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 The Son of Man.
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. The title in Daniel’s Aramaic is bar enash (בַּר אֱנָשׁ), “son of man.” The ke- in front of it is a separate comparative particle meaning “like” or “as,” which is why the vision literally reads “[one] like a son of man” — a figure who resembles a human being, seen from heaven’s side. That Aramaic phrase is not the same as the Hebrew Ezekiel hears 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. 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. Like the holy people in the vision, He is handed over, defeated and killed, and then vindicated: the court sits, and the kingdom is given to Him. Defeat comes before victory, for Him as for them.
Who is the horn? Not Israel. In Daniel the horn is the last king of the fourth beast, and Revelation takes it up in its own beast, the power that makes war on the saints (Revelation 13:5-7). That power was at work at the cross through everyone who took part: a Roman governor who gave the order, soldiers who carried it out, and leaders of His own people who conspired against Him (John 11:45-54) and pressed for His execution (John 19:1-15). “His own did not receive him” (John 1:11) — and that is the grief of the story, not its verdict.
Why this deserves real pastoral care, not triumphalism. 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 leaders from a position of assumed moral superiority — Jesus’s own response was forgiveness ("Father, forgive them"), and 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).
How to say this about the two witnesses. The witnesses carry no weapon of their own: they wield no political or military power the way earthly rulers do. State it that way, because the verse closest to hand cuts both ways — Revelation 11:5 has fire going out from their mouths and consuming their attackers. That fire is God’s judgment guarding his witnesses, not a militia they have raised; if someone in the group reads 11:5 as the witnesses taking revenge, that is a fair reading of the picture and worth talking through rather than waving off.
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 prophesy 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?
- In Daniel the horn makes war on the holy people; in Revelation the beast does (13:5-7). At the cross a Roman governor, soldiers and leaders of Jesus’s own people all took part. Why does it matter that the vision’s enemy is that power, and not a people?
So what for us: 4. “His own did not receive him” (John 1:11). Where do you see the church today at risk of the same thing — 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.