The Son of Man and Imputed Righteousness
Graeme Goldsworthy

Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version.

In the Gospels there are numerous occasions on which Jesus refers to Himself as the "Son of man." The title in itself means nothing more than human being. In the Hebrew or Aramaic idiom it is a simple alternative to man (see Ps. 8:4). But it is clear that the New Testament has particularized the term and given it a specific meaning which relates to the "Son of man" vision in Daniel 7. Jesus as the Son of man is thus designated as truly human (in a general way) and also as the Man with all the meaning that the vision of Daniel carries.

Because of the apocalyptic nature of Daniel 7 and the futuristic references that Jesus makes to its fulfillment ("you shall see the Son of man coming with the clouds"), it is all too easy to see the special significance of the Son of man only in relation to the second coming of Jesus and to divorce the second coming from the gospel core of New Testament teaching. To do this is to misunderstand both the Old Testament roots and the New Testament application of the "Son of man" theme.

Man: The Ideal

The biblical doctrine of (the son of) man begins at the creation, where we find a special dignity given to humans. Man is created in God's image and given dominion over the rest of creation (Gen. 1:26). Theologians differ about how far the image of God is interpreted by the statements of man's dominion. For the moment the important thing is the hierarchy in all that exists: God—man—animals and the inanimate.

Man's place in this hierarchy is seen first in his relationship to God. Man is the highest in the created order and bears a unique relationship to the Creator which is expressed in the benign rule that God exercises over him. Adam and Eve in the garden kingdom are subject to the sovereign word of God. Second, in relationship to the created order, man has a ruling role expressed in the naming of the beasts and in the tending of the garden.

This ideal hierarchy of the kingdom of God is expressed in Psalm 8:

. . . what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou dost care for him?

Yet Thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor.

Thou hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet . . . (Ps. 8:4-6).

This ruling function of man is never lost sight of even in the fallen world. Every endeavor of man to conquer the universe, whether it be in space flight or on the earth, is an expression of his efforts to exercise dominion.

Man: The Reality

The ideal of Genesis 1:26 and Psalm 8 is thwarted by the existence of sin. In Genesis 3 we learn how man sought to upset the hierarchy by putting himself above God. His rebellious desire to dethrone God involves him further in an illegitimate grasp for dominion over his fellow man — something that was never given him by God. The judgment of God in the ejection from the Edenic kingdom is accompanied by a curse on creation so that man's dominion over it is severely and continuously challenged (Gen. 3:17-19).

Man outside the kingdom of God (Eden) is man challenged by the beasts and by his environment. The animals are no longer docile and submissive but hostile towards man and predatory. This challenge by beast against man symbolizes the whole realm of godlessness and evil. It is thus a simple step to the use of the beasts as figures of evil and persecution of the godly. For example, Psalm 22, a lament of a righteous man under persecution, begins with the well-known cry:

My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Later the psalmist says:

Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion (vss. 12-13).

And again:

Yea, dogs are round about me;
a company of evildoers encircle me . . . (vs. 16).
Deliver my soul from the sword,
my life from the power of the dog!
Save me from the mouth of the lion,
my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen! (vss. 20-21).

It is clear from other parts of this psalm that these "beasts" are evil men (e.g., vss. 6-8, 16-18).

Restoring the Dominion

When God made His covenant with Abraham, He promised to restore the rightful hierarchy and to put man back in the kingdom of which Eden was the original expression. The Abrahamic covenant promised that there would be a people of God in the place prepared for them and under God's ruling word. This new Eden, a land flowing with milk and honey, is revealed under the form of Canaan. Notice the familiar ring about the blessings and curses of the covenant:

And if you obey the voice of the Lord your God . . . blessed shall be . . . the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock . . . But if you will not obey . . . cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle . . . . The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies . . . And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth . . . (Deut. 28:1, 4,15,18, 25-26).

The program of salvation revealed to Israel is structured upon the Edenic situation and shows the goal of God's mighty acts to be the restoration of a people to the kingdom.

God's people	God's place	God's rule
Adam	Eden	Demand for obedience
Israel	Land of Canaan	Demand for in obedience the Sinaitic covenant

God demanded that His new Adamic race, Israel, should be perfect. Only perfection would do if Israel was to be the true representative of man who came from the Eden kingdom bearing the image of God (Lev. 19:2; cf. Matt. 5:48). But Israel was incapable of fulfilling the law, which demanded perfection — a fact that brought the re-enactment of the curses of Genesis 3 in the exile of Israel.

Alongside the ugly fact of Israel's sin was the marvelous word of hope given by the prophets — a promise of restoration which expressed the unchanging purpose of God to bring a people to Himself, to restore man to his rightful dominion. Sometimes the prophets spoke of Israel's restoration as the renewal of Eden with a cessation of the beasts' challenge to man's dominion:

The wolf shall dwell with the Lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them . . . (Isa. 11:6-9).

For the Lord will comfort Zion;
He will comfort all her waste places,
and will make her wilderness like Eden,
her desert like the garden of the Lord . . . (Isa. 51:3; cf. Ezek. 36:35).

The Son of Man

Against this background of the theme of man's dominion we can now look at the great vision of Daniel 7. Here we see four beasts representing godless empires of sinful men. Dominion is found among the godless (vs. 6), but it is soon removed as the throne of God is set up in demonstration of divine sovereignty (vss. 6, 9). When dominion is removed from the beasts (vs. 12), a human figure appears in the clouds of heaven to be presented before God (vs. 13), and the dominion is given to this Son of man forever (vs. 14). The interpretation is made that the kings of the earth shall not have dominion, for this is to be given to the saints (vss. 15-18, 27).

Here is a reversal of the curse of the fall which involves the restoration of dominion to a godly people in terms of the original hierarchy of Genesis 1:26. The Son of man (Aramaic: bar enash; Hebrew: ben adam — son of Adam) is the One who fulfills both the ideal of the original Adam and of Israel as the chosen people of God. If Israel failed to achieve this ideal in her history, where is the other Adam to be found? The New Testament tells us where: in the true Son of man, Jesus Christ. Jesus is both the true Israel and the true Adam (for both have the same significance). He alone is the true "people of God," fulfilling all righteousness.

Not only is Jesus specifically referred to as Son of man on the Daniel 7 pattern, but He is also shown to be the One who fulfills the ideals of Adam and the true Israel. So, for example, Luke records the baptism of Jesus when He is identified with the human race but dignifies Him with the unique declaration that He is the human Son of God who pleases the Father. Luke immediately follows with the genealogy which links Jesus to Adam, the "son of God" (Luke 3:21-38). Then this God-pleasing Son of Adam is tempted in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13). Each rebuttal of Satan involves Scripture drawn from the section of Deuteronomy which deals with Israel's temptation and fall in the wilderness. The implication is clear: where old Israel (the successor of Adam) failed, the Son of man succeeded.

Look also at Mark's account of the temptation (Mark 1:12-13). After His baptism Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, "and He was with the wild beasts." Mark implies that Jesus overcame Satan and that He was at peace with the wild beasts. That is, where the first Adam failed when tempted and was challenged by the beasts, the last Adam overcame and restored man's dominion over nature.

Much more could be said about the "Son of Man" theology in the New Testament. Let it suffice to refer to Peter's Pentecost sermon, where the subject is the Man who was attested by God and who, after His death, was raised and exalted at the right hand of God (Acts 2:22-24, 32-36). Rather than the eternal Second Person of the Trinity returning to His rightful glory, we see here the last Adam who has demonstrated a perfect righteousness and who is exalted because He is the true Man, the one true Man since Adam fell. Dominion has been restored to man in this Son of Adam.

Now the Son of man reigns in heaven, and His coming with the clouds of heaven will be to bring about the final subjection of all things. Meanwhile, the believer is said to be "in Christ." This typically Pauline phrase describes the identification of the believer with the Son of man, who is the head of a new race of men. Everything that can be said about the exalted Christ can be said about the believer. The believer is crucified, he is dead and buried, and he has been raised and exalted — and all this in Christ.

Since to be in Christ describes the status we have through faith rather than the reality we perceive with our senses, we note that everything we have or are before God is in Christ — that is, it belongs to Him. Our status as sons of Adam, whereby we fulfill the ideal of Genesis 1:26, is achieved only on the basis of the achievement of the "last Adam." Why does Paul call Him the "last Adam?" (1 Cor. 15:45). Because there can be no other Adams. We cannot be Adams on our own. Christ alone is Adam, and that is why we must be in Christ.

It is vital for us to understand that since no believer can say that crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation to heaven is his actual experience, the description of him in these terms is a declaration of a status. To be in Christ does not mean a mystical fusion of the believer's being with Christ's being, but it is the giving of the status of a son of man in the eyes of God. So Paul says, ". . . if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation . . . " (2 Cor. 5:17). In the light of the "Son of man" theology, we see that Paul is here talking primarily about our status as members of the new Adamic society. The new creation is in Christ, not in us. Therefore it does not signify something like the new birth or other change in us. The change is in our status and not our state. Let us hasten to add that this is not to deny the reality or necessity of the new birth, but it is only to deny that this passage refers to the new birth.

We conclude that the biblical teaching of the Son of man in both the Old and New Testaments points to the fact that the righteousness which makes us members of the people of God is wholly outside of us. It is in Christ. It is His and His alone. The true dominion is exercised by the reigning Christ, and to be in Christ is to reign with Him.