THE Son of Man

Earlier tonight I preached out of Luke 9:43-45. It is yet  another passage where Jesus tries to alert the disciples to His impending fate in Jerusalem. They again are unable to comprehend what He is telling them.

There is one statement by Jesus in that passage that has completely confiscated my attention: "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men." The "Son of Man" is what Jesus referred to Himself as throughout the Gospels. The phrase "Son of Man" when used in the Old Testament, Ezekiel for example, referred to the humanity of a person. However by the time of Jesus' ministry "Son of Man" had become a title. It's usage as a title stems from Daniel 7:13-14. It reads:
 ¹³ “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴ He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Every religious Jew in the 1st Century would have been aware of Daniel 7. Notice that Daniel saw someone "like a son of man".  The One Daniel saw was given all authority and power and an everlasting kingdom. The messianic hopes of Israel would be fulfilled by someone like the figure from Daniel's vision. Jesus' usage of the title "Son of Man" for Himself was so common most commentators believe it was a circumlocution for the pronoun "I".

The irony for me is that "The Son of Man" (contrasted against "a son of man") was delivered to the hands of "men". The One that could only be described hundreds of years earlier prophetically by Daniel as being somewhat "like" a man  was handed over to mere men and subjected to their scrutiny. If it wasn't the genius of God for Jesus to rescue and redeem mankind, it would be absurd to me that the One with all power and an everlasting indestructible kingdom would be judged by the representative of a kingdom that wouldn't last the millennium.


That The Son of Man would suffer under mere men to save mankind astonishes me anew today. Like the disciples I can not comprehend the magnitude of that, but I am ever so thankful.