Encore Post: Jesus does not use the title Son of God to refer to himself, even though we use it all the time for him. Instead, he most often uses the title the Son of Man. Yet, it is rarely used by anyone other than Jesus. In the Old Testament, God calls Ezekiel “Son of Man.” and Daniel talks about a vision of the Messiah, who would be “like a son of man.” (Daniel 7:13-14) Likely Jesus is claiming this prophecy with his favorite title.
Yet in this title, Christians see more. The Eternal Son of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Messiah is not ashamed to become one of us. He takes not only our nature, born in our form, but calls himself our brother, made like us in every way. (Hebrews 2:16-17) He experienced every temptation that we do, except he did not sin. God does not consider this physical world, our bodies or lives inferior, as if only the spirit matters. After all, he made it and called it “very good.” (Genesis 1:31)
More than that, even after he died for our sins, Jesus did not shed his body the way we discard our clothes after a hard day of work. He rose again after three days, keeping the wounds that were the price of our salvation and still lives as one Lord Jesus Christ, both Son of God and Son of Man to this day and forever.
The title, Son of Man, also reminds us that the Almighty and Everlasting God, whom we can never fully understand, does not live far away from us at a distance, but comes to us in a way we can understand. God in his glory we cannot grasp, but God in the person of the man Jesus Christ, we can understand. (John 1:18). He is God-with-us, and even though he is at the right hand of God in Heaven, is with us until the end of time itself — and beyond. (Matthew 28:18-20) He comes to us even more so in the Lord’s Supper, where he gives us his body with bread and his blood with wine to eat and to drink. That is why we thank and praise God that he is our Lord — Son of God and Son of Man.
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Son of man always meant to me at least that God became flesh. I other words God in the flesh.
In that you are in good company with the early Church. Arians, especially the Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses, use it as proof that he is not God. They say that if he is the son, he could not be the Father. Of course, silly Arians, we don’t claim that the Father and the Son are the same. 😉 Just that they are both God.