Jesus: The Son of Man

(This sermon was preached on 12/17/23. There was no recording, but here are the sermon notes)

During this Christmas season, we’ve been thinking about this question that Jesus asked - “The Messiah, whose son is He?” And when you read the Bible there are several ways to answer that question. Jesus is called the Son of Abraham, He’s called the Son of David, He’s called the Son of Man, and He’s called the Son of God. And as we think about whose Son is He, it helps give us a framework for understanding what Jesus is doing and how Jesus is fulfilling everything that God has talked about in the OT. He’s the Son of Abraham, so He fulfills the promises that God made to Abraham. He’s the Son of David, so He fulfills the promises that God made to David. It’s all part of the plan and promises that God has had in place throughout history.

And so this morning, we think about how Jesus is the Son of man. What does it mean that Jesus is the Son of Man?

Read Matthew 16:13-16

Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of man. That’s how He identifies Himself. He wasn’t in the habit of calling himself the son of David, or the Son of Abraham, or the Son of God. He referred to Himself most often as the Son of Man. 

• And that phrase, “son of man” simply means that Jesus was human. He’s a part of humanity. That’s how you see the phrase used throughout the OT - it’s just referring to generic humanity, this is what people are like, they are sons of man [give an example?].

• And so when Jesus says He’s the son of man, He’s being incredibly humble, He’s reminding us that He is one of us - He is truly human. He’s more than that - He is truly God, but He is also truly human. 

And that’s where we start to make connections throughout the Bible, because we read specific things about the son of Man in the OT. We read specific prophecies about what the Son of Man would do. And that’s the good news that we celebrate at Christmas, that Jesus, God Himself, has been incarnated, He was born as a baby boy, and He is going to fulfill these promises that God made about the Son of Man. 

So what does the OT promise will happen with the Son of Man. 

• I had a light bulb moment this last week. I was reading all these places in the Bible where it uses the phrase the son of man, and there was this super helpful footnote in the book of Ezekiel. The first time you read that phrase in Ezekiel, it has that little number by, and it has a note about that phrase, and it says that Son of man is literally written as “Son of Adam.” And that was it, that was the moment where it all clicked. And it made perfect sense, Adam is not only the name of the first man, but it’s also the Hebrew term for humanity. But I just wasn’t thinking about that until I read that. And that got me pretty excited. Hopefully you’ve had that same experience where you read something in the Bible and something clicks, and it gets you excited. 

• Why does that matter? If Jesus is the Son of Adam, then that means Jesus is the one who fulfills the promise that God made to Adam. 

  • Do you remember the promise that God made to Adam? 

    • You remember how things played out in the beginning. Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden, they were living in the perfect world, and then they sinned. They were tempted by Satan, and they disobeyed God, and that sin, that disobedience separated them from God - that’s why Adam and Eve had to leave the garden. That’s what sin does, it separates people from God. That’s why we have a problem as humans, because we’re not perfect and our sin separates us from God. 

    • So Adam and Eve sin, and God shows up in the garden, and God tells Adam and Eve what their punishment would be, and He also told Satan what His punishment would be. And that’s where we get this promise about the son of Adam.

      • Genesis 3:15: God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
        So there it is - the seed, the son of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. The son that comes from Adam and Eve is the one who is going to deal the fatal blow to Satan. 

        • And so when Jesus shows up, and we’re told that He’s the son of Adam, that He’s the Son of Man, then we realize that He’s the one who is going to fulfill this promise that God made in the very beginning. Jesus is going to destroy Satan. 

        • And that’s what we read about in the NT. Jesus didn’t give into Satan’s temptations, Jesus clearly had power over demons when He commanded them to come out of people. Colossians says that Jesus disarms Satan and triumphs over Him (Colossians 2:15), and in Revelation we read about Jesus conquering and sitting on the throne (Rev 3:21), and how Satan is thrown into the lake of fire where He will suffer forever for the wrongs that He has done. 

        • All of that happens because of Jesus. When Jesus shows up, that’s when we know God is making the promise happen. 

          • And that is good news. Our adversary, the one who is always prowling around like a lion ready to destroy us - Jesus is going to destroy Him. 

          • And, not only that, but Jesus actually gives His people the ability to resist the devil. The devil is more powerful than we are. But God is more powerful than the devil. And so if you’re a Christian, God is in you, and you are able to resist the devil and His temptations and attacks. That’s an encouraging thing to think about as we go through temptations and trials in life - God is able to overcome the devil in our lives and free us from Him. 

          • That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to not just know that Jesus was born, but to commit your entire life to Him - to declare that He is your savior and your Lord - because He has the power to guard you and protect you from the evil one. 

        • It’s good news that Jesus is the son of man. He destroys Satan. 

But if Satan is destroyed, that doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. We can’t just blame Satan for everything that’s wrong in the world. We can’t blame Satan for everything that we do wrong. Does he make our life difficult? Yes. But the Bible says that the reason we give into temptation is not because of Satan, it’s because of our own desires. The devil isn’t forcing our hands, we sin because we want to, that’s who we really are. And so even if the devil is taken out of the way, there’s still a change that needs to happen - I need to be changed. We have to be made new if our life is going to change.
And the fact that Jesus is the Son of Man means that He has made a way for us to be changed. Because He not only destroys the devil. Jesus, the son of man who is human, dies as a substitute for our sins. 

• Remember, again, that the son of man is a simple way to say that Jesus is human. And it’s only because He is a human that He is able to be a sacrifice for the sins of humans. Hebrews 2:17, “Therefore He [Jesus] had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

  • How is it that people’s sins are going to be covered and dealt with? When you sin, you deserve to be punished for it. So there’s really only 2 ways that your sin can be dealt with - you have to take the punishment, or a perfect substitute can take that punishment for us. And Jesus is that perfect substitute. He doesn’t have sin that He has to pay for, He’s a perfect human, and so He’s able to pay the price for my sin and stand in my place as the punishment is dealt out. 

    • When Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man, He is telling us that He is going to suffer everything that was prophesied about the Son of Man, and that He is going to die in the place of people. 

      • Because in the OT, that’s what the son of man does, the son of man suffers. 

        • You can see that even in the prophecy in Genesis. The son of Adam is going to crush the head of the serpent, but when he does that, the serpent is also going to bruise his heel. That means that he may kill the snake, but he’s also going to get bitten by the snake. And when you get bitten by a poisonous snake, you die. That’s the point. And so even in that prophecy, you can see that the son of man is going to have to suffer. 

        • And that’s the consistent pattern in the OT, because when God talks to Ezekiel in the OT and he nicknames him the son of man, he tells Ezekiel (in chapter 2) that he’s going to have a life of hardship and suffering. The exact phrase is that He would suffer at the hands of a rebellious people. 

          • And that OT pattern of the Son of man suffering is the same pattern we see in Jesus' life. The Son of man has no place to lay His head, He suffers and dies at the hands of people who are rebelling against God. 

          • The son of man came to suffer. But it’s through that suffering that Jesus is able to provide the forgiveness for sins. Yes, He had a life of hardship, but in the plan of God, the very thing that put Jesus on the cross was the thing that Jesus went to the cross to cover. Sin put Jesus on the cross, but it was on the cross that Jesus dealt with sin as a substitute for us so that we wouldn’t have to be punished and we could be forgiven. 

• And so Jesus being the son of man reminds us that Jesus came to earth to deal with sin. 

  • And that’s what we remember at Christmas time as well. What did the angel tell Mary? You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. 

  • It would be an amazing thing if we didn’t have to deal with the devil anymore. But it wouldn’t solve all of our problems because we still have a heart that is bent toward sin. And so we need a new heart, we need that sin to be dealt with. And Jesus can do that. He is able to save us from the punishment that we deserve, He is able to forgive us and cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. And He is able to create in us a new heart that wants to follow Him. And He puts the Holy Spirit in us so that we can overcome the power of sin in our lives.
    Jesus came to this earth and accomplished all of that, just like the Bible had promised in the OT. 

  • There is no other way in the world that we can truly be changed. When we turn away from sin and turn to Jesus, the very core of who we are is changed. Not only is the slate wiped clean and all of our sin is forgiven, but we are changed and given a new heart that wants to follow Him and do what He says. True life change happens when we come to Jesus. 

    • Where do you need forgiveness, where do you need deep, heart-level change? That only happens through Jesus. And so Jesus tells us to come to Him, trust Him, and commit to follow Him completely for the rest of your life. 

    • [[[That’s the message of Christmas, that’s the importance of Christmas, because that change and forgiveness happens because Jesus was born. And you have to respond to Jesus to receive that change and forgiveness.]]] 

So, throughout the Bible we read amazing promises about the Son of Man. He’s going to destroy Satan, He’s going to suffer in order to deal with sin. But there is one more promise about the Son of Man in the OT. And that’s in the book of Daniel. 

• Daniel 7:13-14 says this: “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

  • The son of man didn’t just come to suffer and die. The son of man is going to reign as king forever. 

    • That’s the same promise that God gave to David - God said the Son of David would rule forever. And we see the same promise here. This is talking about the same person - the Son of David is the son of man. And He shall reign forever and ever, and He will reign over the whole world. 

    • And God really has made these promises happen with Jesus. Jesus has been given the name above every name, He has been given honor and glory because He is the son of man who has died and rose again. He is seated at the right hand of God right now, and He really does have dominion and a kingdom. 

    • And so Jesus didn’t just suffer, Jesus is the king of kings who will rule forever in the kingdom of God. 

  • And that’s good news to us and hope for us because we need Jesus to return. We need Him to be king. He’s the only one that can fix everything that is wrong on earth, He’s the only one that can do away with all evil and make everything perfect. And so we wait for Him to come back to earth and we pray that He would come quickly and make everything right. 

  • But think big picture about this. Jesus is given dominion over the whole world. That’s what it says in Daniel. Isn’t that what Adam was supposed to do? You remember what God told Adam in the beginning - be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over everything on earth. 

    • Adam sinned, Adam failed at that, he didn’t have dominion. But the son of Adam, the second Adam as Jesus is called - He is going to do what Adam was supposed to do. He has dominion over everything on earth. He succeeds where Adam failed. Jesus as the son of man, as a human, He does what humanity was created to do. Dominion belongs to Him. And so Jesus, in a real sense, is true humanity, He is the perfect picture of what it looks like to live out the purpose of humanity.

      • So what does that mean for us? 

        • It means that when Jesus changes us, He changes us into people who have purpose and meaning. We’re changed to be like Jesus, so that means Christians are doing what God created people to do. The only way we have true fulfillment and live out our calling in life is by following Jesus. 

          • That matters. We may feel empty or get depressed sometimes or wonder whether the things we’re doing matter. If we’re following Jesus, then we are always doing what God created us to do. 

        • And if Jesus has dominion and rules over the kingdom of God, then not only do we get to be a part of His kingdom, but God says that we will reign with Him (Revelation 3:21). So it’s not just Jesus who is living out the purpose for humanity, but we will get fulfill that purpose too, doing what God created us to do. And that only happens through Jesus. 

Jesus is the Son of Man. He’s truly human. He was born, He was laid in a manger. And as the Son of Man, He is the one who destroys the devil, who deals with sin, and who has dominion forever. 

Jesus is the Son of Man.