SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
THE LORD FROM HEAVEN
CHAPTER III
THE SON 0F MAN
Tins preliminary inquiry will help us to appreciate the
significance of the word " Son" in the titles of our Divine Lord. And first as
to His self-chosen designation of Son of Man. Is it, as the Rationalist and the
Jew would tell us, a mere Hebraism meaning no more than that He was human?
The English reader misses the significance which the Greek article lends to the
words in the original. But it is recognised by scholars; and those who wish to
evade it maintain that the Lord spoke in Palestinian Aramaic, and in that
dialect, they declare, the phrase could not have the meaning which the
Christian assigns to it. But we can afford to ignore discussions of this kind.
For words are like counters, in that their value is settled by those who use
them; and there can be no doubt as to the significance which the Lord Himself
attached to this His favourite title.
When, for example, He exclaimed, "The
foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath
not where to lay His head," it is clear that the contrast implied in His words
was between the highest and the lowest. The humblest creatures had a home, but
He, "the firstborn of all creation," was an outcast wanderer. This is the first
occurrence of the phrase in the New Testament, and in Scripture a first
occurrence is often specially significant. And certain it is that on the last
occasion on which He used the title - it was when on His defence before the
Sanhedrim - His purpose was, by declaring Himself to be the Son of Man of
Daniel's vision, to assert His claim to heavenly glory. For while the first
vision of the seventh chapter of Daniel (like the vision of the second chapter)
is of earthly kingdoms in relation to Israel and Israel's Messiah, the vision
which follows, in which He is seen as "Son of Man" in heaven, reveals a wider
sovereignty and a higher glory. In many a learned treatise the question is
discussed whether this be a Messianic title at all; and in not a few this
question becomes merged in an inquiry whether the Jew regarded it as such. But
the Lord's words before the Sanhedrim clearly point to the conclusion suggested
by His use of the title in the passage already cited, namely that it was His
rejection as Messiah that led Him to declare Himself the Son of Man.
And
this conclusion is confirmed by the record of the martyr Stephen's vision. His
murder was Jerusalem's final rejection of Messiah. For he was the messenger
sent after the King to say they would not have Him to reign over them. And as
his eyes were closing upon this world, they were opened to see the heavenly
vision Daniel saw-"the Son of Man on the right hand of God."
It was not His
human birth that constituted Him the Son of Man. That birth, indeed, was the
fulfillment of the promise which the name implied; but the Son of Man, He
declared explicitly, "descended out of heaven." And He said again, "What and if
ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? " When, therefore,
He proclaims that "the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was
lost," came "to give His life a ransom for many," faith responds intelligently
in the words of that noblest of the Church's hymns, "When Thou tookest upon
Thee to deliver man, Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb." For the Virgin
birth was but a stage in the fulfilment of His mission.
Nor was it as the
Virgin's Son, but as the Son of Man, that He claimed to be "Lord even of the
Sabbath," and to have "power upon earth to forgive sins." And, according to the
language of our English Versions, it is as the Son of Man that the prerogative
of judgment has been committed to Him. The Father, He said, "hath given Him
authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man." But a
reference to the original discloses the fact that here the form of the words
suggests that His purpose is to emphasise that it is because He is MAN that He
is appointed to be the judge of men.
The revelation of the Son of Man will
lead the spiritual Christian, who has learned to note the hidden harmony of
Scripture, to recall the language of the creation story: "Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness."(Footnote - Eighty times the words "Son of
Man" occur as uttered by the Lord; but here, and here alone, they are
anarthrous (see p. 14 ante). Bishop Middleton maintains (" The Greek Article,"
p. 246) that the absence of the articles makes no difference; and he accounts
for it by saying that "Now, for the first time, has Christ asserted His claim
to the title: in all other places He has assumed it." But surely this would be
a valid reason only if this were either the first time, or the last, of His
using the words.) "The type," as the biologist would phrase it, is not the
creature of Eden, but He after whose likeness the creature was fashioned. And
this suggests the solution of a "mystery." We are but men, and while angels
behold the face of God, no man hath seen Him or can see Him. We are "flesh and
blood," and "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." And yet as men
we are to dwell in heavenly glory; and that wonderful promise shall be
fulfilled to us-" They shall see His face."
How is this seeming paradox to
be explained? "Flesh and blood" are not essential to humanity. True it is that,
as "the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise
took part of the same. He assumed "a natural body." "For there is a natural
body, and there is a spiritual body." The one pertains to "the first man," who
is "of the earth earthy, the other to "the second Man," who is "of heaven." For
the Lord from heaven is "Very Man," and it is as Man that He is now upon the
throne. But the body is not the man: it is but the tent, the outward dress, as
it were, which covers Him. And He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for
ever " the same who once trod the roads of Galilee and the streets of
Jerusalem. He is enthroned as Man, but no longer now in "flesh and blood." For
ere He "passed through the heavens" He changed His dress.
And we too "shall
be changed." "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly,' The image, or pattern, of the earthy is the Adam of the
Eden creation; that of the heavenly is the last Adam, the Lord from heaven. And
He will "fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to
the body of His glory. For the triumph of redemption will not be in restoring
us to the place which Adam lost by sin, but in raising us to the perfectness of
the new creation, of which the Lord from heaven is the head. The eyes of our
faith are not fixed upon the blessedness of Eden, but upon the glory of "the
Holy Mount"; for "we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for
we shall see Him as He is."
We must bear in mind, then, the distinction so
clearly marked in Scripture between the Lord's essential glory as the Son of
Man, and what He became in virtue of His human birth. Nor is this all. We need
to remember also that, because of His humiliation, He has been raised to a
position and a glory beyond what is revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures, or even
in the doctrinal teaching of the Gospels. "He humbled Himself, becoming
obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God
highly exalted Him and gave unto Him the name which is above every name." In
view of His prayer on the night of the betrayal, how can this be understood?
"And now," He said, "0 Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the
glory which I had with Thee before the world was." A higher glory is
inconceivable, and this glory was His by right: what meaning, then, can be
given to the statement that He was raised to the highest glory in virtue of the
cross? There is only one explanation possible, namely that it is as MAN that He
has been thus exalted. It is not that as the Son of Man, by inherent right, He
has "ascended up where He was before," but that as the Crucified of Calvary He
is enthroned in all the glory of God.
And this may explain what to some may
seem a difficulty. The Apostle John was not only "the disciple whom He loved"
he was one of the favoured three who were with Him on the Mount of
Transfiguration; how is it, then, that while that vision of glory served only
to excite wondering worship, and led the disciples to pray for its continuance,
he was so completely overwhelmed by the vision of the Lord vouchsafed to him at
Patmos? "When I saw Him," he writes, "I fell at His feet as dead." May not the
explanation be that, whereas the glory of "the Holy Mount" was that of "the Son
of Man coming in His kingdom," the Patmos vision revealed Him in all the
fulness of the supreme glory to which He was exalted when "begotten again from
the dead"? He was "like unto the Son of Man"; but "His eyes were as a flame of
fire." "And He had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth went a
sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his
strength."
And it is as thus exalted that the Christian is called upon to
know Him and to worship Him. It is not that there are many Christs, but that
"upon His head are many crowns." Nor is it that the Lord Jesus of Bethlehem and
Calvary is lost to us. "He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, fear
not," is the seer's record of the scene when he lay like one dead in presence
of such awful glory. But though His hand held the stars of that vision of
glory, it was the same loving hand that had so often rested on him in the days
of the humiliation. And though that voice was "as the sound of many waters,"
the words were such as the beloved disciple was doubtless used to hear during
the ministry of the forty days-" I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold
I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and of death."
That
supreme glory was His, I repeat, by inherent right. "Originally in the form of
God," and "on an equality with God," are the words of the often-cited text.
But, not counting this "a prize" (or "a thing to be grasped"), He emptied
Himself - divested Himself of it all.
The inference of the rationalistic
"Higher Criticism" is that during His earthly sojourn He was, in effect, a mere
man, and therefore a dupe of the ignorance and error which prevailed among the
Jews of His time. And this, moreover, not merely in ordinary matters, but in
the sphere that most vitally concerned His ministry and His mission. Strange it
is that even un-spiritual men can fail to be shocked by the profanity
of this; stranger still that even a surface acquaintance with the Gospels does
not enable them to detect its falseness. (Footnote - Here are the words of
the standard text-book of the cult: "Christ held the current Jewish notions
respecting the divine authority and revelation of the Old Testament."
(Hasting's Bibl. Dict., article "Old Testament," p. 601.)
For the
antithesis so often emphasised in His teaching was not between the divine and
the human, but between the Father and the Son. Nor was this the limit of His
self-renunciation. He not merely "emptied Himself" in coming into the world,
but, "being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself." And yet He claimed
to forgive sins, and to be Lord of the Sabbath; and in the hour of what seemed
His greatest weakness and shame He declared that He could summon myriads of
angels to His help.
Is this the attitude, is this the language, of "a Jew
of His time"? As we read the record we realise that we are in the divine
presence of the Son of Man. And yet He humbled Himself to the extent of giving
up even His liberty as a man, and refraining, not merely from doing His own
will, but even from speaking His own words.
The holiest of men could not be
trusted thus, When, in His dealings with the exiles of the Captivity, God
needed a prophet who would never speak save in words divinely given, He struck
Ezekiel dumb. Two judgments had already fallen on the nation - first, the
Servitude, and then the Captivity, to Babylon. But they were warned that, if
they remained impenitent, a third, more terrible than either, would befall them
- that of the seventy years' Desolations; and until the day when Jerusalem,
their boast and pride, was smitten, Ezekiel's mouth was closed, save when the
Spirit came unto him, and God gave him words to speak.' But the
self-renunciation of the Son of God was so absolute and unreserved that He
could use language such as this - The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what
He seeth the Father do" (John v. 19).
"He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth
not My words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same
shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of Myself; but the
Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I
should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I
speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak" (John xii.
48-50).
Are these the words of One who "held the current Jewish notions" of
His time? Blind though they were, the Jews of His time were not so blind as
some Christian ministers and professors of Christian Universities to-day. For
the Jews could recognise that "He taught them as one having authority, and not
as their scribes." From the scribes they were used to receiving definite and
dogmatic teaching, but it was teaching based upon "the law and the prophets":
here was One who stood apart and taught them from a wholly different plane. The
words of the Apostles and Evangelists were "inspired," but His words were "the
words of God " in a higher sense. For it was not merely the body of His
teaching that was thus divine, but the very language in which it was conveyed.
So that in His prayer on the betrayal night He could say not only "I have given
them Thy Word," but "I have given them the words which Thou gavest Me."
So
complete was His self-renunciation and submission that beyond what the Father
gave Him to speak He knew nothing, and was silent. With reference to His coming
in glory, for instance, He declared, "Of that day or that hour knoweth no one,
not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
This was
not within His "authority"; the Father had not given Him to speak of it. But if
and when He spoke, He spoke with authority. "Whatsoever I speak, therefore," He
declared, "even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak." What wonder, then,
that He said again - and the words gain tremendous force from being part of the
very same sentence in which He disclaimed the knowledge of the time of His
return - " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away."
What wonder that He declared His coming to be the crisis of the world!
Chapter Four
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