Even Youths

Day 2: Matthew 26:63b-68 The Christ, Son of God, Son of Man March 30, 2010

These titles – and thus, the charges against Jesus – are widely misunderstood. Today, ‘Son of God’ is often taken as a reference to Jesus’ divinity, and ‘Son of Man’, to his humanity. This is not what the titles meant in Jesus’ time.

The high priest first asks Jesus, “Do you claim to be the Messiah, the Son of God?” Literally, ‘messiah’ means ‘anointed one’, and is a reference to a special king whom the Jews expected one day, someone in the model of King David but greater, a God-anointed ruler who would lead them in victory against their enemies and in worship of their God, bringing economic prosperity and international supremacy.
This king would also be ‘the Son of God,’ but not in the sense of being divine. Jewish theology – much like contemporary Muslim theology – emphasized the transcendence, the otherness, of God. He is eternal, omnipresent, omniscient; he cannot take on the limitations intrinsic to human form. Instead, much as in traditional Chinese culture, ‘son of God’ was a metaphorical expression affirming that the king ascends to the throne not by happenstance or by clever political maneuvering, but by divine choice. Of all people, the king has special favor from God, and a special relationship with him: he is ‘son of God’.

While these two titles captured the height of Jewish ambitions for its longed-awaited ruler, they are not sufficient to describe Jesus’ identity and role. He claims to be greater still: ‘the Son of Man’. The title comes from Daniel 7:13-14, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man [a human-looking figure], coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” By this title, Jesus claims that he will reign alongside God in heaven, that he will rule all nations, that he will be worshiped by all peoples, forever and ever.

Christians today take such claims for granted; after all, Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, eternal Son, God-incarnate, creator of all, redeemer of mankind. But it is no wonder that the high priest was outraged by such claims. To him, Jesus was a rural peasant, a self-appointed preacher from backwater Galilee, a rabble-rouser raising hopes of divine intervention, likely to lead – as others had before him – to brutal suppression by the Roman army.

These two options persist today. Either Jesus is unique among all people of all time, or he is a blasphemer and a heretic. Either he is rightly worshipped, or he was justly executed. Those were the only options available in his day; they are the only options available today.