Growing In Godliness Blog
“The Son of Man”
Categories: Author: Paul Earnhart, God, JesusThe Son of Man
By Paul Earnhart
When Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, He spoke of Himself as the “Son of Man.” (Jn. 3:13) Jesus used this expression many times to identify Himself.
It was an accurate description for He was most certainly human. He was born of a woman, a descendant of Adam and of David. At the same time, it was a description which His enemies could not use against Him. If He had called Himself the Son of God in the early part of His ministry, they would have killed Him instantly, and His work of teaching could not have been done.
But for those who believed in Jesus, the expression, Son of Man, had special significance. For one thing, it tended to identify Him with the prophet Ezekiel who was also called the “Son of Man”. But more than this, it identified Jesus with two Old Testament scriptures which were recognized as prophecies of the Messiah. One is Psalm 8:4 where the Psalmist wrote: “What is man that You are mindful of Him or the Son of Man that you visit Him?” The other is Daniel 7:13 where Daniel wrote: “I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like the Son of Man was coming. And He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him.” When Jesus called Himself the Son of Man, He was discreetly claiming to be that Son of Man mentioned in the Psalm and in Daniel. He most certainly was not denying that He was also the Son of God.
We should be grateful that Jesus is both the Son of God and the Son of Man. It is this that makes Him our perfect high priest, our mediator and God. We were separated from God by our sins. We needed a mediator to plead our case before God, but no man could qualify. A mediator must be unrelated or equally related to both parties. As the Son of God, Jesus could stand before God as His equal, and as the Son of Man He understands our weaknesses and can plead with God on our behalf. He is our pathway to God. (Jn. 14:6)
