Son of Man

The phrase Jesus uses of himself more than any other in the Gospels — and one whose force is genuinely disputed, because in the Old Testament the same words can mean simply 'a human being,' while Daniel 7 gives them to a figure who comes with the clouds and receives an everlasting kingdom.

The Phrase Before the Gospels

In the Old Testament the phrase most often means, plainly, a human being. Psalms 8:4 sets it in poetic parallel with 'man': 'what is man, that you think of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him?' Ezekiel uses it more than ninety times, and always as God's form of address to the prophet himself — 'Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you' (Ezekiel 2:1) — where it marks Ezekiel's creatureliness over against the God who is speaking. Neither usage is a title, and neither is about Jesus — Ezekiel is being reminded that he is a man. The app does not link those occurrences here.

Daniel 7:13-14 is the exception that generates the whole discussion. In a night vision 'there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man,' who is brought before the Ancient of Days and given 'dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.' The wording is careful — 'one like a son of man,' a figure in human form rather than a man simply — and the dominion given him is everlasting. Evangelical interpretation has consistently understood this figure as the Messiah, and understood Jesus to be claiming to be him; that is the reading this article works from, and the trial scene below is the strongest reason for it. What a first-century hearer would have made of the passage, and whether Daniel's figure is an individual or a symbol, are discussed further down.

How Jesus Uses It

In the Gospels the phrase appears roughly eighty times and, with very few exceptions, on Jesus's own lips. No one addresses him by it, and no one else applies it to him: when the crowd uses it at John 12:34 they are repeating his words back to him and asking what he means — 'Who is this Son of Man?' Outside the Gospels it is rare; the one clear instance of someone else using it of Jesus is Stephen's dying vision, 'I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God' (Acts 7:56).

Interpreters commonly sort the sayings into three groups. Some concern authority in the present ministry — 'the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' (Mark 2:10), and 'the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath' (Mark 2:28). Some predict suffering and vindication — 'the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again' (Mark 8:31), and 'the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Mark 10:45). Some describe a future coming in glory — 'when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him' (Matthew 25:31).

The trial scene brings the strands together. Asked directly whether he is the Christ, Jesus answers 'I am. You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of the sky' (Mark 14:62) — language drawn from Daniel 7:13 and Psalms 110:1 together. Whatever else is disputed, the narrative presents the high priest as hearing that answer as a claim serious enough to end the questioning.

What the Title Claims

Read from an evangelical position, 'the Son of Man' is a title and a deliberate one. The definite article is doing work — Jesus says 'the Son of Man,' not 'a son of man' — and the sayings cluster around exactly the three things Daniel 7 and the rest of Scripture would lead a reader to expect of the figure who receives an everlasting kingdom: present authority that belongs properly to God (forgiving sins, Mark 2:10; lordship over the Sabbath, Mark 2:28), a path to that kingdom through suffering and resurrection (Mark 8:31; Mark 10:45), and a return in glory to judge (Matthew 25:31).

The trial is where the claim becomes unmistakable. Asked directly whether he is the Christ, Jesus answers 'I am' and then adds Daniel 7:13 and Psalms 110:1 together: 'You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of the sky' (Mark 14:62). The high priest's reaction — tearing his clothes and calling it blasphemy — is the best available evidence of how the words landed on a hostile first-century expert. A modest, self-effacing turn of phrase does not produce that response. It is also striking that the title is almost exclusively on Jesus's own lips: no one addresses him by it, and outside the Gospels only Stephen uses it of him (Acts 7:56). That distribution is itself an argument, because a title invented by the later church would be expected to show up in the letters, where it is essentially absent.

Other Readings, and an Open Question Among Evangelicals

A large body of critical scholarship reads the phrase differently, and the case deserves to be stated properly rather than waved at. In Aramaic, bar nasha could function as an ordinary expression for 'a human being,' or as an oblique way of saying 'someone in my position,' or possibly simply 'I.' Geza Vermes argued this case at length, and on that reading Jesus was speaking idiomatically or modestly and the titular, Danielic sense was supplied afterwards by Greek-speaking churches. Others, following a line associated with Rudolf Bultmann, divide the sayings and treat only some as authentic — commonly holding that Jesus spoke of a coming Son of Man he did not identify with himself, and that the identification came later.

The evangelical reply is not that these scholars are careless but that the evidence runs the other way. The consistent definite article tells against a generic idiom. The title's near-absence from the epistles tells against a church invention. The trial charge makes sense only if the words carried a claim — Darrell Bock's 'Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism: The Charge against Jesus in Mark 14:53-65' is the standard evangelical treatment, and argues the scene is historically credible in its Jewish setting. And the specific weak point in the idiom case is worth naming: the claim that the emphatic Aramaic form was used in the first century simply to mean 'I' has never been supported by an actual example in a relevant text, which is a criticism made well beyond evangelical circles.

One question inside this article is genuinely open among evangelicals, and it should not be flattened. Daniel 7:18 and 7:27 give the everlasting kingdom to 'the saints of the Most High' and to 'the people of the saints of the Most High,' which is corporate language about faithful Israel. Some evangelical interpreters read the 'one like a son of man' as an individual figure straightforwardly, with the corporate verses describing those who reign with him. Others read him representatively — an individual precisely as the head and representative of his people, so that what is given to him is given to them in him, on the pattern of Adam and of the Davidic king. A minority read the figure as primarily a corporate symbol that Jesus then takes onto himself. All three affirm that Jesus is the one Daniel saw; they differ on how the individual and corporate strands in Daniel 7 relate. This article does not choose between them.

Scripture references

Psalms 8:4 — 'Son of man' in poetic parallel with 'man' — a human being
Ezekiel 2:1 — God's habitual form of address to the prophet Ezekiel
Daniel 7:13-14 — 'One like a son of man' given everlasting dominion
Mark 2:10 — Authority on earth to forgive sins
Mark 2:28 — 'Lord even of the Sabbath'
Mark 8:31 — The first prediction of suffering, rejection and rising
Mark 10:45 — 'To give his life as a ransom for many'
Matthew 25:31 — The Son of Man coming in glory to judge
Mark 14:61-62 — The trial answer, joining Daniel 7 and Psalms 110
John 12:34 — The crowd asks 'Who is this Son of Man?'
Acts 7:56 — Stephen's vision — the one clear use by someone other than Jesus