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  Long Island Abundant Life Church 長島豐盛生命教會

Luke 22:63–23:17

5/8/2012

 
Click here to read today's passage on Bible Gateway.

Son of Man
A while back we dealt with Jesus' title "Son of David" and unpacked what it meant and signified to people when it was used.  I was searching back through some of the things we've covered (we've been reading the NT for over 5 months!) and I was surprised that I haven't covered the title "Son of Man" yet.  As you know if you've been reading with us, the title "Son of Man" is used for Jesus A LOT.  So what does it mean?  It seems strange that this would be used for Jesus so often rather than "Son of God", doesn't it? 

The title "Son of Man" most likely isn't referring to Jesus "humanness" in any way.  Just two days ago we connected something Jesus said to Isaiah 53, which most people recognized at the time to be a passage about the coming Messiah - it's hard NOT to think that when you read the passage.  "Son of Man" is connected to another passage that many considered to be referring to the coming Messiah, 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."

Again, this is a relatively clear Messianic passage.  There certainly are other uses of "son of man" in the Old Testament, particularly in the book of Ezekiel, but this is the use that clearly utilizes the term as a title for someone rather than simply referring to a "human".  This is the reason the title is used so much of Jesus:  when people heard this term they didn't think, "Look!  It's Jesus the human!", but "This is the Messiah whose Kingdom will not be destroyed!"  This is a pretty simple but VERY important distinction. 

Sorry I haven't mentioned this before!  It's a title that appears pretty regularly and can be somewhat confounding if you don't know the background, so I probably should've mentioned it earlier.
Andrei
5/8/2012 07:48:43 pm

Oh how crazy is it that we're covering Daniel in Sunday School. We are led in this study by our wonderful teacher Baywatch.

Thanks for the explanation. I just read Daniel 7 and it is scary. I'm still kind of confused at the 'Son of Man' title though. So you're saying that when people heard 'son of man,' they thought: 'This is the Messiah whose Kingdom will not be destroyed!' But why does Daniel come up with the title 'Son of Man' in the first place? It seems confusing to refer to Jesus as 'Son of Man' from the start? What does Daniel mean by 'Man'?

Greg
5/9/2012 02:28:35 am

Because of the intensity of the Daniel passage, it really sets Daniel's use of "Son of Man" apart from the others, and made it the defining use of the title (instead of Ezekiel or another place). As for Daniel's use, you have an excellent question. It probably most closely compares to the kind of language used in Revelation, where you constantly read things like "streets like gold", etc. There isn't really human language that sufficiently describes what the person is seeing in the vision, so they have to approximate as closely as they can. I think that's what's going on in Daniel here. The description sounds like a heavenly ruler and the description sounds like something you would read of an angel or other heavenly being, but Daniel makes the point to say that it is one "like a son of man" in order to make the reader understand that he is talking about someone human-like. All the descriptions point to a heavenly ruler, but Daniel points out that the ruler has humanness, hence the use of "son of man". I suspect that this was even more confusing to people then than it is now, which is why those taking this as a Messianic passage THEN saw the Messiah coming as a political conqueror in full power. We understand this passage much better because we know Jesus: He IS a heavenly ruler and will come conquering, but is both God and man. Those confusing, somewhat-contradictory descriptions make sense when you know who Jesus is and how He came. Does that make sense?

Andrei
5/9/2012 06:39:23 pm

Thanks for the explanation Pastor Greg. Yeah it makes sense to some extent but I don't think I fully understand it. Will ask you more questions in person sometime in the near future I hope. Appreciate it.

Greg
5/10/2012 02:50:18 am

Sure!


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