Followers of Jesus Christ don’t need to be told that He is the Son of God. In case all the scripture-filling wasn’t enough to convince us, God Himself took the time to introduce Jesus as His Son at his baptism (Matthew 3:17) and again at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).

Why then did Jesus refer to Himself as “Son of Man” during His time among us? Jesus often referred to His Father in Heaven, but in the Gospels, He never calls Himself the “Son of God”. Even when the High Priest pushed him by asking, “Are you the son of God?” Jesus replied, “It is you who call me that.”(Matt 27:62-65) What does it mean? Why would Jesus call Himself “Son of Man”?

The Scriptural Explanation

The most ascribed explanation of Jesus’ use of the “Son of Man” title is that it refers to a vision presented to Daniel about who will come from heaven to reign over the earth.

In Daniel 7:13-14, he writes, “I saw someone like the son of man coming with the clouds of Heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into His presence. He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world so that people of every race and nation would obey Him. His rule is eternal- it will never end. His Kingdom will never be destroyed.” (NIV)

The title “Son of Man” was messianic and would have been recognized as such by the majority of Jews at the time. Jesus basically calls Himself the Messiah every time he uses the title. In this way, he justifies his authority and power.

The Literal Translation

Jesus also used the term “son of man” to describe the prophet, Ezekiel. In those cases, he was simply calling him a man, not the Messiah. A son of a man is a man.

In Jesus’ case, he was fully God (John 1:1) and a man (1:14). He was the Messiah, the Christ. He was also a human being.

There are those who would spend time worrying about which times Jesus called Himself “Son of Man” and meant Messiah and which times he meant that He was a man. This is wasted time as He is always both.

Scholarly Debate

Both of these explanations have been accepted for years. More recently, however, Bible scholars believe “son of man” was a common Aramaic phrase used to refer to oneself, comparable to “yours truly” instead of “I” “me”.

Since it was Aramaic, it explains why Jesus used the phrase extensively while Paul never used it (except when quoting Jesus.)

Another newer theory draws less enthusiastic support but bears discussing. Mark wrote his gospel first during the Roman occupation. Writing about the Son of God could have been interpreted as an affront to Caesar’s authority. Some scholars theorize Mark succumbed to fear of the anti-Christian Romans by using the “Son of Man” title in his gospel. Authors of the other gospels followed suit.

Acceptable Conclusions

Biblical Hermeneutics, or the translation of Biblical scripture, has rules. One of those rules is to use scripture to explain scripture.

The original explanation of Jesus referring to Daniel’s vision is the only one that meets that criteria. Knowing that any scripture-studying Jew would recognize the title “Son of Man” as Messianic meets another rule about translating meaning in context or historical perspective.

Regardless of all explanations, we know Jesus was both fully man and fully God. That is not open for debate.