witness to Jesus, in the sermons of Peter and Stephen in Acts 2 and 7. On the day of Pentecost Peter proclaims “let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). Stephen avows, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God” (7:56). As “Son of man”, Jesus is the representative of man before God – both man under God’s just judgment, and man delivered from judgment, vindicated, and exalted.
Paul does not use the term “son of Man”, but it is this understanding of “Messiah”, established in the crucifixion and resurrection, that is found in his continual use of this title for Jesus. It also underlies his use of the title “Lord” for Jesus. In the first century, ‘Lord’ could be used to express respect for human beings (like calling someone “sir”). It also could be used to speak of the Creator God of Israel, in place of his own proper name, out of reverence for the 3rd commandment. To call God the Lord, was to acknowledge his supreme and universal sovereignty. There are places in the gospel narratives, where those who sought help from Jesus might address him as “Lord” in the first sense; but even these are overshadowed by the application of the title to him in the latter sense, as the one who exercises the full sovereign authority of the Creator. And this is how it appears in Paul’s letters: “God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, … that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10, 12). “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor 12:3). Perhaps most subtly of all, this ascription of divine authority to Christ appears in coupling him with the Father as coequal sources of blessing: “Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:2).
In John’s gospel, the title “Son of man” is used more rarely than in the synoptic gospels. When it is, the suffering but vindicated figure of Daniel’s vision is recognizable: God “hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” (5:27). “The hour is come, when the Son of man should be glorified” (12:23; cf. 13:31). But John’s gospel makes an important contribution to our understanding of the Son of man, in attributing eternal pre-existence to him: “no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (3:36). The one who ascends up to heaven is only explicable as the one who first came down from heaven; the one who represents humanity before God also represents God before men, as the agent and emissary of the Father, with power to speak and act for him, because he comes from him, and is one with him.
That’s why, in John’s gospel (though also in Matthew 11:25-30), Jesus frequently refers to himself simply as “the Son” – and almost always in relation to “the Father”, and in unique relation – “the Son” and not “a Son”. As “the Son”, he claims to exercise the same authority that belongs to the Father. “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (5:21-23). Perhaps one other example will help. When Jesus says “I am the good Shepherd”, he takes to himself a title and office which Scripture assigns to God alone (John 10:11, 14 cf. Psalms 23:1; 80:1; 95:7). To say that the man Jesus is Shepherd of God’s people, is to say that he (so to speak) stands in the same place as God, without displacing him. But what reveals him as divine Shepherd is an action that belongs only to the Son of man – he gives himself for the sheep. Thus the language of “Son of man” is taken up into the language of “Son of God”. To know Jesus as true Son of man, the one in whom man’s destiny is fulfilled, we must know him as true Son of God, the agent and emissary of God’s kingdom – but it also works the other way. To know him as Son of God, triumphant over death, requires we know him as the Son of man, who lays down his life.