“The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.” (Luke 9:22)

“The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.” (Luke 9:22)

Those who followed Jesus used numerous titles in referring to Him: Christ, Messiah, King, Rabbi, Teacher, Master, Lord, Son of God, Savior. Yet when Christ speaks about Himself, He uses the expression huios anthropou or “Son of Man.” Jesus utters it 81 times throughout the gospels and He is the only one that ever refers to Himself by such a phrase. So why does Jesus call Himself the Son of Man instead of the “Son of God?”

Son of Man is an Old Testament term found in the Prophecies of Daniel (7:13), Ezekiel (37), and Psalm 80. It was a type of “code” among the Jews to denote the Messiah. Putting it into our own modern parlance, son of man to the Hebrews meant something akin to “The Man.” Thus, Jesus was speaking to Jewish ears saying, “I’m the Man” or “I’m the One you’ve been expecting;” the long-awaited Messiah. The expression stems back to the Proto-Evangelion found in Genesis, when God says to the serpent (Satan), “I will put enmity between you and woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). Jesus is the “seed” of Adam (which means “man”) that crushes Satan by becoming the atonement to sin and conquering death. Jesus is a son of Adam (i.e. “son of man”) and is often referred to in the Church’s theology, hymns, and prayers as the “New Adam.” 

Fr. John