Background: The Son of Man: Daniel's Vision Fulfilled
Opening Hook
Ask your group: out of all the titles available to Him — Messiah, Son of God, Lord, King — why did Jesus almost exclusively refer to Himself as “Son of Man”? It sounds, on the surface, like the most modest title available. Tonight’s session shows it’s actually the most loaded title in the whole Bible — and that following its trail from Daniel to Jesus leads somewhere genuinely uncomfortable before it leads somewhere triumphant.
The Core Teaching
The full argument is in expl/bible/daniel/the-son-of-man-and-the-remnant.md.
Where the title comes from. Daniel 7:13-14 describes “one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven,” approaching the Ancient of Days, receiving authority, glory, and an everlasting kingdom, with “all nations and peoples of every language” worshiping him. The vision doesn’t explain who this is directly, but the explanation follows just a few verses later: “the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom.” The Son of Man, in Daniel’s own context, is Israel — a corporate reality pictured through a single human figure, the same technique used elsewhere when “daughter Zion” stands for the nation, or Israel’s story is told as the story of a woman in Ezekiel 16.
Original-language note, with a correction. The source article originally described Daniel’s Aramaic term as one unit, “kebar enash,” meaning “son of mankind.” That slightly mis-parses the grammar: the actual title is bar enash (בַּר אֱנָשׁ), “son of man” — the ke- prefix is a separate comparative particle meaning “like” or “as,” which is why the vision literally reads “[one] like a son of man,” not simply “a son of mankind.” The underlying point the article makes still holds and matters: this Aramaic phrase differs from the Hebrew Ezekiel uses when God calls that prophet “son of man” (ben adam, בֶּן אָדָם, “son of Adam”) — two related but distinct titles, not interchangeable synonyms.
The problem the title creates. On its face, Daniel 7 sounds like a promise that Israel will one day rule the world. But there’s a real theological problem: the Son of Man in this vision receives worship — and worship belongs to God alone. The prophets’ language about a faithful “remnant” of Israel (rather than the whole nation) offers a partial resolution: perhaps “the holy people” refers to that future remnant, not Israel as a whole. But even that doesn’t fully resolve the worship problem — which is exactly the tension Jesus’s own identity resolves.
How Jesus is the answer, and why that’s genuinely uncomfortable. When Jesus calls Himself “Son of Man” almost exclusively, He isn’t choosing a humble title — He’s claiming this entire vision as His own fulfillment, and because He is God, He is worthy of the worship the vision describes (Revelation 5:6-14). Jesus is the remnant of Israel — there is no one else left to fill that role, since Israel’s own leadership opposed Him. The vision’s “horn” that “wages war against the holy people” and defeats them for “a time, times, and half a time” maps directly onto Jesus’s own suffering: His ministry lasted roughly three years, and He rose on the third day. And — this is the uncomfortable part the source article names honestly — the vision’s enemies who oppose the Son of Man are not the Romans, as many readers instinctively assume. The text of the Gospels is specific: it was Israel’s own religious leadership who conspired against Him (John 11:45-54), pressed for His execution (John 19:1-15), and, in Jesus’s own words, had twisted the law itself (Matthew 5:17-48). His own people became His great enemy by rejecting Him.
Why this deserves real pastoral care, not triumphalism. This is a hard truth to sit with, and the source material itself is careful here: “we should be very careful about judging them for it, since the church has done no better.” The point isn’t to condemn first-century Jewish leadership from a position of assumed moral superiority — the whole thrust of the argument is that Jesus’s own response to this betrayal was forgiveness ("Father, forgive them"), and that His mission was never abandonment of Israel but its restoration, folding the church into it rather than replacing it with something else (recall session 8).
A citation worth correcting. The source article originally cited Revelation 11:5 to support the claim that the two witnesses “do not use violence… but leave the judgment to God.” That verse actually describes the witnesses inflicting supernatural harm themselves — fire from their mouths consuming their attackers — which sits in real tension with a claim of nonviolence. If the intended distinction is that the witnesses wield no political or military power the way earthly rulers do, that point should be stated directly rather than glossed by a verse that describes something closer to Elijah-style supernatural retaliation.
The heritage this leaves the church. The stone that destroys the kingdoms in Daniel 2 grows to fill the whole earth — a picture of the New Israel, church included, reaching the whole world. That same pattern resurfaces in the two witnesses of Revelation 11, who reign for 3.5 years (session 12) and are killed for 3.5 days before being resurrected, living out the same pattern as Jesus: simplicity and repentance, filled with the Spirit, faithful witnesses, apparently defeated, then vindicated and exalted.
Discussion Questions
Understanding the text:
- Why is “Son of Man” a corporate title (referring to Israel as a whole) before it becomes a personal title Jesus applies to Himself? What does that layered history add to how we hear Jesus use it?
- What is the specific theological problem created by a human figure receiving worship in Daniel 7 — and how does Jesus’s identity as both fully human and fully God resolve it in a way ordinary Israel could not?
- Why does the source material insist it was Israel’s own leadership, not Rome, who functioned as the “horn” opposing the Son of Man? What does this reframing change about how we read the Gospels’ passion narratives?
So what for us: 4. This session names something genuinely uncomfortable — Jesus’s own people became His enemy. Where do you see the church today at risk of repeating that same pattern, opposing what God is actually doing because it doesn’t match our expectations? 5. Jesus’s response to betrayal was “Father, forgive them.” Where do you need to extend that same posture toward someone who has genuinely wronged you or your church? 6. The two witnesses live out the “Son of Man” pattern: apparent defeat followed by vindication. Where in your own life does faithfulness currently look like defeat, and how does this pattern speak hope into that?
Closing Prayer Prompt
Thank Jesus for taking on the title “Son of Man” and, in doing so, taking on both the full weight of Israel’s failure and the full glory of the vision’s promised vindication. Ask for grace to extend the same forgiveness Jesus extended to those who opposed Him, especially toward anyone in your own life who currently feels like an adversary rather than a neighbor.