Why did Jesus Call Himself the “Son of Man”?

I always thought it was really strange how Jesus sometimes referred to himself as the “Son of Man”. He is the one and only firstborn son of the one true divinity, yet he chooses to go by the unassuming title of “Son of Man”.

I never really understood this title, but now as I’ve been paraphrasing the book of Luke, I came across this title and had to find a way to rewrite it using my own words. The way that I decided to rewrite this title is this:

“Culmination of Humanity”

Let me explain how I arrived at this interpretation and what it means.

Rephrasing the title “Son of Man”

In trying to rephrase the title “Son of Man” I considered the meanings of both the word “son” and the word “man”. Here’s my thought process starting with the word “man” because it’s simpler.

The word “man”

In the phrase “Son of man,” that word “man” refers to all of mankind or humanity in general, so the phrase is actually more like “Son of humanity”. Just making that one small change actually helps me understand it a little bit better. It implies that Jesus is the son of all of humanity. (Not just one man.)

The word “son”

When a man and a woman have a child, it can be said that they have “produced” a child. The child then, is a “product” of his parents. So when Jesus calls himself the “Son” of humanity, he might actually be calling himself the “product of humanity”.

Jesus as the “Product of Humanity”

This title “product of humanity” actually makes a lot of sense, because the only reason why Jesus needed to do what he did was because humanity was in dire need of him.

In other words, everything about Jesus (including his coming, his ministry, and his death) was a product of humanity and humanity’s sin. If humanity didn’t exist, then Jesus’s sacrifice wouldn’t have been necessary.

Humanity sinned… producing separation from God… which Jesus came to fix.

Jesus as the “Culmination of Humanity”

I think that taking Jesus’s title of “Son of Man” and rephrasing it into the “Product of Humanity” offers a pretty good interpretation of what it might mean. I’d be pretty happy to stop the rephrasing process right there, but just that title by itself still isn’t super clear and requires some explaining. So that’s why I converted it into the “Culmination of Humanity” for my paraphrase.

The title “Culmination of Humanity” is easier to understand as a stand-alone title than “Product of Humanity,” and it also adds an extra layer of honor and majesty to it which Jesus deserves. Not only was Jesus produced by humanity’s incompetence, but he is also humanity’s crowned jewel: the ultimate pinnacle, climax, and culmination of all of humanity.

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What Does it Mean to “Take God’s Name in Vain”?