Son of Man

<p>Barclay's NT commentary on John 5.20, referring to Dan 7.13, "The point of the passage is this. Daniel was written in days of terror and of persecution, and it is a vision of the glory which will some day replace the suffering which the people are undergoing. In Dan 7:1-7 the seer describes the great heathen empires which have held sway under the symbolism of beasts. There is the lion with eagle's wings (Dan 7:4), which stands for the Babylonian Empire; the bear with the three ribs in his mouth, as one devouring the carcase (Dan 7:5), which stands for the Median Empire; the leopard with four wings and four heads (Dan 7:6), which stands for the Persian Empire; the beast, great and terrible, with iron teeth and with ten horns (Dan 7:7), which stands for the Macedonian Empire. All these terrible powers will pass away and the power and the dominion will be given to one like a son of man. The meaning is that the Empires which have held sway have been so savage that they could be described only in terms of wild beasts; but into the world there is going to come a power so gentle and kind that it will be human and not bestial. In Daniel the phrase describes the kind of power which is going to rule the world.

Someone has to introduce and exercise that power; and the Jews took this title and gave it to the chosen one of God who some day would bring in the new age of gentleness and love and peace; and so they came to call the Messiah Son of Man. Between the Old and the New Testaments there arose a whole literature which dealt with the golden age which was to come.

One book which was specially influential was the Book of Enoch and in it there appears again and again a great figure called That Son of Man, who is waiting in heaven until God sends him to earth to bring in his kingdom and rule over it. So when Jesus called himself the Son of Man, he was doing nothing less than call himself the Messiah."

Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT).</p>