JESUS CHRIST
JESL'S CIliaST
0i'3
Gesch'-. p. 381). Xiir can this conclusion really be avoided by such an expedient as Iloltzinann's, who calls attention to the comparative rarity of the title in the early chapters and early stages of the history (p.;/. in Mk only 2"''-S), and would explain it during this period impersonally, and only after St. I'l-ter's con((!ssion personally. Against this and again.st more sweeping attempts (e.ij. by Martineau, t::)eat of Authority, p. .i'-VJ) to get rid of the .Messianic signilicalion altogether, it may be enough to point out that if reasonable critics like Iloltzmann allow, and a narrative such as that of the Temptation seems to prove, that Jesus from the first really iussumed the character of the Messiah, and if our oldest authorities with one consent treat the title Son of Man as in the later stages Messianic, it is fair to presume that it is Jlessianic also in the earlier. If the Similitudes of the Bk. of Kuoeh are pre-Christian, this conclusion would amount almost to certainty.
It is, however, fair to argue from the natural sense of the phrase in Aramaic, that by His use of it, Jesus did place Himself in some relation to humanity as a whole. And we are led to form the same inference by the conspicuous use of the corres])onding Heb. in Ps 8* ' What is man that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man that thou visitest him?' Here the parallelism shows tliat 'son of man' = 'man.' We also know from He 2''-'" that l\u: psalm was at a very early date applied to Jesus as the Messiah, and at a still earlier date (the Haptisni) we have tlie neighbour- ing I's 2' applied to Him. It seems to follow, or at least to be a very natural presumption, that these two psalms early became an object of close study to Jesus, and helped to give outward shape to His conceptions.
Ps 8 seems specially adapted to fall in with these, as it brings out with eijual strength the two elements which we know to have entered into the consciousness of Jesus — the combination of lowli- ness with loftiness, the physical we.ikness of man as contrasted with his sublime calling and destiny. We can see here the appropriateness of the applica- tion of one and the same title to Ilim who, on the one hand, • had not where to lay his head,' and who must needs ' go as it was written of him,' and who yet, on the other hand, looked to come again ' with power ' in His Kingdom.
We do not like to nso such very modern phrase- ology as the 'ideal of humanity,' 'the representa- tive of the human race ' ; and yet it would seem that Jesus did deliberately connect with His own person such ideas ;is these : He fused them ;is it were into the central idea of Messiahship, and we can .see how the Jewish conception of the Messiah w;us enlarged and enriched by them. If the Mes- siah comes out in the claim to forgive sins, it is the Son of Man whose mi.^sion it was 'to seek and to save that whicli w:us lost' (Lk 19'"), 'not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many ' (Mk lO"!!).
Here we have another connexion in which the name is frequently u.scd. The prophecies of the Ke.surrection and of the Second Coming are closely associated with the fatal end of the First : ' The Son of Man must suffer many things, and bo re- jected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the •scribes, and be killed, and after tliree days rise again' (Mk S'" etc.). If we a.sk for the OT original of this ' Saviour through suffering,' no doubt it is the Second Part of Isaiah, and especially Is 63. Still, it would be rather too nmch to de- scribe this idea as embodied in the title 'Son of Man.' It is embodied in the rharncter of the Son of Man a.s conceived by Je.sus, but not exactly in the name. The name which expressed it w.is the 'Servant of Jehovah' (irofs nvpiav) ; and this name
was undoubtedly applied to Christ by the Church as soon as it began to reflect upon His life and mission (cf. Ac 3'3=« 42^- so, JU 12'"), but we have no evidence that Jesus used it of Himself. One reason for the choice of the name • Son of Man ' probably was that it admitted and favoured these associations, even if it did not directly suggest them.
This comprehensive and deeply significant title touched at the one end the Messianic and eschato- logical expectation through the turn which had been given to it in one section of Judaism (the Book of Enoch). At tbe other and opposite end it touched the idea of the Suffering Servant. But at the centre it is broadly based upon an infinite sense of brotherhood with toiling and slruggling hmnanity, which He who most thoroughly acceptcil its conditions was fittest also to save. As Son of God, Jesus looked upwards to the Father ; as Sou of Man, He looked outwards upon His brethren, the sheep who had no shepherd.
(iv.) Son of God.— Only once in Synopt. (Mt27") and in a few plai-es in the Fourth Gospel (Jn 10^, cf. o-'' '.•■'» for. lei:. 11') is it hinted that Jesus directly assumed this title. It is repeatedly given to Him by others — by the Baptist (Jn !*•), by Xathanael (Jn l*'-*). by Satan hypothetically (Mt 4'), as also by the crowd (.Mt 27*"), by the possessed (Mk a" !I), by the disciples (Mt 14^), by the centurion (Mk 1589= Mt 27^-'), and by evangelists (Mk 1' v.l. Ju.'5's 2031).