"One Like a Son of Man"

          Today’s First Reading [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112825.cfm ]  from Daniel 7 is of great importance to eschatology (that part of theology that deals with the “Last Things” – death, judgment, heaven, hell) as well as Christology (that part of theology dealing with who Jesus is). 

          As previously said, Daniel is written in apocalyptic genre.  This reading makes that clear.  It has a feel very much like the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (also known as the “Apocalypse”).

          That shouldn’t surprise us.  Today’s reading is a judgment scene.  We are confronted by a “beast” – evil.  We see the “Ancient of Days” – a Biblical term for God, who judges (“the books were opened”).  And we’re told of “one like a Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven ….”

          “Son of man” is a Biblical term and title.  It is a title Jesus frequently assumes to Himself.  What does it mean?

          The Semitic mind tended to focus on the collective, the group.  No surprise there: the Jews were “God’s Chosen People.”  “Man” was mankind, humanity.  To designate a single or individual member of that collective, of humanity, one used the term “son of.”  So, a “son of man” was a particular, individual human being.

          But consider the context in which this expression occurs.  It is not set in a typical day in Babylon or even Jerusalem.  It’s setting is the Last Day, the end of the world, Judgment Day.  We have already seen God, “the Ancient of Days.”  Into this eschatological scene of judgment comes an individual human being: Jesus Christ, the eternal King who receives “dominion” and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

          Did Daniel necessarily understand that?  No.  He lived before Christ.  But in the vision he reports that he may not have understood, it is clear that a human being enters this final judgment scene.  As Christians, we affirm that human being is the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ.

          Jesus often applies the term “Son of Man” to Himself.  Two important instances are when He heals the paralyzed man brought to Him through the roof by his pallet bearers and when He dispenses His Apostles from certain Sabbath rules.  In the first instance, Jesus heals the paralyzed man as proof of His earlier statement “so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins” (Mk 2:10).  Only God can forgive sins, so claiming that this “Son of Man,” Jesus, can forgive the paralyzed man’s sins is tantamount to asserting His divinity.  Likewise, in the second case, Jesus dispensing His Apostles from a certain Sabbath obligation is offered as proof that “the Son of Man” – me – is “Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mk 2:28).  The Sabbath is instituted by God, part of creation itself (Gen 2:2).  For Jesus to claim authority over the Sabbath is, again, tantamount to claiming He is God.

          When St. Stephen, the first martyr, was stoned, he was killed for the statement that he saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).  That vision is a direct appeal to Daniel 7 and a direct profession of faith by Stephen that Jesus is that “Son of Man.”  Just as the Pharisees murdered Jesus for “blasphemy” for having made a similar assertion (Mt 26:63-67) before Caiaphas when the latter demands He confess if He is “the Christ, the Son of God,” so Stephen is killed for declaring the same truth.  It is a vision that comes full circle in Revelation 1:7 [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%201%3A7&version=NRSVCE ]

          You can see how central today’s reading is to Christian theology.