And as students of Old Testament know, the figure of the "Son of Man" as the title of a future, hoped for leader, is introduced in the book of Daniel:
I saw in the night visions,We don't know much about this enigmatic figure mentioned by Daniel. The next time we hear about the Son of Man, as readers of the Old and New Testaments, is in the gospels. And there it seems that the title "the Son of Man" just explodes off the page. Clearly, some development between the Old and New Testaments, a span of about 400 years, has occurred regarding "the Son of Man," this figure who is to be given "an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away."
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7.13-14)
1 Enoch, written between the Old and New Testaments, represents some of this development. Let me mention three things we observe about the Son of Man in 1 Enoch that will be familiar to readers of the New Testament.
First, given the apocalyptic worldview of 1 Enoch, the Son of Man is presented in a more militant light than in Daniel 7. The Son of Man comes to conquer and defeat the rebellious angels and "the kings and mighty" enslaving the world, thereby setting the righteous free:
And this son of man whom you have seen--
he will raise the kings and the mighty from their couches,
and the strong from their thrones.
He will loosen the reins of the strong,
and he will crush the teeth of the sinners.
He will overturn the kings from their thrones and their kingdoms,
because they do not exult him or praise him,
or humbly acknowledge whence the kingdom was given to them. (1 Enoch 46.3-5)
He will be a staff for the righteous,
that they may lean on him and not fall;
He will be the light of the nations,
and he will be a hope for those who grieve in their hearts.
All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship before him,
and they will glorify and bless and sing hymns to the name of the Lord of Spirits. (1 Enoch 48.4-5)
These lines from 1 Enoch evoke many New Testament texts, one of them is Mary's Magnificat,
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
The observation here is that, by the time of the writing of the New Testament, the image of the "Son of Man" began to envision, not just a ruler, but a ruler who first had to come as a cosmic warrior and conqueror. These are the Christus Victor themes we noted in the last post.
A second development we find in 1 Enoch is how the Son of Man, also called the Chosen One, becomes the Cosmic Judge at the final judgment:
And the Lord of Spirits seated the Chosen One upon the throne of glory;
and he will judge all the works of the holy ones in the heights of heaven,
and in the balance he will weigh their deeds.
And all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the land will fall on their faces in his presence;
and they will worship and set their hope on that Son of Man,
and they will supplicate and petition for mercy from him.
And the righteous and the chosen will be saved on that day,
and the faces of the sinners and the unrighteous they will henceforth not see.
And the Lord of Spirits will abide over them,
and with that Son of Man they will eat,
and they will lie down and rise up forever and ever. (1 Enoch 61.8; 62.9,13-14)
The New Testament similarities should be obvious here, from the judgment scene in Revelation 20 to the parable of judgment from Matthew 25:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
A third and final thing I'd like to mention involves Christology.
Specifically, many have made the argument that the early Christians transformed the human Jesus into the divine Christ. A wandering Jewish rabbi became God Incarnate. Described theologically, the low Christology of the Synoptic gospels was slowly transformed into the high Christology of the Gospel of John, the church fathers, and early church counsels.
And yet, it's not quite that neat and simple. In 1 Enoch, for example, we see the name of the Son of Man preexisting creation, with echos of Wisdom and Logos imagery:
And in that hour that son of man was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits,
and his name, before the Head of Days.
Even before the sun and the constellations were created,
before the stars of heaven were made,
his name was named before the Lord of Spirits. (1 Enoch 48.2-3)
To be sure, the preexisting name doesn’t equate the Son of Man with God Himself. But all of these influences are preparing the way for a high Christology as a Jewish, not a Christian, development.
