664
SO^^ OF MAN
SON OF MAN
case with most of its later occurrences in the Synoptics — in passages relating to our Lord's Passion, or to the glory Avhich would follow thereon. This fact suggests, at least in part, the answer to a further inquiry which must now be made.
i. Why did our Lord adopt this in preference to any other Messianic title? — Nowhere does He tell us in precise terms ; but His usage leaves no room to doubt that its attraction lay in its freedom from the limitations which beset other Messianic names.
(a) First and foremost, it permitted the blending of the conception of the Suffering Servant ivith that of the Messianic King. That was the great en- largement which Jesus gave, in His iise of it, to the title He adopted. True, there was nothing in Daniel's delineation of ' one like unto a son of man ' to suggest such a blending, but there was also nothing to preclude it. Whether the coming of the heavenly Son of Man in glory, and for universal dominion, was to be preceded by a coming in humiliation and a reascension through suffering, the writer of Daniel did not tell. But what the prophet failed to disclose, Jesus revealed. He was indeed the son of man, whom Daniel beheld, but jjassing through a phase of existence anterior to that of which the seer had a glimpse, and a phase which none were anticipating. Jesus was indeed the Messiah ; but the expectations which gatliered about that name made no allowance for that which was foremost in the purpose for which He came to earth. Hence, no sooner did His disciple exclaim ' Thou art the Christ,' than ' he began to teach them [the disciples] that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.' Put even so, — as a fresh disclosure concerning the Son of Man, — the teaching Avas not easy of reception, as Peter's remonstrance showed ; but to have said at that juncture that the 'Son of David,' or 'the Christ,' must suffer and be killed, had been to make the teaching yet harder of reception.
As Dalman saj's (op. cit. p. 265) : ' The name Messiah denoted the Lord of the Messianic age in His capacity as Ruler ; in reality it was applicable only when His enthronement had taken place, not before it. Suffering and death for the actual pos- sessor of the Messianic dignity are, in fact, unimaginable according to the testimony of the prophets. When Jesus attached to the Messianic confession of Peter the first intima- tion of His violent death, He did so in order to make it clear that the entrance upon His sovereignty was still far distant. . . . But the "one like unto a son of man " of Dn 7i<* has still to receive the sovereignty. It was possible that he should also be one who had undergone suffering and death.'
Hence, in reiterated statements to the disciples concerning the death toward which He moved, the invariable self -designation on the lips of our Lord is 'the Son of Man.' See Mk Q^- 1^- si lo^s 1421. «_ and the parallels in St. Matthew and St. Luke. Only when the Crucifixion and the Resurrection were accomplished facts, in the light of which His disciples might discern how false and misleading had been their narrow conception of what Messiah- ship could be, does Jesus speak to them of Himself in other terms : ' Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things ? ' and again : ' Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer ' (Lk 2426- *^).
(b) If ' the Son of Man ' was a title capable of being associated with suffering and death, it was a title already associated with the glorious coining of One who should have everlasting rule over a world in which the powers of evil shoidd no more have sway. That was the form of expectation present to the mind of Jesus as He passed on His way to tlie baptism of suffering, and that was the form of Messianic hope which He sought to strengthen in His followers as He spoke to them, with growing frequency, of the coming of ' the Son of Man.' The
utterances concerning the return of ' the Son of Man ' in glory, and the predictions that ' the Son of Man ' must suffer and die, are in strict correla- tion (see Bousset, Jesus, p. 92 ff". ). It is this coming from heaven, this realization of the Kingdom of heaven u^jon earth, to which Jesus looks forward. Wholly unlike the anticipations entertained by men around Him concerning the Davidic Messiah, the vision of Daniel is that which Jesus again and again calls to mind. He will come ' in the glory of the Father with the lioly angels ' (Mk S^^) ; ' They shall see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory' (Mk 13-''; see also 14"^); ' When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory : and Ijefore him shall be gathered all the nations : and he shall sej^arate them one from another ..." (Mt 25^"''-). This function of separation, of judgment, is not in the Danielle sketch of ' the son of man ' ; it is a feature added by our Lord. In Daniel the judgment is effected by the Most High. It is significant of much, that Jesus, while adopting and citing that prophecy, does not hesitate to modify it in this important particular, and to declare that it is He who will come to be our Judge (cf. Jn 5^').