Clearly, according to Matthew's account of our Lord's declarations, the ' Son of Man ' has His period
The High o^ humiliation on earth, living as other Meaning of men (ii^^), sowing the seed (13^^), 'Son of Man' having not where to lay His head (8-°) as He ministers to men (20^^), forgiving even blas- phemy against Himself (12^^) and all indignities ^ J ^12,22^^ down to death itself (17^^ 20^^) — and yet even while on earth having authority to forgive sins (9") and to regulate religious ordinances (12^), and dying only that He may ransom others (20-^). And He has also His period of exaltation, when having risen from the dead (12'^*' 1^9.23 ^q^^) He in due time comes in His glory, surrounded by His servants the angels (16^'^ 25^^ 24^^), and gathers to Himself His chosen ones whom He has ransomed by His death (24^^ 13^^) and, cleansing His Kingdom of all that is unclean, sets it up in its destined perfection (16^^).
88 The Designations of Our Lord
The picture that is drawn is clearly, then, a picture of voluntary humiliation for a high end, with the ac- complishment of the end and return to the original glory. In order to bring all its implications out in their completeness we have only to recall what Mat- thew tells us, on the one hand, of the ' Son ' who is superior to angels (24^''), who is God's adequate and exclusive Revelation, knowing Him even as He is known (11^^), who is sharer with the Father in the one ineffable Name (28^^'^^) ; and, on the other, in the opening chapter of his Gospel, of the supernatural birth of this heavenly Being, breaking His way to earth through a virgin's womb in fulfillment of the prophecy that He should be called " Immanuel," " God with us." For it can scarcely be doubted that Matthew means this name ' Immanuel ' ( i"^) to be interpreted metaphysically of Jesus, and therefore adduces the prophecy as a testimony to the essential deity of the virgin-born child, — and indeed the angel messenger himself is recorded as not obscurely indicating this when he explains that the child whose birth he an- nounces shall be called Jesus " because it is He that shall save His people from their sins " — thus applying to the promised infant the words spoken in Ps 130^ of Jehovah Himself: "And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities."^^ The very name ' Jesus ' for Matthew, as truly as that of ' Immanuel ' itself, is thus freighted with an implication of the deity of its bearer: and this is only a symbol of the saturation of his Gospel with the sense of the supreme majesty of the great personality whose life-history as the promised Messiah he has undertaken to portray.
36 So Dalman, strikingly, Words, 297.
MATTHEW'S CONCEPTION OF OUR LORD
In seeking to form an estimate of the significance of this hst of designations ascribed to Jesus in Mat- Profundity of thew, it does not seem necessary to
Matthew's attempt to draw out separately, as we Suggestiveness attempted to do in the case of Mark, the evidence they supply to the primary emphasis laid In Matthew upon the Messianic dignity of Jesus and that they supply to the recognition of the divine majesty of His person. It lies on the very face of these designations that by Matthew, as truly as by Mark, Jesus is conceived in the first Instance as the promised Messiah, and His career and work as funda- mentally the career and work of the Messiah, at last come to Introduce the promised Kingdom. And it lies equally on their very face that this Messiah whom Jesus is represented as being Is conceived by Mat- thew, and Is represented by Matthew as having been conceived by Jesus Himself, as a " transcendent " figure, as the current mode of speech puts it, i. e., as far transcending in His nature and dignity human conditions.
So clear is this In fact that our Interest as we read instinctively takes hold In Matthew of matters quite other than those which naturally occupy it In Mark. In Mark the attention of the reader is attracted par- ticularly to the Implications of the superangelic dignity ascribed to the Messiah; and he finds himself unpre-
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90 The Designations of Our Lord