The Power Of Messiah Jesus As The Son Of Man

4.4—The Power of Messiah Jesus as “the Son of Man” Throughout the Gospels, Jesus asks the question: “And who do you say that I am?” Jesus did not ask this question to get confirmation or clarity from the outside because the Jews of this oppressed Roman colony often wanted him to be a military revolutionary or provider for all their needs of poverty, sickness, suffering.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus answers his own question of identity by saying that “I am the Son of Man” EIGHTY TIMES!! The messiah as “the Son of Man” was spoken by Daniel as one who will have “divine dominion, glory and divine kingship” which can never be taken away (Daniel 7:13, M. Kelly, p. 33).

In his book Rediscovering Jesus, Matthew Kelly summarizes the unusual

The suffering servant was not enough. The “Son of Man” was to be a king but the kingdom was not of this earth. The Jews needed the kingdom to be of this earth to defeat Roman oppression as well as the moral oppression from the Pharisees. Jesus claims to be God through the set of God-like powers. The righteousness by faith of Abraham was in the revelation in that God is One, spirit and invisible. Suddenly there is this “incarnation of God” alien to the Jewish tradition. Now the Son of Man revelation is too much and still too otherworldly for the realpolitik needs of the day.

4.5—The Power “Tactics” of Jesus to Empower the Poor and

Jewish orthodoxy had a system of compulsory laws that controlled everyone from birth to death and to oppose this status quo of the conservative rich would set off punishment from Roman rule which ruthlessly exterminated revolutionaries. How was Jesus to gain power in this entrenched system of religious and political control? The answer was to begin to bring to light the everyday problems of the everyday people and bring a consensus of agreement that these were real and shared sources of suffering for the oppressed classes.

Poverty of the Roman colony was made worse by excessive and corrupt taxation systems so bad that the people had little to lose with a major change to the systems supporting the status quo. The ruling powers were themselves divided. The Romans were hated by the Jews and vice versa. The priestly hie-rarchy had its own internal conflicts over power and principle. The hope against such oppression was the Jewish belief in some coming in the prophetic tradition who would be the Messiah to deliver Israel into justice and freedom from