Who is our God? Chapter 8

THE SON OF HUMANITY

What a wealth of truth lies in this common title which the Lord so often called Himself. Very few times does He call Himself the Son of God (John 5:25; 10:36; 11:4), but on about fifty different occasions does He call Himself the Son of Man or Humanity. The expression occurs almost exclusively on the Lord's own lips. The apostles do not seem to use it, although Stephen uses it in Acts 7:56.

Many today hardly trouble to enquire into the implications of this title; the words seem too simple to require any explanation. Yet they are fraught with consequences at least as widespread and far-reaching as the glorious fact of Col. 1:20.

The Jews were evidently puzzled by the Lord's common appellation as is shewn by John 12:34, where they ask, "Who is this one, the Son of Mankind?" Not only so, but it is very probable that the disciples did not understand, at least at first, the import of this name.

Even when the Lord asked His disciples (Matt. 16:13), "Who are men saying the Son of Mankind is?" it is by no means clear that they understood what this expression meant. Peter, undoubtedly, answered the question truthfully, but it may be he answered a question the Lord did not ask or mean. Or did he seek to cover up his ignorance by substituting a statement which could not be gainsaid?

Note in Luke 9:20, where Peter answers the Lord's question by saying "The Christ of God," while Matthew also gives the information that Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of God the Living One," that the Lord charges them to tell no one this fact, but He does say that the Son of Mankind must suffer many things and be killed and rise again.

Note also that the scene here is the district of Caesarea Philippi, right on the very northern confines of The Land, 120 miles away from Jerusalem, all but in Gentile territory. Note that the Lord was about to make His way to Jerusalem to face His agony and death—His death not only for Israel, but for all men.

It has been stated that nothing can bring out the devil in a wicked person more than the spectacle of a Sinless Man. It is quite impossible for us at present to comprehemd the phenomenon of such a Man in the world. But the disciples experienced Him. The chiefs of the nation, however, must have been infuriated and maddened by His spotless and pure life. They failed to convict Him of any sin. The world ever scoffs at holiness.

But there was another factor which must have embittered the chiefs of Israel. The common name which the Lord used of Himself was something which the religious Jew could not tolerate. That Israel as a whole was totally and inherently unfit for the Kingdom of God is proven by the attitude of the throng in Jerusalem in Acts 22. Only when Paul tells them he had been appointed to go "unto Gentiles afar" did they lose control of themselves, and demand that he should live no longer.

Who,then, is this Son of Mankind? He is nothing less than the unique Son of solidaric Humanity. He is a Representative of the whole race just as much as Adam was. The title belongs to the whole race of mankind, just as the Lord belongs to the whole race. For the Lord so often to claim that He was THE Son of all Humanity was something the Jew could neither understand or allow. It was like reducing the religious Jew with his eonian divine privileges to the common rank of the outsider, the Gentile dog. Wishful thinking made the Jew look for a Messiah full of nationalist aspirations, who would overcome the hated Roman yoke. But Jehovah can always do what men do not expect. He sent a Messiah who was and is a worldwide Saviour, able to throw off the universal yoke of Sin.

In fact, we may say that the Lord's continual use of the name, The Son of Mankind, was a constant protest against the Jew's secular conception regarding the Messiah, which tended to nullify His message.

Observe also, when the chief priest questions the Lord whether He is the Christ, the Son of God, the Blessable One (Matt. 26:63; Mark 14:61), although He admits it, He immediately reverts to His more common name, and informs the Sanhedrin that in the future they will see the Son of Mankind sitting at the right hand of power, coming on the clouds of the sky. There must be a deep meaning in this. Why should the Lord, while admitting that He was the Son of God, make so much of His other title? Why did He lay so much emphasis upon this aspect of His life and being?
Some writers maintain that this was in order to guard against the error of denying the Lord's humanity, which crept into the primitive Church very early. As the Lord manifested many unequivocal proofs of Divine power, it was clearly necessary that He should remove any misconception regarding His manhood. Ordinary sons of Adam do not find it necessary to demonstrate that they are sons of mankind. It would be superfluous for any human being to lay claim to the fact that he was a son of humanity. But it was not this that the Lord claimed. With perfect confidence and a complete lack of any ambiguity, He sets Himself forth as being THE Son of Humanity. If this implies anything, it means He was the unique Son of the Race, the special Human Being. He stresses His Sonship-His Sonship with relation to His own Father God.
Other writers have pointed out that the term "The Son of Mankind is really equivalent to the "Seed of the woman" (Gen. 3:15). The two expressions signify much the same—the offspring or descendant of humanity.

If the title were a Messianic one, then we must explain why the Lord asked His disciples whom men said The Son of Mankind was, and why the Lord was asked (John 12:34) to explain the term.

It will be helpful to observe that the title continued all through the Lord's ministry, but ceased entirely after the resurrection (except for Stephen's mention of it in Acts 7) That is to say, the title refers to the Lord's lowly life of suffermg on earth, and ought to be explained thereby.
Let us then briefly examine the features found associated with the life of the Son of Mankind. The Lord is no compound or double being, consisting of divinity, and humanity, sometimes acting as God and sometimes as a man only. He was not on earth living the transcendent life which the Father lives. He lived the lowly life of a man fully dependent on God, suffering the privations of a pilgrim. He was the Ideal Man, in whom the Divine conception of Humanity was fully realized, the True Man, in whom God's righteous and perfect standard was fully attained. He has authority on the earth to forgive sins (Matt. 9:6; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24. Note that each writer carefully emphasizes authority and earth; also Greek does not distinguish between pardon and forgiveness). He is Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8). His appearance to establish the glorious kingdom of God will be like flashes of lightning from the sky (Luke 17:20-24). It is before the Son of Mankind that all the Gentiles will be gathered, when He sits upon His throne glorious (Matt. 25:32). The same Son of Mankind had nowhere to lay His head (Matt. 8:20). Happy are those who are spurned on account of the Son of Mankind (Luke 6:22). Although the Son of Mankind came eating and drinking (just like other people), yet they said He was a heavy eater, a glutton (Matt. 11:19), here we must be careful to distinguish between the two Greek words for eating; esthiein means to eat lightly or moderately; phagein means to eat a full meal). Thus the Son of Mankind was not an ascetic. It was as Son of Mankind that He came to serve and give His soul a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Because He is a Son of Mankind, the Father gives Him authority to be doing judging (John 5:27).

As a youth Jesus progressed in wisdom and stature and favour (or agreeableness) with God and men (Luke 2:52). Just like other men and women, He toiled and travailed, hungered and thirsted, sorrowed and wept, suffered and died. He was obliged in all things to be made like the brethren (Heb. 2:17), so that He may become a merciful and faithful Chief Priest. He had to be perfected or matured through sufferings (v. 10). In no verse is His real and genuine humanity more clearly set forth than Hebrews 2:10,—in order to lead many sons into glory, the Inaugurator of their salvation had to be matured (teleiOsai) through sufferings. No mere simulacrum was He. He had to be tried in all respects, by way of likeness to us, yet apart from sin (Heb. 4:15). Yet God is incapable of this kind of trial (James 1:13). Only as Man could the Lord be tried thus. From what things He suffered, He learned obedience (Heb. 5:8). His entire life on earth had to be a life of pure faith and utter dependence upon His Father, as is shewn by His constant practice of prayer. All His works were performed as The Son of Mankind. Even though He was full of Holy Spirit and thus without sin, capable in a unique manner of experiencing the presence and power of God. He did not evince a wisdom or knowledge which could be described as more than human. Had He shewn on earth omnipotence or omniscience as belonging to Himself, His real humanity would have been destroyed. It is the absence of these features which make His humanity so real that He can truly be The Son of Humanity.
Some have been stumbled and staggered by Matt. 24:36, "Now concerning that day and hour no one is aware, neither the messengers of the heavens nor the Son; except the Father alone." Dr. Bullinger (1837-1913) could not accept this statement as it stood in our Bibles, and had recourse to the argument that the words for "except" (ei mE, if not) signified "if not" Christ was the Father.

We must not, however, in studying the vast subject of God and His Christ, seek to improve upon the sacred revelation. If we seek to put the Lord higher than the Scriptures do, we shall only abase Him, and cause confusion. His umparalleled humilation it was that led to His mighty exaltation. Christendom has been plagued by those who wish to fortify and improve upon the Scriptures. The reason why the Lord while on earth did not possess omnipotence or know everything is clearly stated by Paul in Phil. 2:6-8. Christ Jesus, existing all along in God's form, was not usurping the place or power of God by being, in some respects, equal to God. On the contrary, He empties Himself, talking slave form, and coming to be in humanity's likeness. Obviously He laid aside temporarily His powers. While on earth He is seen as Man, and that is why He calls Himself so often The Son of Humanity. At the same time, God was in Christ. God could be in Him just as in the coming day God will be fully within ourselves, while in the coming age He will be everything within everybody.

While we must not expect to see, in the Lord's life on earth, any complete revelation of divine alnughtlness or perfect knowledge, yet He fully displayed the divine love and righteousness.
In order to be the organic Head of all Humanity, He had to be a true Man, one in whom the Divine Idea realized itself consciously in human form. That is why in His consciousness His sonship towards God was so prominent. In Him God as Son realized His divine life in human form. God's Ideal for the Race was sonship, because Fatherhood implies sonship. This Ideal existed within God and for God. This was the motive power behind the creation. Mankind is to be set over all the works of God's hands (Heb. 2:7). God is not dealing with mere fragments of the Race of Man, because Man is God's Kin or Race.

Note the change which took place at the resurrection of the Lord. "There is given to Me all authority in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18). It is better to read edothE thus rather than "was given," as a form edosthE would be impossible in Greek. It is an aorist form, timeless.
After the Lord's victorious ascension to heaven, Paul cculd write that in Him is dwelling the entire fulness of the Deity, bodily (Col. 2:9). The Lord received back that of which He had emptied Himself. While He was on earth His glory consisted of the fulness of grace and truth (John 1:14). In Him was nothing disagreeable or unkindly, nothing of falsehood. Grace and truth had been known before He came, but through Him came into being the fulness of grace and truth.

As a Man on earth the Lord had to walk entirely by faith in God. We must do the same, every step of the way. He grew in wisdom, just as any man utterly dependent upon God would do. Through His genuine and deep humility and meekness He came to understand what was in man, and thus what is not in man. Only those who know themselves and their weakness and shallowness can perceive the vanity which is in others. Because He was meek and humble in heart (Matt. 11:29), God could illuminate His path in due season. The same will happen to all believers, in some measure, who leave their lives in humble dependence on God. Flashes of illumination will come into the mind just at the right time, which cannot otherwsie be accounted for.

Almost from the beginning Christendom has sought to lay too much stress on the person of Christ, instead of on the revelation of God in Him. From this has arisen the dualism of which we have complained, which can destroy inward peace. The Nicene Creed sought to conserve that it was GOD, none less than God, who was manifest and incarnate in His Son. The early believers indeed beheld GOD in Christ, the God who was the moving Spirit and sole principle and power in His life, the God to whom the Lord ascribed everything.

But at the same time they perceived in the Son of Mankind that which God meant man to be, that which all along God had been aiming at, mankind as His sons, wholly after the Spirit, wholly filled with God. Man, conceived of by God as His Son, comes into manifestation in the fulness of time, and in that life God expresses Himself in human terms. He is Man altogether in union with God, one with God, and from the first possessed by God.

Surely it cannot be aught but error to put Christ in the place of God. To do so is quite contrary to His own teaching. In a great deal of religious literature we find much made of "Christ," whereas very often "God" is hardly mentioned, or if He is mentioned, the subject is dealt with separately. This is altogether wrong, and it is strange that this is not more clearly recognized. Our religion is called the Christian religion, and therefore it has become Christocentric instead of Theo-centric. God, our Father, ought to have the same value for us, and relationship to us, as He had in the case of His Son.

Those who seek to heap honours upon the Son of Mankind, which He ascribed to His Father, force upon their faithful followers a faith which is fictitious and futile. Well do we remember, close upon thirty years ago, a teacher who claimed for the Lord "full Deity," whatever that meant, also the title "The Great God and Saviour," and "The Almighty God." It was maintained that the Lord had "every attribute of Deity," being indeed "absolute Deity" and that on earth He claimed omnipotence. But when he was quietly asked by a questioner, "Did the Lord then pray to Himself?" he was completely nonplussed and had no answer.

Some fine believers have real honest doubts regarding God and Christ. Our aim is to seek to help them to a reasonable belief. We read the Gospels, and observe a Man who acts in everything as a God-filled Man, without a trace of sin, always speaking of God as something other and greater than Himself, praying to His God and putting His trust continually in God, sent by God to do His will, living as a human being, then dying as surely God is unable to die. Can it be that He is actually Himself the God He proclaims, trusts, obeys, and worships?

What higher honour Can we in this life attain than to possess the humble disposition described, nay, enjoined on us, in Phil. 2:1-8? In decent society, he who can beat his breast and apologize gracefully and graciously takes the highest place.

Christ's highest glory lay in His utter humilation and humility. But it was as the Son of Mankind and the Son of God that He stepped to the lowest place, not as the Father. Some have even said that it was as a humble Penitent that the Son of Man went to the Cross on behalf of the Race, but perhaps this thought is not to be found in the Scriptures. The Scriptures make it abundantly clear that God is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ; that Jesus is "Lord" and "The Son of God" and "The Son of Humanity." Paul tells us that God was in Christ. It is God who will be all in all at last, not Christ.

If we cannot be content and satisfied to think of Jesus as Lord, we must be wiser than the Scriptures, wiser even than God Himself, and we must be suffering from serious spiritual malaise.

As some have put it, we dare not create antagonism between faith in Jesus and His own Creed.
It may be true, as that most original and startling writer Du Bose says, that in the Incarnation God completes His Deity. But there is a sense in which the same is true in that grand event described in 1 Cor. 15:24-28, where the Son Himself, by giving up the kingdom or kingship to Him who is God and Father, and becoming subject, exalts His moral glory as nothing else could do, and enables God to become all in all.

Extraordinary thought, that God should thus as it were complete His Deity through a Man, through Manhood.

Were the Incarnation of God in Christ unrelated to the rest of history, instead of being the culmination of a long Divine process, it would be incredible. But, as the culmination of God's timeless scheme, it answers satisfactorily the questions, Why Mankind? and What is Man? It gives explanation to the Universe, for is not Mankind to be placed over the works of God's hands (Heb. 2:7)? The writer of this verse did not trouble to say that only some humanity would be placed over God's works. Mankind is viewed as one solidaric unity, whether in Adam or in the Son of Mankind. Like Adam, the Son of Mankind epitomizes the whole Race. All Mankind is summarized in Him. When God incarnated once for all as Son in humanity all men became potentially His sons. Christ was and is not only God in humanity, but He is, and shall yet place, all humanity in God.

That mankind is one and always has been one may seem difficult for many to believe. Yet consider that the Lord evidently believed this, when He took to Himself the name of being the Son of Humanity. The secret of the "Atonement" was the self-identification of the immanent and indwelling Christ with the human race. As the Son of Man He represents the whole race before God. The moral solidarity of mankind forms the basis of an atonement which is universal.
How true it is that none of us is living to himself (Rom. 14:7). Not a single life can be quite isolated or unrelated to others: Society could not exist without a network of duties and responsibilities, influences and relations. Even if we do not belong to or love the world we cannot get away from it. We are unconsciously involved in all the evils and follies of past generations, and not only so, but our own generation will pass on probably worse follies to its successors. Children suffer for the sins of their parents and even their forebears. One wicked or corrupt person can bring untold misery on many innocent souls. In this life, sin does not always take toll of the real sinners, but often it punishes others. Good and evil are everywhere mixed up in this life. Mankind is one tree, one household, one race. No human being can cut himself loose from all others. When a community becomes degraded, it drags down the individual; and when one individual becomes degraded, he can drag down the community. Noble souls often suffer vicariously for others. The Lord did so, and yet there is a sense in which He was not to be separated from those who crucified Him, because He too was of their race. His identification with the race really intensifies the oneness of mankind presupposed in the atonement. Men and women may be far apart in language, colour, religion, nationality and ways of living, yet He who shared their common humanity can bring them all near to each other in spirit.

Was the Incarnation the culmination of a long Divine process? This view may seem new and strange to many. It was when the fulness of the time came that God sent forth His Son (Gal. 4:4). That means that this event could not have happened sooner. We can readily believe that the life of Christ was an expression in human time of that whichh was inherent always in God. The Cross manifests in time God's timeless love. Why should not the self-emptying of Christ Jesus also have been a timeless event? Some minds have been revolted at the idea of a sudden Kenosis (emptying) by Christ to become a Child.

We ought to look upon the Incarnation as the fulness in manifestation of God's creative work, the fulness of the Divine creative process. The first human then the second Human. But do we mean then, that the Lord was a creature? Assuredly not. We are repelled by the ignorant folly of those who can only see Him as a creature. His human body, of course, was part of the physical creation. But if He was and is the realization and expression in human form of that which was inherent or eternal within God, then He is no creature. The Divine thought and mind and life which were expressed in His Son pre-existed within God. The humanity in which God manifested Himself has its origin and source in God.

We must also consider the spiritual development of Israel, from the time of Abraham to the time of the Lord. The soil had to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah. He could only have appeared in a generation which was earnestly looking for Him. For all we know, the Magi from the East (Matt. 2:1) may have been very pious Israelites. It is unthinkable that the Messiah could have appeared in a nation which worshipped demons, such as may be found in India or Japan. There may have been much devout prayer in the pious and righteous remnant in Israel that God would send His Messiah. The Captivities had cured the nation of its idolatry, and the hateful Roman occupation had made the people groan as never before for deliverance. We may be sure the necessary atmosphere was present, into which the Lord could be born and grow up and attain manhood.

Nations do not produce geniuses all in a day. The special genius of a nation is gradually developed from generation to generation. In England, Shakespeare could not have been produced in any other generation. The same can be said of any great man. Had we ourselves been born one thousand years ago, we should have been very different, in a great many ways. Development, whether political or religious, is handed on by inheritance.

The Lord was as a root out of a dry ground, but His spiritual environment must have been of the right kind. In a way, the spiritual development of the nation attained its fruition in His birth.
Today, the Jew ought to behold in the Christ the very culmination of his own ancient Hebrew faith and ancestry. He ought to recognize the same God as gave the Law, and spoke in the prophets, coming to Israel in lowly human form as the revelation of the secret of God.
Just as mankind was conceived in the image of God, so the human can become the manifestation of the Divine. All along God must have longed to enter the human race. The prophets of Israel had seen the Divine plan dimly, because the spirit of Christ was in them, and they looked forward to Him. Probably they grasped much more than we imagine. Some of them had beheld wondrous and sudden appearances of Jehovah, in the form of a Man. But if He was about to enter right into mankind, as a descendant of Adam, He must be born as a Child and grow as a Child and learn as a Child. Only one nation could have produced a Mary and all the necessary religious and theocratic background for His training and education.

At last, in the fulness of time, the grand Divine Idea realizes itself consciously in human form. He who was continuously delineated in the Hebrew Scriptures as the one who would in due time manifest Himself, at last comes right into history. God realizes Himself as the Son of Humanity, and Man realizes that He is the Son of God.

Who is this Son of Man? He is the unique and only Son of all humanity as representing all mankind before God. Never yet has humanity had any corporate interest in itself. But God in Christ has—and His interest is timeless, eternal, and unlimited. Any other view must be an insult to Him. To aver that one human soul could remain in lostness permanently is virtually to deny the true import of the Lord's title "The Son of Humanity." That name is a guarantee of what God will yet accomplish. If it is verily true that God loves the world, there must be Divine, imperishable love for every member of Adam's race—that race which God Himself entered as The Son of Mankind. Did He not come into the race to save it?

The Kingdom of God—does that not signify simply God Himself in humanity, God permanently incarnate in mankind in Christ, God eventually tabernacling in mankind (Rev. 21:3), leading up to the glorious Finish or Consummation of 1 Cor. 15:28, when God is all things in the universe of mankind?

Only in manhood, as Man, can God become intelligible to us. That is the measure of His self-revelation, but it is a manhood raised to a level not otherwise known to us, though a human level. Christ, the true centre of the whole race of man, our only link with the Father, is God self-conscious of and in His humanity.

The disordered and broken heart of humanity can only be set right and comforted through beholding in the Son of Mankind a truly human heart-even the very heart of the Father Himself; God's great human heart, hurt and sore through the sin of His creatures, causing sinful men and women to realize the measure and the awfulness of their own guilt and shortcomings.
Here we discover the root and the kernel of that glorious Good News which can bring every sinner back into the Father's heart.

End Chapter 8 (Alexander Thomson)