Son of Man

Son of Man- I've puzzled over this phrase for many years now. When Jesus uses it, is he saying he fully human?  Or is he declaring a distinct and special relationship?  What does he intend?  

My father-in-law, a skeptic, once wielded this phrase as a way of asserting that Jesus was no different than the rest of us.  "But we are all sons of men," he concluded as if the term had been abused.  I knew it couldn't be that straightforward, but that I couldn't articulate why it wasn't.  

This morning while beginning Ezekiel, I came across this distinction in the Believer's Bible Commentary:

"The Lord commissioned Ezekiel, whom He calls "son of man." This important expression occurs ninety times in Ezekiel. Taylor explains the usage:

The first words that God addresses to Ezekiel appropriately put the prophet in his rightful place before the majesty which he has been seeing in his vision. The phrase son of man is a Hebraism which emphasizes Ezekiel's insignificance or mere humanity. "Son of" indicates "partaking of the nature of" and so when combined with 'adãm, "man," it means nothing more than "human being." In the plural it is a common phrase for "mankind".

By the time of Daniel (Dan_7:13-14) this title had taken on near messianic implications, and in the first century it had become a term for the Messiah:

Our Lord's use of the title seems to have taken advantage of the ambiguity between the simple and the technical meanings, so that in one sense He could not be accused of making any overt claim to Messiahship, while in the other sense He did not debar those with the requisite spiritual insight from accepting the fuller significance of His person." 

-Believer's Bible Commentary

It turns out that the book of Ezekiel is the mother of this term's influence.  According to Wikipedia, it's used 107 times in the Hebrew Bible, 93 times of which are in Ezekiel. This article also concludes it is used in one of three ways:

A) as a form of address

B) to contrast the lowly status of humanity against the permanence and exalted dignity of God and the angels

C) as a future figure whose coming will signal the end of history and the time of God's judgement

All this to say that my father-in-law was partially right.  It is a common form of address, but it also took on greater significance with the prophets. When Jesus referred to himself as "the son of man," it was not in the generic sense of humanity, but in the context of a later days figure.

In defense of my father-in-law, he grew up understanding Christianity through the distorted lens of ignorant Southern tradition; his parents in their later years were part of the PTL movement and working class. Marginal literacy can be a barrier too.  My father in law's desire to seek more understanding was a step in the right direction, though he came away with another partial understanding.

I acknowledge that all of our knowledge of God and the scriptures is incomplete.  We are mid story. Regardless, the scriptures deserve our best crack at understanding each day. I believe it's through this wrestling that we grow in our understanding and help others to grow in their understanding too