JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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"'But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right
hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.' Then the high priest
tore his clothes and said, 'He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more
witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?' 'He is
worthy of death,' they answered" (Mt 26:64-66).
Blasphemy—unless it were true! The "Son of Man" is hardly a mere man, but a divine
being who is coming in the Father's glory to judge the world and to bring all history to an end.
On a couple of occasions this title is used to refer to the present work of Jesus and His
claim to be both Lord of the Sabbath and the forgiver of sins (Mk 2:23-28). Thus this
designation is coupled to the ministry which only belongs to God Himself. Who but God has the
right to define the Sabbath and to forgive sin?
day.
The rabbis understood this all too well. Rabbi Eliezer stated around A.D. 160:
"God saw that a man, son of a woman, was to come forward in the future, who
would attempt to make himself God and to lead the whole world astray. And if he
says he is God he is a liar. And he will lead men astray, and say that he will depart
and will return at the end of days."4
Another Rabbi by the name of Abbahu of Caesarea wrote around A.D. 260:
"If a man says 'I am God,' he is a liar; 'I am the Son of man' his end will be such that
he will regret it; 'I shall ascend into heaven,' will it not be that he spoke and will
not perform it?"5
There is no question as to the divine connotation that the title "Son of Man" had in Jesus'
Eduard Schweizer and I. Howard Marshall suggest that Jesus ". . . adopted the term Son
of Man just because it was an ambiguous term, revealing as well as hiding."6
Though in view of His explicit reference to Daniel's "abomination of desolation" in the
Olivet Discourse (Mt 24:15; Mk 13:14) and His allusions to the imagery of Daniel 7:13 in that
same discourse (Mk 13:26) and in His reply before the Sanhedrin (14:62), both with reference to
the Son of Man, it becomes clear that Daniel 7 was the source upon which Jesus based His own
understanding and to which He pointed in His use of the title.
By using this title Jesus showed Himself to be the one in whom this vision of Daniel was
to proceed to its realization. And in so doing, He possessed a title which combined both suffering
and glory—which pointed to both aspects of His redemptive ministry as the God-Man.