Son of David

When Jesus asked the Pharisees, "Whose son is Christ?" They said unto him: "The son of David" (Matthew 22:42, see also Mark 12:35). King David epitomized their "golden age." At the annunciation, the angel Gabriel said to Mary: "The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David" (Luke 1:32).

The Pharisees never anticipated Jesus’ follow-up question: "How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him, Lord, how is he his son?" (Matthew 22:43-45, see also Mark 12:36 and Luke 20:42). David had said this in the first verse of Psalm 110, and the Pharisees well knew the Scriptures.

Even so, they had no answer. The question is almost a riddle since for David’s son to be descended from his loins, there is no human way that a descendant living hundreds of years after David’s death could be David’s superior, his Lord. And it is Jehovah telling David’s Lord to sit on his right hand.

Thus David’s son must eventually be elevated to heaven itself, there to be seated on Jehovah God’s right hand. Though the Pharisees considered themselves well-versed in the Scriptures, they likely had never been asked this question before. It was an embarrassment to them: "No man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions" (Matthew 22:46).

On one occasion as Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, they encountered a blind man named Bartimaeus by the side of the road: "When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me" (Mark 10:47,48). Jesus stopped and performed a miracle to restore sight to Bartimaeus.

When Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem a few days before his crucifixion, the multitudes welcomed him: "The multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest" (Matthew 21:9). This is almost a direct quotation from Psalm 118: "Save now, I beseech thee, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD" (Psalm 118:25, 26). The Hebrew word translated "save now" is Hosanna. Those doing the crying were his disciples and those who accepted him as Israel’s Messiah. To them Jesus was making a public proclamation of his Messiahship and at least in their minds, they thought he would soon be king.

Although Matthew’s first verse makes Jesus Christ the son of David and of Abraham, Mark designated Christ’s father differently: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1). Throughout Mark’s gospel, Jesus never refers to himself as the son of God, though others do, including unclean spirits (Mark 3:11), the unclean spirit whose name was legion (Mark 5:7), and the Roman centurion at the foot of the cross (Mark 15:39). One might also add the time when the high priest asked Jesus: "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (Mark 14:61). According to Matthew, the high priest said: "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God" (Matthew 26:63).

The birth of Jesus was miraculous and due solely to the power of God his father. At his baptism God acknowledged his relationship for others to hear: "Lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). But to claim such a relationship was tantamount to blasphemy for many. When Jesus claimed that he and his Father were one, it was too much for some: "Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God" (John 10:31-33).

But that charge withered when Jesus called their attention to a verse from Psalms which said: "Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High" (Psalm 82:6). He continued in John: "If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" (John 10:35, 36). That was a compelling argument, but the Jews were in no mood to debate the point. They still wanted to kill him.

One would think the phrase "son of God" would occur often in the gospels, and it does: 28 times. But one finds a different phrase much more often: "son of man" (81 times in the four gospels). At times Jesus almost goes out of his way to use that phrase rather than "son of God." Consider that exchange with the high priest: "Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:61, 62).

In the table following are most of the instances when Jesus referred to himself as the Son of man in Mark’s gospel.

What did Jesus expect his disciples to understand from this expression? The expression was certainly familiar to the Jews since it appears many times in the Old Testament.

The phrase "Son of man" appears more than eighty times in the book of Ezekiel and is applied to the prophet himself. At least superficially, the phrase denotes that the individual so described shares the characteristics of humanity.

Albert Barnes made this suggestion about why Jesus used the phrase: "He sustained a peculiar relation to our race; that he was in all respects a man; that he was one of us; that he had so taken our nature on himself that there was a peculiar propriety that a term which would at once designate this should be given to him."

This is from Barnes’ extensive comment on Daniel 7:13, the only instance in the Old Testament where the phrase is not applied to a human being. It reads: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed" (Daniel 7:13, 14).

It is this prophecy that Jesus brought to the high priest’s mind when, in response to the question as to whether he was the son of the blessed, he replied: "Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:62). Yes, Jesus shared the characteristics of the human race. Though perfect he suffered fatigue, disappointment, hunger, and the like. But he would someday be resurrected to heaven where his heavenly Father would give him an everlasting dominion and thus, he would become "David’s Lord."

After Jesus was resurrected as a divine being, he was still the "Son of man," at least according to Stephen. Shortly before his enemies stoned him to death, Stephen had a vision: "He, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:55, 56, ASV).

In the first chapter of the Bible we read: "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth" (Genesis 1:26). Man was created and given a dominion. He promptly lost it because of sin. The word "man" is Strongs #120 and in Hebrew is adam. The name of the first man is Strongs #121 and is the same word, only capitalized to show it is the name of a person.

As the "son of man" Jesus was the "son of Adam" as much as he was the "son of David." He was the natural heir to David’s throne and dominion and the people cheered him as such during his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But he was equally the natural heir to Adam’s "throne" and dominion and, as Daniel’s prophecy makes clear, he received it from the "Ancient of days."

Adam lost life. Jesus said: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Even the earth will be restored to the perfection God meant it to have: "He shall send Jesus Christ ... whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:20, 21).