HOPE! - Who is this Son of Man?

Who is this Son of Man?

In John 5 as well as elsewhere, Jesus refers to himself as “The Son of Man.” The Hebrew word for “man” is “adam.” The word “adam” essentially means “humanity” in Hebrew. The word “adam” is used throughout the Old Testament to refer to humanity. The phrase “son of man” is also used at times.

Here’s an example from Numbers 23:19:

God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Here’s another one from Job 16:20-21:

My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor.

And from Psalm 8:3-4:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

And so when we look at these particular passages and other like them we can see that the phrase “son of man” simply refers to being human. And so when Jesus uses this phrase to describe himself in the Gospels, we can assume that he is saying that he is in fact human. God in the flesh. Jesus the human.

But then there’s also another passage that uses this term differently in Daniel 7:13-14:

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

In Jesus’ day, the Jewish community saw this passage from Daniel as a prophecy foretelling the coming the future Messiah. And so the term “son of man” could refer not only to humanity in general but to the specific “one like a son of man” seen in Daniel, the Messiah who would be handed the keys to God’s Kingdom on earth.

And so Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man, a phrase with more than one possible meaning. It can mean that Jesus is showing both his humility and his power simultaneously. Jesus is the humble son of man because he is fully human and he knows what it’s like to be human in every way. We do not have a God who does not relate to us. We have a God who knows what it’s like to be us because he chose to fully become one of us. And Jesus is also the powerful son of man, the one who comes on the clouds on glory and splendor to judge the world and rule over it and to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven and the New Creation.

Who is the Son of Man? He is fully God and fully human. He represents humanity (adam) and he represents God. He is both humble and powerful. He is both earthy and spiritual. And he is the only way to life.