Background: The Son of Man

Bible: Daniel 7:13–14

The One Title Jesus Actually Chose

Scroll through the way people describe themselves online — the bios, the labels, the identities people build and rebuild constantly, trying to find the one that finally fits. Now consider this: Jesus, who could have claimed literally any title he wanted — King, Messiah, Son of God, Lord of All — almost always calls himself just one thing: “the Son of Man.” It’s the only self-description he consistently uses. That’s strange enough to be worth digging into. Why that one, out of everything available to him?

What’s Actually Going On

The title comes straight from a vision in Daniel 7. Daniel sees “one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven,” approaching God (called “the Ancient of Days”) and being given authority, glory, and a kingdom that will never be destroyed or pass away. It’s a staggering image — but Daniel’s vision doesn’t leave you to guess who this figure represents. A few verses later, the vision is explained: “the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever.” In other words, in Daniel’s own vision, the “son of man” figure represents Israel — a whole people pictured through a single representative figure, the same way the Old Testament elsewhere pictures Israel as a woman, or as two sisters representing its two kingdoms.

So here’s the puzzle: if the Son of Man in Daniel 7 stands for Israel, why does Jesus claim that exact title for himself?

Follow the vision further and you find the real tension. A boastful, oppressive power — a “horn” that speaks against God and wages war against his people — defeats the holy people for a set period, “a time, times, and half a time,” before God’s court intervenes, strips the oppressor of power, and hands the everlasting kingdom over to God’s people, who then receive worship from every nation. That last detail is the real problem: worship belongs to God alone. So how can Daniel picture Israel — a nation of ordinary, sinful people — receiving worship?

The honest answer the text points toward is that this can’t be Israel as a whole nation, full of the same people who, throughout the Old Testament, break the covenant again and again. It has to be pointing to something more specific: a faithful remnant, or ultimately, one person who could actually represent Israel the way it was always supposed to be. That’s exactly the gap Jesus steps into. He takes the title Son of Man because he is what Israel was called to be but never fully was — faithful where the nation was unfaithful, and because he is also God, he can rightly receive the worship the vision describes.

Here’s where the story gets uncomfortable, and worth not skating past. In the vision, the Son of Man’s enemies are defeated and judged. In Jesus’ actual life, who plays the role of the opposing power that wars against him? Not primarily Rome, and not directly Satan — the Gospels are clear that it was Israel’s own religious leadership who rejected him, conspired against him, and pushed for his execution. The people meant to represent God’s faithfulness became, in that moment, the ones who opposed the one truly faithful Israelite. That’s a hard thing to sit with, and it should make Christians slow to look down on anyone for it, since the church has its own long history of failing just as badly.

And yet Jesus’ response to that betrayal wasn’t the crushing judgment you might expect from the vision — it was forgiveness (“Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”) and a mission to restore as many of Israel as would come to him, before that invitation opened out to every nation as well. Jesus didn’t discard Israel and start over with a replacement. He restarted Israel from the inside, as its true representative, and then folded in everyone — Jew and Gentile — who trusts him.

That pattern shows up again later in Revelation, in the strange story of the two witnesses in chapter 11, who live out a miniature version of Jesus’ own story — faithful testimony, defeat, and then resurrection and vindication. They’re best understood as a picture of the church continuing to live out the same Son-of-Man pattern Jesus established: faithfulness that looks like loss right up until God has the final word.

Where You’re Already Strong

Teens are often quick to notice hypocrisy — when the people who are supposed to represent something good (a coach, a youth leader, a whole institution) fail to live up to it, and you don’t let it slide just because they hold a position of authority. That instinct is exactly what this passage forces onto Israel’s own religious leaders, and honestly onto every generation of the church since. Being unwilling to give a pass to people just because they’re “supposed to” be faithful is a form of moral clarity worth keeping, as long as it’s paired with the same grace Jesus showed the people who failed him.

Invitation to Grow

It’s easy to read this story and mentally file “Israel’s leaders rejecting Jesus” as an ancient problem that has nothing to do with you. But the deeper question this raises is more personal: where are you currently more invested in defending your own status or reputation than in actually recognizing and following Jesus when it’s costly? The religious leaders had a lot to lose by accepting him — their authority, their certainty, their comfortable position. It’s worth asking honestly what you might be protecting that keeps you from following Jesus all the way, rather than assuming that failure belongs only to people in a story from two thousand years ago.

Discussion Questions

• Why do you think Jesus chose “Son of Man” as his one consistent title instead of something that sounds more obviously powerful?
• Does it surprise you that Israel’s own leaders, not Rome, are described as the ones who opposed Jesus most directly? Why might that be an uncomfortable detail to include?
• Jesus responded to betrayal with forgiveness rather than immediate judgment. Is that easy or hard for you to imagine doing yourself? Why?
• What’s something you might be protecting — reputation, control, comfort — that could be keeping you from following Jesus somewhere costly?

Closing Prayer

Jesus, thank you for being the faithful one we could never be on our own, and for choosing forgiveness over judgment even when your own people turned against you. Show us where we’re protecting ourselves instead of following you fully, and give us the humility to follow your example instead of just admiring it. Amen.