sermonette: What Is 'Son of God'?
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 12-Mar-94; Sermon #118s; 21 minutes
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In the Charlotte Observer last Sunday, there was a long article in the editorial section that compared several modern interpretations of Jesus. Some of you may have seen this. They called it, "Who Do You Say That I Am?" And to me, to say the least, it was a disgusting article because all the modern views of Jesus minimize what He actually is, or was, however you would like to look at it, and take away from His true nature, His mission, and what He actually did accomplish.
Now one view that was mentioned in this article that is gaining quite a lot of acceptance in the scholarly world, is they believe that only 18% of the sayings of Jesus can be considered original to Him. They say that only 18% of what He said, or what He supposedly said, is actually true. The other 82% they attribute to the writers of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And they say they put those words in His mouth. So much for the authority of the Bible.
Other ideas that scholars have are that He was not born of a virgin—that would take a miracle and nobody knows how that that could happen. So it is not true, at least that is what they say. Somehow, they say, He was married at least twice. Why they picked two I do not know. He did no miracles because that would require a God and seemingly the scholars think that there is no God and they have to conclude that He was just an itinerant Jewish preacher who somehow gained a following while He was alive. And somehow He has billions of adherents in today's world. We will just leave that as it is. That is what they say.
What is funny is that the reason that they give for these new ideas is that the Baby Boomer generation left the churches long ago before they were able to comprehend theology and they never learned it. They never learned the Jesus that is even preached in some of the Protestant and Catholic churches in this land and now, as they are getting older, they are facing certain crises in their middle age. They are beginning to feel the years coming on. They are beginning to feel like maybe their pursuit of riches and other things is not really as fulfilling as they thought it was. So they are going back to church.
But what they are doing is they are redefining Jesus to become acceptable to them. He has the same faults that they do. He had two wives. He was born a normal man. He did no miracles. He just held a job as an itinerant Jewish preacher. There is nothing special about Him. One scholar said they are bringing Jesus out of the clouds and putting Him back on the earth. They want a God—listen to this, this is so idiotic, if they would only listen to what they said—they want a God that they can worship so they are making him like a man. Now that just does not make any sense.
As we have learned, our concept of God determines how we worship Him, what our relationship is with Him, and our understanding of His purpose. So we have to know who God is and we have to know who Jesus Christ is. So how well do we understand Him? Do we really know Him? One way that we have learned to get a better grasp upon what He is, is by studying His names. We do this with His Hebrew names quite often.
How many of us know what some of the Hebrew names are, like Yahweh Jireh and Yahweh Ropheka and Yahweh Roi and some of the other ones? So why not with His names in the New Testament? Seems like a lot of times we just ignore those names because He was called God or Jesus or Christ, but He has just hundreds of titles. So we are going to look at just one of them today, and you will see by the end of this sermonette that it has very much to do with this season of the year, the Passover season.
First, let us go to Matthew 16, verse 13. We have already mentioned this slightly. This is where Peter said to Christ that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, but we will go a little bit further up, before he actually makes this pronouncement.
Matthew 16:13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?"
Even while He was alive, there was a controversy about who He was. You will see in the next verse that they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the [other] prophets." They had no idea who He was. They knew He was a great man, and He was probably a prophet, but who was He? They were really only guessing at who He really was. And as a little sidelight, this is a proof that they really did not listen to what He said about Himself. If they had really listened to what He said about Himself, they would have known who He was.
In just this one verse, if you think about it, if you analyze some of the ways that this phrase, the Son of Man, is used in the New Testament, you get a major portion of His nature, His mission, and His identity. They are all revealed in this term "Son of Man" and in the context in which it is used. Except for the pronoun I, Jesus referred to Himself most often as the Son of Man. This term is found both in the Old Testament, 108 times, and in the New Testament 84 times. But in the Old Testament it only refers to God once and that is in Daniel 7:13. Usually it is a synonym in the Old Testament for the word mankind or humanity. Or a specific man. You probably recognize that God, when He addressed Ezekiel, often called him son of man, and that is where most of the cases of this is found in the Old Testament, in the book of Ezekiel. I think it is about 9/10's of the time it is found in the book of Ezekiel as He is speaking directly to Ezekiel.
In the New Testament, it invariably refers to Jesus Christ. In the Gospels, Jesus is the speaker who uses this term every time but once. And you can really say He is every time because the only time that He is not the speaker, the others are quoting Him that He said that He was the Son of Man.
So what does this mean? What does the Son of Man mean? This may sound simplistic, and it maybe is, but it generally means "someone just like you." Who do men say that I, someone just like you, am? I think this is basically the idea Jesus was trying to get across.
Let us go to Hebrews 2, verses 14 and 15. We will also read 17 and 18.
Hebrews 2:14-15 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage.
Hebrews 2:17-18 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.
Now the big thing I wanted you to get here was what I emphasized: Jesus had to be made like us in every way. And the reason for this is so He could make payment for our sins and become our High Priest and Judge. Now why was it so important that it be someone just like us? Well, Romans 3:23 says we have all sinned. From Adam to now everybody has sinned. No one has been able to go through life without sinning except Jesus Christ.
As a whole, as humanity, we are guilty of sins in every category, every stripe of sin man has done, from heinous intentional crimes against other people and against God to sins of ignorance and weakness. All of us are guilty one way or another of a broad spectrum of sin. This is a great burden of guilt. If you think about the billions of people who have lived on earth and all of them have amassed debt—guilt—by sin. Someone had to pay that debt. And that someone, because the debt was so high, because the debt was made by man, that someone had to represent man perfectly.
Now God cannot represent man. If you think about it, He cannot. A spiritual God has set His will and His character to do good. To love both God and man, He cannot and will not sin. You can go to the extreme of saying, God cannot even be tempted. You cannot tempt God with sin. But a man who lived a perfect sinless life could atone for mankind's sins. Especially if He were man's Creator. Think about it.
If the Creator God came to this earth as a man, His life would more than pay for the cumulative sins of all of mankind for all time. But the Creator would have some very heavy restrictions placed on Him. Let us go to Philippians 2. Philippians 2 is very famous, very common scripture.
Philippians 2:5-8 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
So the Creator had some restrictions placed on Him. One, He would have to give up His place in heaven as God's equal. But because of the way He is, He decided that that was not something that He should hold on to with such strength and strenuousness because what would happen if He gave that up and did what He wanted to do would make everything just perfect. So it was worth giving that up for what He had to do. He would have to make Himself subject to all the limitations of mortal man: hunger, thirst, weakness, pain, weariness, loss, and that thing that He could not be tempted with before, temptation. He would have to become a man, humble Himself, and be obedient and die.
And though His Father was God, His mother would be mortal. Thus He would live in the flesh subject to the pulls and weaknesses of it. But He would be equipped with the mind and Spirit of His Father, so He would have an excellent chance to overcome those weaknesses and qualify as our Redeemer.
What an awesome risk He took! He and His Father. They had only one chance to do it perfectly. Only one of Them could go and become the Redeemer of mankind because the other one had to be back in heaven doing what God does. And if one of Them that was the one that was sent failed, that was it. Any failure would doom all of mankind to eternal debt. God is such a law abiding God there could never be payments for sin except by the death of the man that did them. And there would be no hope. What an awesome risk! There could never be true forgiveness unless there were a perfect payment for sin by the sacrifice of a perfect Man.
Now as early as Exodus 6:6, God calls Himself Israel's Redeemer. He says, "I have redeemed you from Egypt." The word that is used there is goel. Sometimes it is spelled gaal. And it means "kinsman-redeemer." Now the Israelites probably scratched their heads when this came up, when this word was used because they wondered how God could be their kinsman. He was God. He was on a different plane altogether. How could He redeem us if He was not our kin? Maybe some of them got around this by saying, "Well, He's our father by creation. He made us. Adam was called God's Son, and so that is how it was."
But there was another part of this word that they probably figured into it. Goel implies blood relationship. That a person who needed redeemed either from slavery or from debt or from whatever else that one would redeem from, was done by a blood relation. The avenger of blood that you read about in the Old Testament, that had to be a blood kinsman, an uncle, a brother, a father, a cousin, something along that line. So how could man's Redeemer be God?
Let us go to John 1:14. I tried to get a lot of common scriptures just to put this all together. Many of you probably know this verse by heart.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us [That is how He did it. That is how He became our blood kinsman-redeemer.], and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
God the Father had to make His Son into a little sperm cell and put Him in Mary and beget a child in order for Him to become our kinsman-Redeemer. He is of the same blood as we. So He lived with us on our terms, struggling under the same weaknesses, burdens, temptations that we do. It says in John 16:33, "He overcame the world." He lived sinlessly and paid for all the sins of mankind for all time. You will find that in Hebrews 9:12 and through the rest of the chapter that there was one sacrifice for sin.
So this is why He took upon Himself the name Son of Man. He was identifying Himself with humanity. As our representative to pay for our sins, every time He used the word, He said, "I am your blood kinsman-Redeemer. I am just like you. And I can do this." But something I am sure that drove Him on was that with the payment of the price for our redemption came great reward. The Son of Man, for His wonderful sacrifice, also takes the preeminent place among all of mankind. He is the Firstborn of the dead. And He has sat down on the right hand of God.
I am going to give you 11 scriptures here where the word Son of Man is used throughout the New Testament, and this is only a little bit less than that of all the scriptures in the New Testament that use that term.
Matthew 9:6, He now is able to forgive sins as the Son of Man. Matthew 12:8 (you may also find this in Mark 2), He is Lord of the Sabbath. Matthew 16:27-28, He will return in glory as King of kings in the Kingdom of God. Matthew 18:11, He is the Savior. Matthew 26:64, He is the Messiah. John 5:27, He is Judge. John 6:27, He is the dispenser of eternal life. John 13:31, He is glorified. Acts 7:56 (and you might want to put Hebrews 1:3 next to this), in Acts, Stephen said he saw Him standing at God's right hand. The writer of the book of Hebrews says He sits at God's right hand. Hebrews 2:6-8, He has authority over all things, everything has been put under Him. In Revelation 1:13, it says He walks among the lampstands or walks among the candlesticks, and this is showing that He is Head of the church.
All these things He got because He was the Son of Man, and He did what He had come to do.
So what can we conclude here? I have got three quick points that I have mentioned already.
1. Son of Man means "someone just like you."
2. Son of Man implies all the restrictions and weaknesses that all men have to face and overcome. As our representative Jesus, our perfect Creator God, paid the price for our redemption.
3. Son of Man implies, on the other hand, all of the potential that men have. Just as the Son of Man lived perfectly and was glorified, so can every man be glorified. All we have to do is follow the example of Jesus Christ. No easy thing. But it does show that the potential is there.
And as you go in these last couple of weeks approaching Passover, it may be an interesting and rewarding study to go through the 84 verses in the New Testament and ponder the verses in which Son of Man appears. It was very interesting for me. Of course, I had my computer out there and I was able to just go through one after the other and see how Jesus used this about Himself.
But I think it is a very interesting study just to see how He talked about Himself when He used this term, Son of Man. I think we will learn more about our Redeemer and His awesome act of love—and His continuing acts of love—that He did for us.
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Sermon Topics
The Gospel
