Daniel Lesson 27

The Son of Man and His Kingdom – Daniel 7:9-14

So far in the book of Daniel we have dealt with the animal like creatures created by spiritual forces acting upon the sea; the spiritual forces, the four winds, act upon the sea, which is a symbol of the spiritual forces acting upon doctrinal unsaved humanity. The symbols of the book of Daniel are not meant to be confused; there’s no reason why God would give Scriptures impossible of understanding to man if we’re supposed to obey the Scripture. Obviously you cannot obey something if you cannot understand it. And so the popular saying that Daniel is a book impossible of understanding are just simply because many ministers are too lazy to study because they’re too involved in other activities, good in themselves but not of highest priority, and this particular section of the book of Daniel in order to study correctly requires an understanding of Aramaic and if you do not understand Aramaic you’re going to have obvious problems studying the text of the book of Daniel.

The other reason is because the book of Daniel, particularly this chapter and the following chapters, is what we call apocalyptic literature. And apocalyptic literature is deliberately disguised in symbols because it was written to suffering believers. It is not like a book like the Gospel of John that is open to the world. It is not an evangelistic book; it is a book for mature believers who have to build into their souls the structures that will enable them to take hell on earth, literally. Therefore apocalyptic literature is suffering literature, it’s literature written for a believer under extreme, extreme pressure. For this reason it is written that only those who have studied Scripture for some time can understand.

We have studied these animals, the beasts that have come, and we have studied the last beast in particular, that beast of Daniel 7 that has the man-made features of iron teeth and bronze claws, and last time we studied how Rome had these features historically. We go back in history and ask ourselves what is different about the Roman Empire compared to the Grecian Empire or the Persian Empire, or the Neo-Babylonian Empire. We come to several conclusions, one of which is that the Roman Empire is known, not necessarily for its military cruelty. As we said, Roman legions were cruel, but they did nothing like the Assyrians where they spread eagled the people and peel their skin off while they were alive. So it wasn’t that the Romans were militarily more cruel, but what is interesting in this symbol is that the very parts of the beast that do the damage are the man-made parts of the beast. It’s the claws that are bronze metal, whereas all the other symbols are animals, they are natural. And it’s the teeth that are iron, metal refined by man, and therefore we ask ourselves what damage did the Roman Empire do that is particularly different than the Greeks, the Persians and the Neo-Babylonians and did that damage or that thing, or that characteristic of the Roman Empire, did that characteristic somehow expose itself so we can look back in history and find it?

Sure enough, when you go back to the Empire period, beginning with Caesar Augustus, we find that the Roman Empire did something that no ancient people had ever been able to do. The Greeks have never been able to pull off their highest aspirations, which was to create the perfect polis or city. Aristotle and Plato dreamed of the perfect city in which man could lose his animal like nature and become truly man. But the Greeks could never get together. Greece is a mountainous country and all they could do is make a city state here and a city state there, but the Romans were the geniuses when it came to organize. The Romans were known for their discipline, for their laws. The Romans did not have outstandingly brilliant generals or creative leaders, if you want to include Cicero, but those of you who have taken Latin know that Cicero is rather dull reading after the first chapter. So if that’s the kind of a plodding Roman statesman that you get in third year Latin you can understand that the Romans were not quite as creative as the Greeks, but the Roman brilliance came in their ability to administer, to pass laws.

And so beginning with Caesar Augustus we have a tremendous organized program putting into effect the classical ideas of Plato and Aristotle, that man can remake reality according to his own autonomous thinking, that Caesar becomes a source of law. In the other ancient Empires, Persia, the Babylonians, and to some extent the Assyrians and Egyptians, law was always thought of as something the gods gave man. True, the men were deluded we would argue, but at least they thought they were doing a god’s will. But beginning with the Romans Caesar becomes Dominus et Deus, lord and God, and when Caesar becomes Lord and God, Caesar becomes the author of all law and legislation. And therefore it is man-made autonomous thought, unrelated to any higher standard; there are no absolutes to which Caesar bows his knee. Caesar is the absolute, and thus you have the government now becoming absolute in and of itself, legislation is created totally autonomously; it is no longer held in check and we have the man-madeness of Rome appear.

And it’s that man-madeness that would later crush the early Christian church, or try to, because according to Rome there was a priority and as long as you followed the priority you were all right, and that was law above religion. And if the Romans granted you a legitimate religious status, as they did for example, Judaism, you were all right. But if the Roman Empire did not grant you legitimate status such as it never did to the Christians in the first two centuries, you were in trouble and thus Christianity was mowed down and thousands and thousands of early believers lost their lives under the monster. And in particular the reason why was because the believers of the early church refused to salute Dominus et Deus to the government. It was not Dominus et Deus, it was Kurios Kurion, the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ and He alone would command that one thing.

I said last time there was a famous Roman nobleman who, to show how a Roman would think about Christianity, apart from doctrine, he had a hobby of collecting idols. I don’t know whether he had a special room in his house or not but he just collected lots of idols and when the Christians came along he made an idol to Jesus and stuck it in there along with the other idols. Now that was precisely what the early church refused to do; it refused to have Jesus part of the other ones, He was above all other ones, including above Caesar. And it was that that the man-made monster could not stand.

Now there’s some corrections to what I said last time, we had a professor of Latin history in our congregation and when criticism is offered this way I pass it on to you. First of all, what I said was the old Roman republic, that terminology is confusing; it would better be stated the pre-civil war period. So if you took notes and you have those four stages of Roman history, the old republic, the civil war period, etc. forget what I told you about the republic, it’s bad terminology. So it was just the pre-civil war period.

Secondly I said that Julius Caesar was a homosexual. He was, but he was also a heterosexual, and this is the way that all Romans, Caesars were, this is just part of political life, you had to please everybody, and they didn’t feel adverse doing so. So it’s not particular criticism of Julius Caesar, they all had their homo and hetero tendencies. And the other criticism that I had was that you have to be careful about quoting praises to Caesar, Caesar Augustus and his followers, simply because you have back in Rome the same kind of thing that the Russians have come up with Solzhenitsyn, and that is that they have ways of discarding the literary people who dare criticize the government. Ovid found himself on a prolonged vacation in what is now Yugoslavia for his handling of Caesar Augustus’ daughter, he made certain remarks that the Caesar’s daughter might have been found at a few parties, and so he had a paid vacation for some extended time across the Adriatic Sea. However, for the quotes that I did give you, the Roman army Colonel, and Caesar Augustus’ own quote, that criticism wouldn’t directly apply since Caesar wrote one of them himself and the army colonel wrote several generations later.

So much for the beasts, we’ve dealt with the four beasts; we have said that the fourth beast has not yet seen his full ascendancy. You see, that fourth beast was Rome, we know that, but according to prophecy Rome is supposed to finally emerge into a ten nation confederacy which it hasn’t done yet. And it’s that ten nation confederacy that will be in existence when the beast finally arises and Jesus Christ returns. Now obviously either prophecy is false or prophecy is true and if prophecy is true we have to argue that that hasn’t yet occurred, there’s no time when you have ten kings in this kind of a confederation. So we have to say that the Roman Empire has phased down in history; it’s down but not out. The same kind of man-made structure will again emerge from the cultural heirs of Rome, which would be Western Europe and [can’t understand word] powers. And eventually in the future will amalgamate into a ferocious monster controlled by the beast. This is why the Christian ought always to have his wits about him in the area of politics and citizenship responsibility. The Christian who knows his doctrine looks askance at man-made panaceas to political problems, particularly when such man-made panaceas begin to call for centralization of power on a massive scale. This could be the resurrection of the fourth beast of Daniel.

All right, verse 9, now the scene shifts, and Daniel sees this time not a beast but a man in his vision. And with this part of Daniel 7 we come to a very complicated passage of Scripture; a passage complicated enough to demand at least two times to study because there are a number of questions that we have to ask of the text. First let’s look at the text, verses 9-14, go through and observe some of the things we see, then after we get through observing them we’ll start asking questions and trying to relate this down to the person of Christ. From time immemorial this passage has been taken to refer to Jesus Christ. It was taken to refer to the coming Messiah by pre-Christian Jews, so the question is, as we read through it, there are some things that look simple until you begin to look at the details and then all of a sudden the passage becomes confusing and I hope you’ll feel the confusions of the passage and then we’ll go to the New Testament and try to show you some of the resolution of these confusions.

Daniel 7:9-14, “I was beholding [beheld]” present participle in the Aramaic, “I was beholding till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. [10] A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. [11] I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spoke: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. [12] As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time. [13] I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. [14] And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”

Now going back to verse 9, Daniel says “I beheld until,” the present, the Aramaic has a participle and the picture is a movie … the best thing is to think of a color movie picture, as we kind of try to modernize the whole thing, the angel is the one who is running the movie projector and as he runs the movie projector Daniel would turn around and say hey, stop, I have a question. So the angel would stop the film and Daniel would ask him a question. And the angel would tell him what the problem is. Okay, roll, and he’d go ahead and show some more film. This is the way these apocalyptic visions are always given. There’s always an angel there to not only give the vision but to tell about it. Again, God isn’t going to give something if it can’t be understood. Our God is a rational God.

“I beheld until the thrones were cast down,” the word “cast down” really should be sat down, it’s the word for sit, there were sitting of the thrones, “and the Ancient of days did sit,” the picture here is a courtroom; “the Ancient of days” is the judge. It’s a picture of the thrones of the seats in which the jury sits and the judge. Who the judges are is a question not answered until the book of Revelation, but right here we just have the throne. The thrones are set and the Ancient of days is the judge, he walks into the courtroom, all the furniture is in place and he sits down. He is called “the Ancient of days” because here we have a picture of God Himself. Notice I did not say “Father.” This is a picture of God Himself. This is all we’re going to glean from this, we’re not going to talk about the Trinity yet, that’s too fast. We’re just calling “the Ancient of days” as a picture of God, period, regardless of which personality of the Trinity.

He is called “Ancient of days” not to demean or make him weak, but if you did a word study on the word “Ancient of days” and a complete word study on older people in the Bible you would understand that the Bible never demeans older people. The Bible exalts the older people; it was the older people from which we get the word “elder.” It was the older man of the villages that would conduct judgment. The idea biblically of an older person is a person that has great wisdom by virtue of their long life. So old age in Scripture is never synonymous with what a lot of young people like to think, an old person is just some weak fuddy-duddy, that’s not the picture of Scripture. The picture of Scripture is oldness conveys deep wisdom and authority, and so when God is pictured He is not pictured as a young man, He is pictured as an older man, “Ancient of days,” a hint of his eternality.

Notice also for the first time in the vision no monsters. For the first time in the vision is Daniel sees movement, he no longer sees just wind, impersonal phenomenon; he no longer sees animals, but now he sees a person. And in the world of the Ancient Near East this is startling because all the deities of the other nations appeared in animal-like forms. Read Egyptian art and you’ll see how Horus appears, the head of a falcon, the body of a man. And you see so much of this in mythology. It was only in Israel where God never appeared as an animal. Nowhere in the Bible does God appear as an animal. God appears always as a man, anthropomorphic, God is a man; He’s not an it, He’s not a process like cosmic evolution would say, He is a person that behind, behind, behind, behind, behind, behind, behind all things in the universe, all the physical laws, everything in the universe is not an “it,” there is a “HE,” and this person loves and hates and chooses, just like we do, without a sin nature of course. So “the Ancient of days did sit.” So the Supreme Authority in the universe, Daniel says, and remember, he’s writing to believers who are going to face hell on earth under governmental persecutions; they have got to be assured who’s at the final helm of the universe.

We also have noted in Daniel that Daniel 2 is different from Daniel 7, Daniel 2 is the four monsters but the monsters are pictured by their power and their glory, pictured as a man. In Daniel 7 it is the moral character of man’s creation so they’re all pictured as monstrosities, except God. God comes and His authority…He’s personal, He’s not part of an animal like being. “… whose garment,” and I want you to note this because we’re going to get a surprise passage later on, notice what God is wearing in this vision. This is taken up and used later. “… whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne a fiery flame,” not “was like,” if you have a King James you’ll see “was like” is in italics, it means it wasn’t there in the Aramaic and shouldn’t be supplied. “His throne is a fiery flame, and his wheels” apparently this, like Ezekiel, has wheels of some sort on it, “as burning fire.” With all due apologies to [not familiar with name; sounds like: Erik von Danagan], this is not a flying saucer that Daniel sees. The “fiery flame” is a picture, apparently of angels. We know this from Hebrews 1:7 and Psalm 104:4, where it says that He has made His angels winds and His ministers flames of fire.” So the fiery flame is a series of angelic beings.

Now Daniel 7:10, “A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him,” you see, as the fiery flame goes out all of a sudden thousands appear, and if you read the literature of the first century the picture is always that the angels interchange with physical phenomenon, something we can’t even conceive of, but the way the angelic powers seem to exist at certain times of history is that they appear to men as fire, just as kind of impersonal physical phenomenon. So they turn into thousands of distinguishable entities. And “judgment was set, and the books were opened.” So the courtroom now is ready. “The books were opened” is going to be picked up later on by John the apostle.

Now Daniel 7:11, “I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spoke,” now who is the horn? You recall that the fourth monster, which is Rome, came down in history and broke up into ten. Daniel sees those ten and three of them are destroyed and out from it comes a little horn, speaking great things. The idea is that the “great things” are blasphemy, it is a holy crusade against believers at some time in the future, and the “little horn” is called little because he actually has very little power, it’s a façade, it’s faked, but nevertheless it’s credible to most people. And so the little horn speaks great things. Remember that’s verse 8, Daniel has just seen that, that’s part of scene one, and now he sees the judgment seat and the suspense, Daniel sits here watching in suspense at what’s going to happen next, he’s glued to the tube, to use a modern expression. And he says I remained transfixed at this vision and here’s why, “I beheld” because what was it that he was looking for? The beast speaking great things, blaspheming God’s name, and then he sees God himself start to open the books for judgment.

And Daniel says I sat there and I beheld and I beheld and I beheld and beheld, until I saw the beast destroyed, “even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed,” in other words, I kept on beholding because I wanted to see what would happen to this blaspheming monster when God Himself would sit in judgment. This is a question, remember, which believers had to face within a generation of Daniel’s life, you have the rise of the kingdom of Alexander and Alexander’s generals take over after he dies in Babylon, and one of them, one of the Seleucids that take over from Assyria becomes Antiochus Epiphanes, and he is the one who goes in and sacrifices a pig in the temple just to irritate the Jews and he slaughters them. So many believers are going to read in the future Daniel; they’re going to get comfort from this, that even the worst beast will meet his doom. The obvious lesson is that if God can stop the worst beast, then God can stop the lesser beast, the Antiochus Epiphanes, the Hitlers; God can stop all persecutors of the Christian community. So we have Daniel beholding for a reason, he’s going to pass this information on and act as a source of faith and hope for believers everywhere throughout history.

Daniel 7:12; verse 12 sounds like it chronologically follows verse 11, it does not. “As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.” Now those beasts have already been destroyed by verse 12 so what he is saying in verse 12 is this: he’s saying I beheld, I beheld, I beheld, I beheld, I beheld, until boom, this beast was destroyed and his body was thrown into fire. Now he says I looked at that and I tell you that that destruction was different than the destruction of the previous three beasts, because when those previous three beasts were destroyed they had their “lives prolonged for a season.” And he says that wasn’t true, when the fourth beast was destroyed it was all over, completely all over. And that [can’t understand word] with Daniel 2 because remember in Daniel 2, the stone cut without hands smashes the entire statue.

Now how are these beast’s lives prolonged? What is it that the Roman Empire had that it acted as an inheritance from these previous beasts? Well, the Neo-Babylonians were well-known for their economic interests and state religion. This was the theme, remember Nebuchadnezzar set up a state cult; he married the church and the state. And so this was carried over into Persia, Greece and Rome. The Persians were known for their pragmatism in internationalism. Remember Cyrus, everywhere Cyrus went instead of moving people around like the Assyrians Cyrus would go in and he would amalgamate the people’s culture with the Persian culture, so you’d have kind of an internationalism. Cyrus was known for that and you recall the quotations from the famous scholar, he said that Cyrus was a man who was not at all adverse to bowing into the temple of any deity as long as there was something to pick up off the floor. And so Cyrus was the great pragmatist, and this was carried into Roman administration.

And then what did Greece contribute? How was the third beast’s life prolonged for a time? Greece obviously influenced the Romans by classicism. So those beasts are in existence today, partly, their contributions are part and parcel of our culture, and we have to be careful how we thread our way through; you know, how we think, how we read, and so on. We have to be very alert as believers.

So Daniel 7:13, I beheld, “I saw in the night visions,” so he’s through seeing the judgment, that’s over. Now verse 13 begins precisely as verse 2; if you just look back quickly at verse 2 how does it start, “I saw in my vision by night,” it says; in the Aramaic, verse 13 begins in the same way, “I saw n the night visions,” so this is part two of Daniel’s vision. He says “I also saw this,” that’s another way of saying it. So far we’ve seen a continuous thing, monster number one, number two, number three, number four; the judgment, number four is destroyed. That’s one scene. Now he says I’ll tell you what else I saw, this follows the first thing, “I saw the night visions and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. [14] And there was given him dominion, and glory,” now the word “Son of man,” in the Aramaic is literally like “Son of man,” it’s not “the son of man,” the Aramaic has no “a” like Hebrew, so it’s a, “like a Son of man.”

Now before we get too hasty about reading the New Testament back into the Old Testament, just hold it and just look at the text carefully, what the text says and what the text doesn’t say, then we’ll appreciate what the New Testament added to it, but let’s not read the New Testament back in here because Daniel didn’t read the New Testament. You’ve got to interpret Scripture in the time in which it was written. And at this time they knew nothing about Jesus. They knew nothing about the Christian message. All he said was, and he makes no big thing about it, he just says “I saw a man,” the “Son of man” is just a designator as “I saw a man come to the Ancient of days.” So what Daniel is doing with the title, “the Son of man” is it is in contrast to the beast. That’s the whole emphasis of this original passage and I’ll prove it to you that Daniel has no idea here of an individual man at all; this is a symbol like the other symbols, of groups of men. And if you doubt it, let’s look at some other verses.

Daniel 7:22, he relates what he says, he says whoa to the angel that’s running the projector, turn it off, I have a question. And he asks his question and verse 22 is part of the question that he asks the angel; he says I watched “Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to” the son of man… is that what you read there? No, you read “judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” So in verse 22 there’s no reference to an individual, it’s a group of people, the saints.

Now again Daniel 7:27, this is the angel’s answer, the angel said okay Daniel, here’s what the deal is, verse 26, “judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion,” that’s the beast, “to consume and to destroy it unto the end. [27] And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the”… son of man? No, it says “shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. [28] Hitherto is the end of the matter.”

So both the angel and Daniel, in the context, do not read this “Son of man” as an individual. Both of them are very careful to say it’s a group. Now this shouldn’t seem strange because as we thought back and looked at the other monsters, let’s list them. We have a lion, we have a bear, we have a leopard, we have the fourth monster that isn’t named, and we have the Son of man. Now who was the lion? The lion stands for King Nebuchadnezzar, plus the Babylonian Empire. The bear stands for Cyrus plus the Persian Empire. The leopard stands for Alexander the Great, the leopard, the speed, the speed with which Alexander conquered the ancient world, plus his empire. Now we’ve got a precedent in the interpretation. These symbols do refer to the main king and his kingdom. But in all the interpretation of this the emphasis is not upon the man, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus or Alexander, or in this case it’s going to be Christ, the emphasis is upon the kingdom. So a “Son of man” reference is the same as all the other ones, it refers to the king, the great king, and Daniel doesn’t know anything about Jesus yet, so he just passes it on and says well one thing I know about that, and that’s the kingdom; the kingdom of God that’s coming. So “the Son of man” is a symbol of the kingdom of God as a whole, confirmed by verses 22 and 27 in the immediate context. Both the angel and Daniel look at “the Son of man,” they don’t see an individual [can’t understand word], that individual is a symbol of the saints.

And by the way, it’s an everlasting kingdom in verse 14, “and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” Notice it is not a thousand years; it is an everlasting kingdom.

So now we’ve got some questions on our hands; we will not be able to answer all these questions today; we’re going to take one category and answer the next category next time. But here are some questions; here are the two categories of questions that have to be struggled with to get this in preparation for the New Testament. By the way, you can’t understand the Gospels in their basic message without understanding this vision, which I’ll show you in a moment.

What is Christ’s relationship to the Ancient of days and the Son of man? A central question that has to be asked and answered precisely. How does Jesus fit in, is He the Ancient of days or is the Ancient of days the Father? Is the Son of man Jesus, or if he is not Jesus, then who is the Son of man. So what is Christ’s relationship to this part of the vision?

A second problem is: when is the kingdom given? Is it given at Christ’s ascension when He said “all power in heaven is given unto Me? Is it given at His return? Is it given at the end of the millennium? When is the kingdom given? We’ll only answer the first question today. What is Christ’s relationship, are we dealing with a hopeless tangle of Scripture, or is there one underlying order to Scripture? Now I can’t help, as we start to answer this first question, but remember the words of my professor of New Testament at Dallas Seminary, Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, who was very fond of saying to us as we were sitting in the Greek class in exegesis: Gentlemen, when you work with a passage like this, and you put the hours and hours and hours of time necessary into studying this passage as well as all the cross references, you will become convinced that this Word of God is inerrant because no man could have put this together over many centuries without some internal contradictions somewhere. Yet we’re going to see Daniel written in the 5^th century before Christ fits perfectly, like a hand in a glove, with the New Testament. Now how did that happen? Was it just man who had religious ideas and inspiration, or were they getting an input from outside of themselves called revelation?

Now we’re going to answer this question, Christ’s relationship to the vision by going through a series of propositions, a series of statements; that’s the best way to do this. I’ll try to indicate what these propositions are. The first one is: if you look at verse 13 something is peculiar about that imagery; maybe you missed it the first time you read it, but if you look back at verse 13, what is it that comes with “the Son of man?” He comes “with the clouds of heaven.” The “clouds of heaven,” now that itself is a symbol of something, “the clouds of heaven,” they’re not just literal clouds, it’s more than that. The cloud of heaven in the Bible refers to God’s presence.

For example, turn to Exodus 13:21. Here we have the Jews after the Exodus, before Mount Sinai, being led by God, “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way;” now that is where history, the Jews got locked into this idea that the cloud had something to do with the presence of God and this was amplified by subsequent events. Turn to Exodus 19:9, this is Mount Sinai later on. At Sinai, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee,” so again we have the cloud and not just a cloud but we have God speaking out of the cloud.

In Exodus 33:9, “And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses.”

Exodus 40:34, this is when the tabernacle was constructed, “Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD willed the tabernacle.” That is in apposition in the Hebrew, that means those two clauses are parallel, they mean the same thing; the cloud and God’s glory… the cloud and God’s glory, so then, now the cloud is not only connoting God’s presence, it’s connoting His character and His glory. So much for that; the clouds of heaven speak of God’s presence. That’s the first thing that we know about the Son of man.

The second thing, pre-Christian Jewish commentaries said that the Son of man, remember this is written before Jesus, before the Christians came along, so this is not some Christian fouling up the text for his own interest, it is Jewish tradition in and of itself, that the Son of man is not just the kingdom of the saints, but He is the preexistent representative of the kingdom. That’s as far as they went, he was preexistent, and the reason they did was this cloud of heaven, the Son of man came with these, the clouds of heaven speak of deity, they speak of glory and the Son of man came with the clouds to the Ancient of days, indicating that this person has divine attributes, whatever it is. Yet because the Jews are monotheist they couldn’t exactly say He was God, so the best thing they came up was a preexistent representative of the kingdom; marvelously close, by the way, to what the New Testament says.

Now another observation, and that is that the Son of man, the title, “Son of man,” was picked up and used by Jesus, but not by any apostle. You will never find any apostle using this title; you will not find this title out of the four Gospels; Acts, Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, all the epistles of the New Testament, not once is the “Son of man” ever mentioned. It is used only by Jesus during the time of His earthly ministry. Now we have to say why is this?

There are three ways Jesus used the term. So we now come to the New Testament. Matthew 24:30, here’s a place where Jesus the title, “Son of man.” Now where did Jesus get the title from? Obviously He got it from Daniel 7, so as you look at these passages, think; think! What do you suppose is on Jesus’ mind by daring to equate Himself with this vision that was so sacred to Jewish tradition—the “Son of man?” Jesus picks up the title and He walks around and He says I am the Son of man. Now what is on Jesus mind by using that title for Himself? He did it for a reason; Jesus was very, very intelligent, brilliant in His humanity, obviously as God He’s omniscient but in His humanity He was brilliant and when He used the title He used it to tell something. This was a signal, and those who had ears to hear and eyes to see would have picked up the signal. But it was only a signal, it was very cleverly designed so that Jesus could walk through a public assembly and say I am the Son of man and maybe 10% of the people would catch what He had just said, 90% of the people would say oh, that’s interesting, and walk on. But Jesus wasn’t concerned, He was concerned fro the 10% who could read the signal and read it clearly. And here’s how He used it, Matthew 24:30. Notice He is using it this time with His disciples, He is talking about the end of the world, and in this passage, verse 29 for context, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give its light, and the stars shall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. [30] Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Now where do you suppose Jesus got that? Obviously from Daniel 7, it’s the exact words from Daniel 7.

Now if you were somebody, you were the disciple and you were sitting there in the road or sitting under the trees on Mount Olivet and Jesus was talking to you and said the earth will see the Son of Man and all the tribes of men shall mourn when they shall see His sign? What would have you thought of? Remember you don’t have your Bible in front of you. All you’ve just heard is Jesus say I am the Son of man and you will see Me coming from heaven. Now if you were a properly read Jew you’d say that’s Daniel 7, that is the fifth kingdom coming. You would have caught the signal. Jesus used this several places.

Matthew 26:64, He gave the signal during His trial. By the way, Jesus had several trials, all of them illegal. There was a professor at Texas Tech law school who has done a study of this showing the illegality of all of these trials, there was not properly introduced evidence, the witnesses were not sufficient, etc. That’s a story in itself but during the trial, verse 63 for context; “But Jesus held His peace.” He refused to talk to the courtroom officials. “And the high priest Answered and said unto Him, I adjure thee” now that sounds nice and sweet in the King James, but it’s a demand to give this court evidence, open your mouth and give verbal testimony before this court. Now before you go any further, think what a loaded scene Jesus has. He’s got a courtroom scene. What was the scene that you saw in Daniel 7? A courtroom scene. Who is the judge in this courtroom? The high priest, illegitimate judge. Who is going to be the judge in the Daniel 7 courtroom? God Himself. So it’s not surprising that Jesus pulls off the next remark. During court the high priest demands an answer, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.”

Verse 64, “Jesus said unto him, Thou hast said,” you said it, and with that He assents that He is the Son of God, “You said it; nevertheless,” and the word “nevertheless” is a contrast, if you think this claim is bad wait till you hear my second one, “nevertheless, I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,” meaning I will be the ruler. Well, this courtroom caught the signal because look at the reaction in the next verse, “Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, He has spoken blasphemy? What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard His blasphemy.” What is blasphemy in a Jewish court but claim to deity, isn’t it? Of course, blasphemy, He had been ordered by Elohim to speak and Jesus just threw down the gauntlet, I am the Son of man, and the high priest knew his Scriptures, and he knew what Daniel 7 was saying and he caught the signal. The masses out on the street on Palm Sunday, it had not registered with them what Jesus’ claims were, but this man knew what the claim was, he disbelieved the claim but he knew what Jesus was saying. When he heard that title he connected the two immediately, there was no question in the mind of the high priest who the Son of man was. This is claiming to be God Himself.

So Jesus used the term “Son of man” in relation to His Second Advent; that is the way it is used in the Gospels. I’ve just shown two examples of this usage. But Jesus also used it another way. There are other passages; I’m just turning to Matthew because it’s easier to find our way around one book. Matthew 9:6, this is the other way, and again before we look too carefully, just think of the context of Daniel. What was the scene of Daniel 7? The scene was a courtroom. Somebody was being judged in that courtroom.

Now look at the second usage of the Son of man. Matthew 9:6, He has just cured someone by a physical miracle; this is a very important passage for the evidence and the historicity and validity of the Christian claim against all other religions because in this claim Jesus says in order to believe you have to have empirical evidence. This business that goes on that belief is just believe into nothing is ridiculous. You can’t believe if you’re not convinced it’s true. Otherwise you just hypnotize yourself. Jesus respects this, He never expects someone, yourself included, to believe what He says without offering you historic data and evidence for your consideration. That’s why I don’t ask people to trot down the aisle; you can’t make up your mind that fast. You have got to think this through for yourself before you can be convinced of its truthfulness.

So here people have watched and they’ve seen a miracle in front of their eyes, they’ve seen empirical evidence, and so now Jesus says in verse 5, “For which is easier” for me to do, “to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk.” In other words, what Jesus is saying is that My word is powerful in the empirical realm in front of your eyes; you can see when I say “get up” and the man gets up and he’s healed. You can see that, that’s empirically observable. But if I tell you your sins are forgiven, you can’t see that because that’s something in heaven. So Jesus says trust me that when I do speak My words have an effect in observable history. And on the basis of that evidence, trust Me when I say to you, “your sins are forgiven” in heaven where you can’t see yet; trust Me on the basis of My character that you’ve met in the area of empirical history. We’re so concerned with the historical validity of Scripture. If the Bible, the Old Testament, and creation, if all this isn’t true, then we’ve just lost the whole basis for the faith. It’s got to be true, it’s the basis of how we know.

So Matthew 9:6, “But that ye may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins,” then there’s a parenthesis, (then He said to the sick of the palsy), Get up, take up thy bed, and go to your house.” He said I just pronounced forgiveness of sins and I know you people can’t believe me because I’ve just made a statement you can’t check. So he says not to leave you holding the bag, since I’m asking you to believe my character here’s what I’ll do for you, I’ll make a deal. I’ll say something that’s a miracle, that is against the grain of nature, right in front of your face, and then see if My word holds true there; that’s what He’s saying.

So now He says the Son of man has power to forgive sin. Now isn’t that interesting, because in Jewish Old Testament theology who could possibly forgive sin? Only the judge, the Ancient of days, He was the judge, wasn’t he? So here Jesus has the audacity to say I can forgive sin. Notice he is not saying what a priest would say, your sins have been forgiven. Huh-un, any priest could say that, behold brother, your sins are forgiven. But Jesus doesn’t say that, he says I have forgiven your sins. Do you know what that’s saying? Your sins are against Him. You can’t forgive somebody of something if they haven’t done something to you. So the very nature here of Jesus saying I forgive you of your sins means that obviously this man must have sinned against Jesus. So the second usage of the Son of man is not only His eschatological future, the second coming, but in the area and context of grace, the forgiveness of sins.

Finally a third usage, Matthew 16:21 and again these are only representative verses, you could study for hours and hours and pull out a lot more. The title “Son of man” is not given here, but it is in the parallels, and I’m just trying to stick to Matthew for the sake of expediency. This is the kind of passage that would be associated with the Son of man, and is in Luke and Mark. “Jesus, to show unto His disciples, how he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” [Mark 8:31, “And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and by the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Luke 9:22, “Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day.”]

So the third usage of the “Son of man” in the Scripture is the suffering servant. Three ways Jesus loads the image. He goes over to Daniel; He takes the title “Son of man.” He proceeds to use it throughout His life in three distinct ways, none of which the apostles ever touched. One is I am coming again and I will judge the earth. Two, I forgive those who have sinned against Me. And three, in these cases I must suffer. Suffer—what were the people going to do that Daniel wrote his Scripture too? Suffer. Jesus is going to be identified with the saints who are going to be persecuted by the beast; Jesus is going to be hounded by the archbeast of all, Satan.

Now, why then does Jesus use this title? The reason Jesus is using the “Son of man” in these three ways is to reveal His true character to those who know their Bible without overtly saying He is God and being stoned to death. This is kind of a sneaky way He has of communicating to those in the know; it is His signal. If he had come right out and said I am God, He wouldn’t have lasted the day, He would have been stoned. And then He would have faced the violation of the doctrine of kenosis, He would have had to use His omnipotence to save Himself, it would have destroyed His earthly ministry and His qualifications at the cross, etc. So Jesus couldn’t do that, therefore He had to have some way in which He could proceed for three years to teach without facing this crisis. And He did so by throwing out the signal, I am the Son of man.

All right; we can conclude that Jesus is using the Son of Man as the representative of the fifth and coming kingdom, that He is like Nebuchadnezzar is to the Babylonians, like Cyrus was to the Persians and Alexander was to the Greeks, that the Son of man is the leader of the kingdom. That is the claim Jesus is making. Moreover, not only is He a king in glory, but He’s a king in suffering; He is going to suffer with His subjects. His subjects in Daniel are going to be suffering under the heel, the power of Rome and subsequent governments and so Jesus also suffers under the heel of Rome; I must suffer, I must be totally identified with My people.

So much for Jesus and the Son of man; we see that the Son of man is a symbol of Jesus as a representative. But what about the Ancient of days. Remember I said it’s not just so simple as saying the Ancient of days if the Father and the Son of man is the Son, because the Ancient of days is a clear picture of deity. In Daniel’s vision of Daniel 7, in other words, the Ancient of days is God, and the Son of man is man. Daniel just sees it simply as that, God-man. But we know something about Jesus; what’s Jesus hypostatic union? Undiminished deity and true humanity united in one person without confusion forever. So if that’s the case, then the Ancient of days also ought to be used in the New Testament somewhere to show something about Jesus. And sure enough, Revelation 1:13. On the island of Patmos John the apostle suffers, an exile from his homeland; the Romans don’t want to make a martyr out of this aged man so they exile him, and Jon spends the rest of his days lonely on the island of Patmos. And one day, apparently one Sunday morning, he doesn’t have any other believers to have fellowship with, so he goes out, sits by the beach, watches the water come in on the rocks and has his own private church service.

But John being alone on the island of Patmos isn’t alone because the Son of God appears to this aged man. Remember John is about 90 years old when this was written, and this old man, all by himself, he thinks, on an island, lonely and forgotten, separated from all believers, who should show up to his own private church service but the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ plus one believer is sufficient for any church service. So John describes what he saw, and in Revelation 1:13 notice what he says and keep in mind what you just read in Daniel 7, “And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girded about the chest with a golden girdle.” Now watch the description, the description doesn’t fit the Son of man in Daniel 7; the description of verse 14 fits the Ancient of days in Daniel 7. “His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. [15] And His feet like fine bronze, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice like the sound of many waters.” The sound of many waters is the waves, Patmos has a rocky coast, and the waves smash up against these rocks, and that’s the many waters, and John says His voice is deep and it’s reverberating like the water crashes against the rocks.

Now knowing Daniel 7 what do we learn about verse 13? When Jesus appears to John He appears like the Son of man, but also the Ancient of days. In other words, Jesus appears here like a man but like God too. He describes His feet; verse 16, “And He had in his right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and His countenance” or his face “was as the sun shines in its strength. [17] When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead,” which is the response universally in the Bible, to a Theophany, to an appearance of God. Men who have seen God usually collapse; apparently the physical body just cannot take this; in our natural bodies without resurrection bodies cannot take the sight of God Himself. So “I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.”

Now look what He says; up to this point we’ve had this ambiguity, He’s like the Son of man but He’s also like the Ancient of days. Now look at the statement Jesus makes in Revelation 1:18, “I am He that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore,” and what kind of a kingdom is in Daniel 7? A kingdom forever. “Amen, and I have the keys of hell and of death,” it means I have the authority, I have been given the authority. [19] “Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. [20] The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks which you saw are the seven churches.” So who do we meet in Revelation 1? We meet Jesus Christ as both the Ancient of days and the Son of man, the God-man.

Next week we’ll work with more of Daniel 7.