Jesus, the Son of Man

Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man more than any other title in the Gospels.  Though this title was most familiar to Jesus, nevertheless it remains the most obscure to modern readers.  Opinions vary on just what Jesus meant by calling himself the Son of Man.  Some believe the title refers to an angelic heavenly creature.  Others think it denotes Jesus’ human nature (as opposed to his divine nature).  Many consider “son of man” to simply be Jesus’ way of saying “I.”  Still others think the title relates to Jesus’ suffering and death or his future role as the returning cosmic victor.  Rather than consider each of these theories in turn, we will build our understanding from the ground up, starting with the Hebrew Bible.  Then we will move to consider two extra-biblical Jewish texts before looking at the New Testament.

Son of Man in the Old Testament

“Son of man” usages in the Old Testament divide into three categories.  The first twelve usages place son of man in parallel with man.  Here are two examples.

Numbers 23.19a
God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;

Psalm 8.4
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?

In both of these verses synonymous parallelisms equate “man” with “son of man.”  This is a standard feature of Hebrew poetry that helps us understand how words and phrases are similar to each other.  In fact, every single usage of “son of man” is in this kind of construction up until the book of Ezekiel.  So the first conclusion of our study is that “son of man” was just another way of saying human being.

More than 86% of “son of man” occurrences are found in the prophet Ezekiel.  In each instance, God addresses Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 2.1
Then He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!”

Ezekiel 11.4
“Therefore, prophesy against them, son of man, prophesy!”

The phrase does not denote a special role that Ezekiel plays; it merely stresses the fact that he is a human being as opposed to God or the other non-human entities mentioned throughout the book.  Another prophet called “son of man” is Daniel:

Daniel 8.17
So he [the angel, Gabriel] came near to where I was standing, and when he came I was frightened and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.”

Like the examples in Ezekiel, this verse contrasts the fact that Daniel is a human with God and the angel who are giving him a revelation about the future.  So far, out of the 107 instances of “son of man” in the Hebrew Scriptures 106 of them are just another way of saying human being.  Even so, one more verse remains, and this text more than any other provided the impetus for thinking about “son of man” as a particular title (i.e. the Son of Man).

Daniel 7.13-14
13 “I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
14 “And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.

Daniel had just seen a startling vision of various world empires which appeared as beasts coming out of the chaotic waters.  After describing each of these empires, the prophet’s attention turned upwards to see “one like a son of man” coming with the clouds to God to receive rulership over the whole world.  In this vision, “son of man” like every other instance in the Old Testament stresses the humanity of the person.  As opposed to the beastly empires at last a humane kingdom would supplant all others.  This one resembling a son of man stands for both the nature of the final empire as well as the character of its ruler.  Though we can deduce little more about this mysterious human figure in the book of Daniel, we turn to later Jewish literature to see how they thought about this son of man.

Son of Man in Extra-Biblical Jewish Literature

Outside of the Old and New Testaments, the Jewish people produced a good deal of other literature.  There are historical, fictional, proverbial, and prophetic writings, which comment on major figures and themes in the Hebrew Scriptures.  These sources help us understand how Jewish people around the time of Jesus were thinking about matters.  Two texts in particular that give us a window into how the Son of Man was understood are The Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra and The Similitudes of Enoch.

Written in the first century, The Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra (also called 4 Ezra) provides a glimpse into Jewish thinking about the Son of Man around the time of Jesus.  Here is an excerpt:

4 Ezra 13.3-4
3 As I kept looking the wind made something like the figure of a man come up out of the heart of the sea. And I saw that this man flew with the clouds of heaven; and wherever he turned his face to look, everything under his gaze trembled, 4 and whenever his voice issued from his mouth, all who heard his voice melted as wax melts when it feels the fire.

This “figure of a man” goes on to defeat an innumerable multitude with a stream of fire from his mouth, which instantly turned them to ashes.  Next he calls to himself another multitude of peaceful people who rejoice to see him.  Later on when the dream is interpreted the human figure is revealed to be “he whom the Most High has been keeping for many ages, who will himself deliver his creation; and he will direct those who are left” (4 Ezra 13.26).  A few verses later he is called God’s son (4 Ezra 13.32).  This fictional work helps us see how Jews in this period came to think of the Son of Man as a single ruler, supernaturally empowered by God to conquer.  Before we turn to the New Testament we will first consider another Jewish non-biblical literary work.

The Book of Enoch (also called 1 Enoch) breaks into several major sections which were composed at different times.  The portion of it that interests us is called The Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37-71) where we find the phrase “Son of Man” seventeen times.  Composed in the early first century, this Jewish book speaks of the Son of Man as the agent of God’s final judgment:

1 Enoch 69.27, 29
27 And he sat on the throne of his glory, And the sum of judgement was given unto the Son of Man, And he caused the sinners to pass away and be destroyed from off the face of the earth, And those who have led the world astray….29 And from henceforth there shall be nothing corruptible; For that Son of Man has appeared, And has seated himself on the throne of his glory, And all evil shall pass away before his face, And the word of that Son of Man shall go forth And be strong before the Lord of Spirits. This is the third Parable of Enoch.

Note that again, like The Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra, the human figure from Daniel is spoken of as a particular person (not just as a symbol for God’s kingdom) who serves as God’s agent of final judgment and reward.  Furthermore, in Enoch it is clear that the Son of Man will be the king to rule on the throne of glory before God (the Lord of Spirits).  All but one of the usages of “Son of Man” in Enoch refers to the end-times agent of God.  For both the authors of 4 Ezra and 1 Enoch, “Son of Man” has become a title for a specific end-times figure, not just another way of saying “human being.”

Son of Man in the Gospels

Jesus lived in a politically tumultuous time.  Rome had occupied the land of Israel for nearly a century and tensions were mounting.  Because of the Jewish holy days, which emphasized deliverance from Pharaoh of Egypt, Haman of Persia, and Antiochus of Syria, the Jews had every reason to suspect that God would now deliver them from the Romans.  There had been several messianic movements before the time of Jesus and there would be more after him.  The people were hungry for liberation and home rule.  They looked for divine intervention and the dawn of the messianic age.  In such a tinderbox, it would have been suicide for anyone to claim to publicly self-identity as the Messiah.  Generally speaking, even when people found out that Jesus was the Messiah, he told them to keep it quiet.  (Obviously, this policy changed after his death and resurrection when Christ followers began proclaiming Jesus’ identity to all the nations.)  Before thinking more about why Jesus preferred calling himself the Son of Man over the Messiah, we need to overview the biblical data.

Out of the 88 instances of “Son of Man” in the New Testament, 84 of them are found in the Gospels, all on the lips of Jesus.  The majority of instances of “Son of Man” are when Jesus used the title as a substitute for “I,” speaking of himself in the third person.  Here are a couple of examples:

Mark 2.10-11
10 “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins “– He said to the paralytic, 11 “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.”

Luke 19.9-10
9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

In each of the four Gospels most of the Son of Man sayings are of this type.  The definition is similar to the examples from the Hebrew Scriptures where son of man merely means a human being, not that anyone ever doubted Jesus was a human being (at least not until much later).   However, none of the occurrences of “son of man” in the Old Testament are reflexive—no one ever calls himself a son of man.  Apparently this way of speaking developed after the close of the Hebrew Bible.  Still, I think the two are related.  Since a son of man is calling attention to one’s humanity in contrast to God, angels, or demons, Jesus probably used the title as a humble self-reference.  At least, this would be one way for his hearers to understand it.  This may have been a common way of speaking at the time of Jesus or it was Jesus’ own unique self-designation.  If the latter was the case then probably most people who heard him call himself the son of man would just conclude that he was rather humble to always call attention to his humanity and the fact that his life was a mere vapor which lasts for a moment and then disappears or a flower which blooms gloriously but before long withers away.  In fact, Jesus’ own brother, James warns against speaking presumptuously as if we have more control over our futures than we really do:

James 4.13-15
13  Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

So this is the first layer of meaning.  Jesus is a son of man in that he is a human being who humbly recognizes his limitations.  In fact, quite a few of the son of man sayings are uttered in the context of Jesus’ impending suffering and death.  In order to grasp the second layer of meaning, and pick up where we left our discussion of extra-biblical Jewish literature, consider these texts (one from each Gospel):

Matthew 24.29-31
29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all 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. 31 “And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Mark 14.61-62
61 But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”62 And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

Luke 17.26-30
26 “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; 29 but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 “It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.

John 5.26-29
26 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; 27 and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. 28 “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, 29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

These sayings and others like them in the Gospels clearly show that Jesus understood the Son of Man to be much more than just a humble title expressing his finitude as a human being.  The Son of Man is a title for God’s cosmic agent through whom he will judge his enemies and reward his people at the end of time.  This second layer of meaning is rarer than the first layer, but it is highly significant.  Furthermore, Son of Man can be used as a synonym for Messiah or Christ.  Notice the high priest’s question in Mark 14.61 above.  He asks if Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  Jesus replied affirmatively by quoting from Daniel 7.13 calling himself the Son of Man.  Thus, the Son of Man is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one through whom God will set the world right.  Even so, this higher more narrow meaning of Son of Man would not necessarily be picked up by his hearers.

The genius of Jesus adopting this title for himself was that it allowed for both meanings.  We have already seen by observing some extra-biblical texts that Jews knew of a cosmic figure called the Son of Man who would establish God’s kingdom.  However, we have also seen how in the Jewish Scriptures the phrase always just means a human being.  Thus, Jesus’ hearers would have to decide for themselves who they believed him to be.  Now, if Jesus went around calling himself the Messiah, the Roman authorities would have immediately identified him and his movement as a threat and taken quick decisive action to eliminate them.  Jesus knew this and did not want to cut his ministry short.  So, when someone first met Jesus he or she probably did not immediately think that he was the one who would come with the clouds to subdue all the world governments and bring all people under God’s reign.  But, after hearing him speak, or watching him heal the sick, or witnessing him cast out demons, some would start to wonder.  They might think to themselves, “Is this rabbi the Son of Man rather than just a son of man?”  Was he the one they longed for?  Was he the Messiah?  This was the heart of the question Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi:

Matthew 16.13-16
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

In conclusion, the title “Son of Man” did not automatically mean Messiah or Son of God.  Though all of the usages in the Old Testament refered to an ordinary human being in contrast to God or other spiritual beings, by Jesus’ time “Son of Man” had become the title for God’s agent who would usher in the age to come in power and glory.  Thus, both meanings were true of Jesus and he knew that very well.  He is the humble son of man who suffered and died as the representative of all humanity.  Even so, the good news is that the story did not end with a dead Messiah in Joseph of Arimathea’s cold dark tomb.  God vindicated him, raising him from death to immortality and ascending him to his own right hand—the highest place of authority in the universe.  This humble representative man, this son of Adam and son of God, will come and accomplish his full role as the Son of Man when he is “revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution” (2 Thes. 1.7-8) on the day “when he comes to be glorified in his saints…and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thes. 1.10).  Maranatha—Come Lord Jesus!

[All Bible quotations are from the NASB.  4 Ezra was quoted from the NRSV.  1 Enoch was quoted from Charles’ OT Pseudepigrapha, volume two.]