This article or section appears to contradict itself on whether Jesus as the Son of Man is an article of faith in Christianity.(November 2023) |
Son of man is an expression in the sayings of Jesus in Christian writings, including the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation. The meaning of the expression is controversial. Interpretation of the use of "the Son of man" in the New Testament has remained challenging and after 150 years of debate no consensus on the issue has emerged among scholars.[1][2]
The expression "the Son of man" occurs 81 times in the four canonical gospels (mainly quoting Jesus)[3] and another four times in the rest of the New Testament. The equivalent Hebrew expression "son of man" (בן–אדם, i.e. ben-'adam, lit. son of Adam) appears in the Old Testament 103 times.[4]
The use of the definite article in "the Son of man" in the Koine Greek of the Christian gospels is original, and before its use there, no records of its use in any of the surviving Greek documents of antiquity exist.[3] Geza Vermes has stated that the use of "the Son of man" in the Christian gospels is unrelated to Hebrew Torah usages.[5]
At a surface level, the Christological perspective on Son of man ("man" referring to Adam) has been seen as a possible counterpart to that of Son of God and just as Son of God affirms the divinity of Jesus, in a number of cases Son of man affirms his humanity.[6] The profession of Jesus as the Son of God has been an essential element of Christian creeds since the Apostolic age, and while some do not think profession of Christ as Son of man was necessary for Christians, the proclamation of Jesus as the Son of man has been an article of faith in Christianity since at least the Nicene Creed which reads in the English as: "by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man." Christ being a man-God was so important that it was the major issue addressed at the Council of Chalcedon where the heresy of monophysitism was addressed. Monophysites regarded Christ as having a single nature that was a co-mingling of the two, God and Man, whereas the Orthodox Catholic position held that he was completely God, and completely man, simultaneously. These positions in the Creed of the Nicene council, and the primary subject of the Chalcedonian, shows the importance of early Christian belief in the nature of Jesus as both God and Man, so much so that believing the two could be reduced to a third, intermingled, nature was considered heresy.
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