Listen or read the following transcript as Sinclair Ferguson speaks on the topic of the Person of Christ from Daniel 7
The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.
To the Old Testament book of Daniel, we’re going to read there in Daniel 7. Although we’ll roam around a little in the Scriptures, I think it will be helpful for you to keep a marker in there, your notebook in there, one of those pieces of paper that you find in the pew rack in front of you. It will help us to move from this great prophecy and vision of the Old Testament into its fulfillment in our Lord Jesus.
We’ve come to the fourth of our studies, if this is the first or second of which you’ve been part. Our first study was looking at our Lord Jesus as the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent, even while the serpent crushed His heel.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15, ESV)
And how marvelously that is reflected on in the exposition we’ve just had of Jesus, the Servant who was crushed for our iniquities. It pleased the Lord to crush Him. So we’ve thought about Christ as the promised seed, as the Prophet of God. And as we have thought about Him as Servant, we come now to think about Him as Son of Man, fairest Lord Jesus, all Thou of God and Man, the Son.
Daniel 7, Daniel has extraordinary visions and this one takes place as you’ll notice in chapter 7, verse 1, in the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon. He has a nightmare of a vision actually, four beasts coming out of the sea in all their horrific power. And then he sees in verse 9, he sees beyond the sea to the sky.
1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. 2 Daniel declared, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. 3 And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. 4 The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. 5 And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, ‘Arise, devour much flesh.’ 6 After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. 7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. 8 I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. 9 “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. 10 A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. 11 “I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. 12 As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. 13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:1-14, ESV)
And then towards the end of the passage in verse 26, which gives us a further detail on this judgment scene,
26 But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end. 27 And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. 28 Here is the end of the matter. (Daniel 7:26-28, ESV)
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the prophetic ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the promise that He has given to us that He will be with us. And we pray as together we sit under His Word that He will come to us and expound it to us, illumine our understanding by the gracious ministry of His Holy Spirit and cause our hearts to burn within us as in Spirit we walk with Him and He with us on the way. So we pray that you would show us something more of His glory and His grace. We pray for the spiritual concentration we need to fix our eyes directly on the Lord Jesus.
We pray that the bright light that comes from Him who is the Son of Righteousness who has arisen with healing in His wings may so penetrate us that our darkness may be consumed, that our spirits may be warmed, that our sinful willful wills may be extinguished and that at the end of this hour we may again be lost in wonder and love and praise. So Lord in these studies in which we share together, so show us the glory of your Son and our own sinfulness and need and the grace of your Son and His power to save that we really will be lost in wonder and love and praise in the deeper and richer knowledge of our wonderful Savior Jesus Christ. We pray this in His name, Amen.
Well, some of you know that we have three sons and a daughter. We have them in that order. It took me I think about two weeks after my daughter was born actually to believe that she was a girl although she looked like a girl, smelt like a girl and very quickly talked like a girl. It was so counterintuitive to me to believe that she really was a girl and that I actually had a daughter. It took her about 14 years to believe that she was a girl because she had three older brothers. But I was looking some time ago at photographs of my daughter. We Scottish people are not always doing that. We don’t whip out our wallets and say you want to see my family. But I was looking at photographs of her over the period of her life when it suddenly struck me that there was a characteristic in her life that had been there all of the time right from the very earliest photographs of her as a young girl right through to the latest photographs. And I don’t suppose, although I had been her father all these years, it ever really dawned on me that this was something so deeply embedded in her being. When I saw the pattern that was developing, it gave me a fresh light upon my dear daughter.
Sometimes, looking at the photographs of the Lord Jesus Christ, exactly the same thing can happen. The Son of Man. It’s an expression that’s used in the Gospels of the Lord Jesus on 51 separate occasions. My mathematics may be one or two wrong, but let’s say around 50 separate occasions. I’m not adding together all the parallels in the Gospels. I’m saying there are 50 separate occasions in which the Lord Jesus is described as the Son of Man.
And probably most of us from earliest days in our Christian life have been conscious either in the hymns that we’ve sung or in our reading or in the teaching that we’ve received in understanding that the Lord Jesus is the Son of Man. Except that in those 51 photographs of the Son of Man, of Jesus, there is something that you could look at them individually and this might never dawn on you, although it’s actually present in every single one.
It’s this surprising fact that in the Gospels, there is only one person who ever refers to the Lord Jesus as the Son of Man. 50 separate sayings about Jesus as the Son of Man, but surprisingly only one person in the Gospels ever refers to Jesus as the Son of Man. And that person is Jesus Himself. No one else in the Gospels refers to Jesus as the Son of Man, but Jesus constantly, so constantly that we might say based on the statistics that Son of Man is Jesus’ favorite self-designation.
It is the title that He uses of Himself that apparently, and this emerges when you begin to analyze these 50 sayings that Jesus has about Himself as the Son of Man, that Son of Man may be in Jesus’ mind, the most comprehensive description of His own person, His work, and the inner significance of His ministry. And there can, I think, be very little doubt that He roots that picture of Himself as the Son of Man in this great vision that Daniel has in Daniel chapter seven.
In the vision itself, there are three elements, and I want us to look at this first of all. The first element is the prophecy of the coming reign of God. Daniel 7:15-16 portray for us the sense that Daniel has of demonic powers being released in the vision, causing him anxiety and mental and spiritual alarm. And he asks for the meaning. He says,
15 “As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me. 16 I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. (Daniel 7:15-16, ESV)
Now, that’s a feature of what we sometimes call apocalyptic literature. It happens again in the book of Revelation. The amazing thing is that both Daniel and the apostle John are so drawn into the reality of the vision that they find themselves actually being participants in the vision. They’re not just, as it were, on the outside looking in. They’re there in the crowd, and they’re turning to somebody and saying, can somebody explain this to me?
And the interpretation is an interpretation of powers that will arise in the earth. But, verse 18, notice, the security of the kingdom of God established by the work of the Son of Man. The saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and forever and forever.
18 But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.’ (Daniel 7:18, ESV)
So it’s a picture of history as the context of conflict, as we saw last night, between the kingdom of God and the powers of darkness.
And there are times that Daniel is foreseeing here in which the powers of darkness will seem to arise from the seas of the earth with such monumental authority and destructive power that it will seem that the kingdom of God is going to be sunk into the sea. But there is this great assurance given that the kingdom that will overwhelm all other kingdoms, a vision that Daniel has had playing through this book on more than one occasion, there is a kingdom that will arise that will bring to naught every other kingdom.
Kingdoms may come, kingdoms may go, rise and fall, but the kingdom of God will be established and it will endure forevermore. And God will gloriously intervene and establish His kingdom. So it’s a great promise of the coming kingdom of God.
Second, it’s a marvelous promise of the coming judgment of evil. Now, we understand, of course, because as Alistair was saying earlier on, we have the privilege of reading the Old Testament scriptures with hindsight, but some of these Old Testament visions are something akin to us climbing mountains and we head for the peak, but only when we get to the peak and think that we’ve got to the summit do we realize that there is a peak beyond the peak that was hidden from us.
And some of these Old Testament visions have that kind of characteristic that they give us the picture of God’s mighty victory, but then as that victory unfolds in history, we understand that it unfolds in stages and there are staging posts in the way in which God will fulfill the promises that He has made. He’s given in the pages of Old Testament scripture. And this is what we find here, that the Kingdom of God will be established and by the establishing of the Kingdom of God, at its establishment, the kingdom of darkness will be overwhelmed, even if there will be some time before the kingdom of darkness is finally annihilated. And of course, we understand we are living between those two times. Daniel is looking forwards. We are living between the mountain peaks.
And as we read these verses, we can very quickly begin to understand that this coming judgment of evil will take place in the ministry of our Lord Jesus. “Now is the judgment of this world,” says Jesus in John 12. “Now is the prince of this world cast out.” And He is cast out by Christ in His death and resurrection. But He is not yet cast into the lake of fire.
31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. (John 12:31, ESV)
Daniel sees this as it were, as one phenomenon in His vision of the future. And He begins to understand as these thrones are set in heaven and the Ancient of Days appears and the Son of Man comes in the clouds to the Ancient of Days, to the Ancient of Days, He understands that what is happening here is a symbolic representation, if I can put it in local terms, of this great principle that we all need to understand, that ultimate authority in this world does not reside in Washington, D. C. And incidentally, it didn’t reside in Washington, D. C. two weeks ago either. Ultimate authority in this world resides in the Ancient of Days who is on the throne.
And He has, as Jesus again would say, He has committed to His Son all judgment. And as Daniel looks forward to this, he’s in the same position as the prophet Isaiah or the prophet Ezekiel or any of those prophets that Peter was thinking about. And he’s looking at this and he’s scratching his head and he’s saying, “But who is this Son of Man figure? When will He come? What does this all mean?” But a little like ourselves with details of prophecy still to be fulfilled, his soul is anchored by this great vision that he’s given, by this insight into the majesty of God in heaven.
And he understands when that door into heaven through which he’s walked closes, he’ll be able to come back down to earth where the door seems to be very closed. And he’ll be able to bring that vision as it were down to earth. And in all the midst of the changing and troublesome times of life, he’ll be able to remember that God is on the throne and He will remember His own because he’s seen, he’s seen the future. And he’s seen the books being opened and the Ancient of Days exercising judgment and the dominion of the beasts being destroyed. And then marvelously the verdict being given to the saints of the Most High.
And this is a very striking thing that begins to appear actually in several of these Old Testament pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. In several of these Old Testament pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ, the remarkable thing is that the picture of the Lord Jesus is never isolated from the people of the Lord Jesus. The ministry of the prophet is always related to the people. The ministry of the king is always related to the people. The ministry of the priest is always related to the people. The ministry of the suffering servant is for the people. And the triumph of the Son of Man that’s described here is for the saints of the Most High, the people of the Son of Man.
And so this passage ends with this amazing picture in verse 27.
27 And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.’ (Daniel 7:27, ESV)
And you remember this is actually one of the very first things that Jesus teaches disciples. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5, ESV)
And so you see there are lines that run from Daniel 7 into so many passages and parts of the New Testament Scriptures as they are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So there’s a promise of the coming reign of God. There’s a promise of the coming judgment of evil. And both of these promises are rooted in a third promise in this passage, the key promise in this passage, the promise of the coming of the Son of Man.
And from this passage there are two things I think we need to notice that will help us when we turn to the pages of the New Testament Scriptures. First of all, the significance of the title, the significance of the title. Sometimes we are taught in Sunday school that Jesus is God and man, and so the New Testament calls Him the Son of God and the Son of Man. But there’s clearly more to this picture than simply thinking that the title Son of Man is a reference to Jesus’ humanity in distinction from His deity. Because actually, although we will see there is more to it than this, this is a picture of magnificence and triumph and glory.
This is a picture of the Son of Man going to the throne of the Majesty on High, the Ancient of Days, and receiving from Him authority over the whole cosmos. So, what does this expression “Son of Man” really mean? It’s used in the Old Testament Scriptures, actually most frequently in the book of Ezekiel. It appears perhaps most significantly in the Psalm that asks the question, “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the Son of Man that you care for him?” And it appears here in its most Christocentric way in the title that’s given to our Lord Jesus Christ.
And probably the answer to the question, “What does the Son of Man mean?” is that it’s a Hebrew way of saying something. For example, we are familiar with the New Testament expression, “the Son of Perdition.” What do we mean by that? We mean here is somebody in whom perdition is embodied. Or remember that name that Jesus gave to James and John. Hard to believe that the sweet John who writes the Gospel was given a nickname. I think probably Jesus gave all of the disciples nicknames or real names. And he and his brother were known as Boanerges, Sons of Thunder. What did Jesus mean by that? Well, you know what He meant by that. He meant that these were the two in the disciple band who in personality most clearly embodied the atmosphere and concepts of thunder.
And so, when the Scriptures use this expression, “Son of Man,” they mean here is the true man. Here is the real man. Or if you love Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” “For us fights the proper man.” So the title “Son of Man” doesn’t simply mean man in the generic sense. It means man as he was created to be and man as he has fulfilled the destiny for which God created him. And this, in the last analysis and the big picture of the Bible, is the reason why our Lord Jesus Christ is known as the second man and the last Adam.
Adam was created to be the Son of Man as well as the Son of God. Adam was created to fulfill the destiny for which God created man, which as we noted last night was to take this little garden that God had given to him. And then as Genesis 1:26-28 says, as the image of God in humanity, as perhaps one might say as a miniature Lord in the earth to give expression to His reflection of God’s gracious character and His dominion over the whole cosmos and over all universes.
26 Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28, ESV)
God, in order that Adam might enter into the most intimate possible fellowship with Him as the heavenly Father and Lord of the universe said, “Now, Adam, if we are going to have fellowship together, you are going to have to experience a little taste of what I know infinitely. So here is a little garden. I’ll give you a start. I’ll give you a little start. And I want you to be Lord, not only of that garden. I want you to have dominion over everything on the earth because it’s as you enter into that that you will find you’ll actually grow in fellowship.”
You know, this is a bit like when you get to my age, you begin to look back on your parents and if your parents are gone as mine are, to regret that you can’t go to them and say to them, “I never knew what I was doing to you when you raised me to grow up and then to leave home and I grew up and left home and I had no idea what I was doing to you. I had no idea how much you missed me.” I think they did miss me. But you see then you grow into it and if your parents are still in this world and you are beginning to experience that, then you need to call them this afternoon and tell them, “I realize what I did to you now, mom. I realize now how much you sacrificed for me, dad.”
And see, this is why Adam is created as the proper man who is going to be the image of God. It’s not just that the image of God is something located within him as a kind of abstractable commodity. It is that as God’s man, he is and is to be and experience what it means to be the image of God in fellowship with God, so that he can look up and say, as he creates something, as the plants grow, yes, it takes him time to do this. And he can’t just do it by speaking as God did it by speaking. But as he sees it, now he looks up to the Father and he says, “I’m beginning to understand. This is absolutely amazing. Isn’t it great to be the image of God? To be able to share with Him, Lord, Lord, you see.”
Just as Jesus says, perhaps using an illustration from His experience in the carpenter’s shop of Joseph, He says, “you know, everything I do is what I’ve seen my Father do.” Now, that’s what it means to be the Son of Man. It means to be made as God’s image and to fulfill the divine destiny.
Now, the second thing to notice is not just the meaning of this expression, “Son of Man.” The second thing to notice, and this may be just a little unusual to draw your attention to, the second thing to notice in this passage, it’s actually a very important thing to notice, is the direction in which the Son of Man is going. Look down at the passage and ask yourself the question, when the Son of Man is said to come, in what direction is He moving? Where is He coming from? Where is He going to? Verse 13,
13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. (Daniel 7:13-14, ESV)
Now, where has He come from and where is He going to? Well, the first part of the question is answered by what’s clearly said about the second part of the question. He came to the Ancient of Days. Now, I say that because often when we turn to the New Testament, whenever we see the language that speaks about the coming of the Son of Man, we have a tendency always to interpret those passages as though they referred to His second coming at the end of time.
And we need to begin to take those passages and on occasion ask ourselves the question, when this speaks about the Son of Man coming with His angels, in what direction is the Son of Man coming? Because sometimes I rather suspect some of those passages refer not so much to His coming at the end of time, but the significance of His coming on His resurrection and ascension and enthronement at the right hand of the Father, with all the implications and consequences of that for the building, progressing, and yes, final consummation of His kingdom when He will come from the majesty on high, from the Ancient of Days, in order to consummate His kingdom.
But here, interestingly, this reference apparently is not to Jesus coming at the end of time. This is a reference to Jesus coming at the midpoint of time. Now that He is broken the neck of the powers of darkness, has taken the sting of death, has borne the guilt of sin, has tasted the judgment curse of God, and has risen from the grave, and now He is returning.
The fathers of the church used to think of Psalm 24 in this regard, as the hosts of heaven looking for the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, and asking the question of Him as the angels accompanying Him as He ascended into heaven said,
7 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! 9 Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory! (Psalm 24:7-10, ESV)
Open the doors that the King of glory may come in in His glorious triumph. Receive the name that is above every other name, that as His kingdom progresses in history, every knee will bow and one day every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
In other words, the immediate focus of this prophecy is on the consummation of the earthly ministry of Jesus. Yes, looking forward to the final application of that ministry, when He comes again in majesty and glory and ends all history and brings in the new heavens and the new earth. But He is coming to the Heavenly Father, to the Ancient of Days, surrounded by the angels.
Was that angel that Alexander White wanted to speak to, was he given a second message, I wonder? Because you strengthened my Son. Just go out that door and join that crowd and accompany Him home.
Now, it’s all this, it seems to me, that lies behind everything that Jesus says about Himself. And I repeat, I think it’s very significant that there is only one person, whoever in the Gospels refers to Jesus as the Son of Man, and that is Jesus Himself. As though He were saying, surely must have turned to these passages on the Emmaus road. As though He were saying, dear friends, I know, number one, the book of Daniel is difficult to find in the Old Testament. And number two, this is the second half of the book of Daniel. And most of us are frightened by the nutcases who have tried to interpret this part of the book of Daniel. But please don’t lose sight of me, because there are crossword puzzle solvers who sit in armchairs trying to work out the mathematical details.
Get a grip of this, that I am that Son of Man. And what you will see fulfilled in my ministry is everything that was required of the Son of Man, that He might come to that consummate point in His experience when surrounded by the triumphant angels, He entered back into heaven. And as the Bible hints in more than one place, He said to His Father, Father, you promised me, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance. And He receives the nations for His inheritance, and that is why He is intimated to His disciples in His final words to them before His ascension and before He raises His hands in the final benediction, He says to them, now all authority in heaven and earth is given to me, the Son of Man. Now you go into all the world and make that a reality by the proclamation of the gospel.
Now let’s fast forward these hundreds of years to the New Testament and to the way in which our Lord Jesus uses this expression, the Son of Man. And when we do that, when we do that, I think we can see if we took and wrote down all of these different sayings of Jesus one by one, line upon line and took our colored pencils or our magic markers or what’s the word, highlighters. I hope incidentally you highlight the bits that you don’t understand so you can read them again, not just the bits that you do understand and highlight them with our rainbow version of the Son of Man sayings.
We can more or less operate in these 50 sayings with three different colors because they fall essentially into three different categories. Category number one in the Gospels is when the expression “the Son of Man” describes the incarnate Son of Man establishing His kingdom. The incarnate Son of Man establishing His kingdom. And probably the easiest place to see this is in Matthew 4-7. What’s happening here is that Jesus, as the Son of Man, is entering into conflict with the powers of darkness. He’s coming to begin that judgment. And we see first of all in Matthew 4:1-11, especially in the words of Jesus in verse 10, “Be gone, Satan.” There, He’s speaking with all the prophetic authority of the divinely ordained prophet, and He is commanding Satan to be gone.
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. (Matthew 4:1-11, ESV)
The interesting thing is that we read in the very next verse that the devil left Him. And again, behold, angels came and were ministering to Him. What is Jesus doing there? Jesus, as it were, is bringing the first destructive blow to the kingdom of darkness. And we need to understand this has never before been done in the whole process of human history. This is why He is the second man and there is none between the first man and the second man. This is what the first man was supposed to do. The first man was supposed to crush the head of the serpent.
Martin Luther, you can say almost anything about Martin Luther, say Martin Luther said this and the chances of anyone contradicting you I know are zillions to one, but Martin Luther genuinely said and apparently genuinely thought, I’ve read his words for myself, I can vouch for him, although I don’t agree with him. He said, you know, if the serpent had come along to Adam instead of going to Eve, Adam would have stood on the serpent’s head and said, “Get out of here.” I’m not so sure. But as I said the other evening, I think it is very significant that the way to Adam was through the very best gift that God had given to him. That was much stronger leverage than coming to Adam directly.
But you see, this is Jesus doing what Adam was supposed to do. That’s why the whole thing is portrayed in the Gospels the way it is, in a wilderness surrounded by wild beasts, not surrounded by beautiful trees with simply one small means of testing, but these powerful implorements, one of which, of course, is the most significant one really, and the last one in Matthew’s order is Him taking Him up to the high mountain and showing Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. Why would that be a temptation to Jesus? Why would Jesus not just laugh Him in the face and say, “That’s no temptation to me,” for this reason. That was why He came into the world. He came into the world to gain the kingdoms of this world. He came into the world to undo and reverse what Adam did. So it was a very real temptation, except that just as the devil is a liar from the beginning, as Jesus says when He lied to Eve, He lied to Jesus. Because the moment Jesus bows down before Him is the moment He forfeits all over again the kingdoms of this world.
But you see, Jesus is breaking through the darkness and nobody has withstood Satan thus far before. Nobody has gone this far, nobody has been able to bear this weight of temptation this far. Yes, there is more to go, but for the very first time, Satan has had to slink away from a proper man. And Jesus, as it were, you remember, was it Neil Armstrong? I know they still debate exactly what he said, “One small step for a man, giant leap for mankind.” Just as we would say that about Jesus’ resurrection. He has broken a gaping hole in death and now all who are Christ’s may go through. He makes a gaping hole in Satan’s power.
And you notice the next thing He begins to do, it’s a very, very important thing to notice, the next thing He begins to do is to preach that the kingdom of God has come. And so He says, verse 17,
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17, ESV)
And then the next thing He does is He goes into Satan’s territory and He begins to point to one and another. He says, “Now leave your nets, leave your tax booth,” and He calls people out of darkness into His marvelous light. So He establishes His kingdom, He proclaims His kingdom, He brings disciples into His kingdom, and then He begins to manifest the power of His kingdom.
Verse 23, He goes through Galilee, He teaches and preaches. Verse 24, His fame spreads and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, paralytics, and He healed them.
23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. (Matthew 4:23-24, ESV)
What’s He doing? He’s beginning that work of restoration. He has the power to throw into reverse gear because of His victory over the powers of darkness. He has gained the authority to throw into reverse gear everything that’s been brought in to destroy the world through the sin of Adam.
I happened to step onto the escalator this morning, I was carrying a cup of coffee. I was about to go down and meet Alistair, I just casually stepped onto the escalator and to my horror, I realized it was actually going upstairs and I was wanting to go downstairs. And yesterday, I swear yesterday, that escalator was going downstairs. And this is what Jesus is doing. He’s going downstairs on an escalator that has been going upstairs, or perhaps to put it more appropriately, He is beginning to go upstairs on an escalator that has been going downstairs, and every human being has been on that escalator going downstairs to hell. Jesus alone has the power to mount that escalator and get to the top and break through.
And then He begins to show, you see, these miracles of healing and transformation, the essence of them is that they are signs, isn’t it? But what is it that they signify? They signify that consummate regeneration which the Lord Jesus Christ will bring in at the end of all things when He makes all things new. And He’s demonstrating that the final conquest that will be on display then has already broken into the world in Him and in His ministry and His authority over the powers of darkness, and so He gives glimpses as you might go into a darkened room and turn on the light and the light would go on and instantaneously go off, but you would get just enough light to have a sense of what is really there, what is before you.
And this is what Jesus is doing in all of His miracles. They’re not just isolated clever events. They are works of compassion, but they’re works of compassion that signify that this is the compassionate Son of Man who is establishing His kingdom in the world and showing its power.
And then you notice there really shouldn’t be a break between Matthew 4:25 and Matthew 5:1, because you’ll notice the connecting word at Matthew 5:1, seeing the crowds, what does He do? He begins to teach about the lifestyle of the kingdom and the whole first half of His ministry is marked by this, His making inroads into the kingdom of darkness.
And it’s so interesting in all of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all of this then comes to that high point, that transition point when He asks the question, very interesting He asks the question this way in Matthew chapter 6, what are people saying about the Son of Man? What are people saying about the Son of Man? And if you look through that passage in Matthew that goes on to the engagement with Peter, the promise that the gates of Hades will not be able to overwhelm the church, actually I think we could have spent all of our time this weekend for the seven addresses, we could have got every single one of the titles of the seven addresses just out of that little passage.
And it happens to be the key center, turning point in the gospels because it’s from that time onwards that Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man who had broken through was establishing His kingdom, would go to Jerusalem, would suffer, would die, and would rise again. And you see what even on the surface of Matthew 16 Jesus is doing, is saying, you need to understand that what I’ve come to do is to fulfill the promise of Genesis 3.15, so when I build the church the gates of Hades will not be able to prevail.
Need to understand as you do Peter that I am the Christ, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, the prophet and the priest and the king. So the Son of Man is the prophet, the priest, the king, the seed, and the Son of Man also is the one who will be the suffering servant, who will go to the cross, taste the suffering in order that He may rise and at the last day be the Lamb upon the throne.
Many of the verses in which Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man point us to the way in which He has come to establish His kingdom. Second category of these Son of Man verses are verses that focus our attention as we’ve just noticed in Matthew 16 and in other passages, not just on the incarnate Son of Man establishing His kingdom, but on the suffering Son of Man paying the redemption price for His kingdom.
You see, Jesus refers to Satan as the prince of this world and He means that with all seriousness. Under God, of course, you need to remember that Satan is subject to God. He is a creature of God. He is not omnipotent. He is a creature and he’s under God’s sovereignty. But you see, what happened in the Garden of Eden, whatever Satan’s ultimate motivation might have been, Adam forfeited this world over which he was promised dominion upon his obedience, he forfeited it to Satan.
So Satan wasn’t joking when he said to Jesus, you can have it all back, Jesus. However he may lack omniscience, he obviously was theologian skilled enough to understand that when God sent His Son into the world as the second man and the last Adam, He sent him into the world to do what Adam had failed to do, to accomplish what Adam had failed to accomplish. And so He offered him that. But you see, our Lord Jesus understands that as the Son of Man, bowing down to Satan is not the way to purchase, to redeem what Adam had lost.
And interesting, isn’t it? It’s just here that Satan attacks. He slinks away until, as one of the Gospels says, a more opportune season, and here is the opportune season asJesus has been recognized that the Son of Man is also the seed. The Son of Man is also the Messiah. Now, the Son of Man says, “You need to understand this, that Son of Man figure in Daniel and in Psalms, that Son of Man figure, and that figure that begins to emerge in Isaiah 42 and then 49 and then 50, 52 and 53, the Son of Man is the suffering servant. The suffering servant is the Son of Man.”
The reason the angels come with the Lord Jesus as He returns back to the glory of the Father is because they’re there as it were. He has turned His cross, as Calvin says, into a triumphal chariot, and He’s now going back home. And all these angels are going back home with Him because they understand that He has undone what Adam had done, and He has done what Adam had failed to do, but He said to buy it back at great price by being crushed upon the cross and experiencing the dereliction.
Do you remember how Isaiah puts it? Isaiah says at the end of Isaiah 52, and you know that servant song actually begins in Isaiah 52:12, “Behold my servant, He shall act prudently.”
12 For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. 13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. 14 As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind— 15 so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. (Isaiah 52:12-15, ESV)
And then Isaiah sees Him in these amazing words. He says, “He was marred beyond human semblance.” Alec Mottier, if I remember in his commentary, his great commentary on Isaiah says, the question that is being asked is not merely, is this the servant? The question that is being asked is, is this a man? He is marred beyond human semblance.
You see, in order to restore us from the depths to which we have sunk, Jesus on the cross, as it were, has to be so marred beyond human semblance, as Isaiah puts it. He’s got to go right down into the depths of being unmanned, as it were. He’s got to go down into the nadir of tasting what it means for God to turn away from His image.
Now, you know, it’s an interesting thing in the Bible that even though we are fallen, the Bible persists in saying that we remain the image of God. We may be deformed. We may be twisted. The mirror may be shattered, but there is still in what we are, in some sense, reflections of what we were meant to be. But in order to repair that, Jesus has to go underneath all that, and that’s actually what happens.
In this world, God still looks upon us in His common grace, and therefore, because He looks upon us in His common grace, to one degree or another our lives, even fallen lives, some of the most fallen people show in very interesting ways some of the most extraordinary indications that they’re made as the image of God, don’t they? Isn’t it amazing how some of the worst criminals show extraordinary ingenuity in their criminality?
You see, that’s the real issue. The tragedy is not that man has lost the image of God. The tragedy is that it’s God’s image that continues to rebel against Him. That’s the daughter slapping her father in the face. That’s the son spitting in the face of his father.
But you see Jesus on the cross as He gazes up to His heavenly Father and looks up to that reflecting gaze of His heavenly Father that will see Him through as He looks up there. It’s darkness, darkness over the whole earth for three hours so that there could be no experience of reflection as He was marred beyond human semblance in order that He might pay the final purchase price to get the kingdom back.
That’s why when you read through the Gospels, it’s clearest in Luke’s Gospel actually, that when Jesus is betrayed, we’re told in Luke chapter 22, I think, and verses 67 and 68, when they say to Him, “If you are the Christ, tell us,” He’s on the way to being marred beyond human semblance.
67 “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, 68 and if I ask you, you will not answer. (Luke 22:67-68, ESV)
And you see this in verse 63,
63 Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. 64 They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” 65 And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him. 66 When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. And they led him away to their council, and they said, 67 “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, 68 and if I ask you, you will not answer. 69 But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” (Luke 22:63-69, ESV)
Now, you see what He’s saying? He is now not only saying in a general sense, “I am the Son of Man,” He’s saying, “I am that Son of Man whom you know from Daniel chapter 7, who will come to the ancient of days surrounded by His glorious angels in the clouds of heaven and majesty and honor to receive dominion. What you see now is my marring beyond human semblance, but this is going to purchase dominion beyond human imagination, and then the passion.”
Something amazing happens, as I say, especially in Luke’s account of the passion. We find two totally contradictory things, and that is on five specific occasions with the implication of one other occasion, but in five specific occasions, Jesus is pronounced to be absolutely innocent.
4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.” (Luke 23:4, ESV)
Verse 14, “I did not find this man guilty.” Verse 15, the implication, “Neither did Herod, for he sent Him back to us.” Verse 22, a third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has He done? I found in Him no guilt deserving death.” Then the criminal on the cross, verse 41, “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds. We deserve to be marred beyond human semblance, but this man has done nothing wrong.” And then in verse 47, the centurion, certainly as he praised God, he said, “Certainly this man was innocent.”
Now, how can it be that He is declared time and time and time and time and time again to be innocent and crucified? Well, you see, that’s the message. It’s almost as though Luke is saying, if you understand the gospel, you will see that God has written the gospel into the very heart of the experience of His Son at this point.
Why should He be crucified, marred beyond human semblance if everyone declares Him to be innocent? And that’s the point at which we ask, well, what are the charges of which He’s innocent? And the charges that are brought against Him are the charges of blasphemy and treason. Those are the two charges that Jesus has tried for, blasphemy in the religious court, treason in the civil court. He is found not guilty on every single account.
He is executed at the motivation of the high priest and his friends because they have charged Him with blasphemy, and then they brought Him to the civil court and charged Him with treason. What’s going on here? Well, it’s very simple. These are on your charge seat before the judgment throne of God. These are your two crimes. You have blasphemed against God in making yourself God, and you have committed treason against God by refusing His will. That was what Adam did. “you shall be as God’s, and you must disobey His will.”
You see, God is saying in His Word, “Don’t you see? Don’t you see that when the whole universe points to Him and says He is innocent of these charges, there is only one conclusion you can draw, that it is for the charges that are leveled against others that He is going to be marred beyond human semblance. In my place, condemned, He stood, sealed my pardon with His blood.”
And that leads us just in a minute to the final hallelujah. The Son of Man is the incarnate Son of Man who establishes His kingdom. He’s the suffering Son of Man who purchases His kingdom. He is the triumphant Son of Man who consummates His kingdom. This, as we’ve noticed, is what Jesus announces in Matthew 28:18.
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (Matthew 28:18, ESV)
You know, those words, I think in my experience, are almost always preached on either at a missionary’s valedictory or at somebody’s baptism. And they’re relevant to both occasions, but they’re not grounded in both occasions. These verses are first of all about Jesus’ triumph as the Son of Man. “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” Those words echo Genesis 1:26-28. God making man as His image and giving that man dominion over everything. And Jesus is saying, “I am the new man risen from the dead. I am the one who has paid the purchase price. It’s all mine now. I’ve claimed it back. And I’m going back to my Father.”
26 Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28, ESV)
And as Peter hints, this is amazing to me, as I mentioned to the ministers on yesterday at lunch, it absolutely astonishes me, and Alistair referred to this, absolutely amazing that Simon Peter, who was such a bad theologian, just a few weeks before, is the most extraordinary biblical theologian who had ever lived to the time when he stands up on the day of Pentecost and shows how all of the scriptures point to Jesus Christ.
And in all of the things he says, perhaps the thing that I think is the thing that slips me past so easily. Peter says in Acts 2:32, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God.” Now you understand what he’s doing? He’s saying, you want to understand what’s happening here. This is the explanation for what’s happening here, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is beginning to reverse God’s judgment at the Tower of Babel. It’s the beginnings of the internationalizing of God’s people. Now he says this visible reality points to an invisible event. Verse 33, “Being exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”
32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. (Acts 2:32-33, ESV)
Now why does he not say, “Being exalted at the right hand of His Father, He’s poured out the Holy Spirit?” He’s pointing us to a transaction that’s taken place invisibly upon the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, that our Lord Jesus Christ who has had Psalm 2:8 in His heart from so long before, that He’s gone to His Father and said, “All my work is ended. It is finished. Father, you promise, you promise that upon my obedience to you, I could ask of you and you would give me the nations for my inheritance. But if I’m to have the nations for my inheritance, the nations will need to be visited by the proclamation of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.”
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. (Psalm 2:8, ESV)
Holy Spirit. So, Father, send the Spirit through me. And so He begins. He rides forth conquering and to conquer from the day of Pentecost onwards until the final day of His consummation.
And if you’ll give me a moment, I will, I promise, finish with this. It’s an event that’s described most graphically by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Great resurrection chapter, of course, but it looks beyond the resurrection and I’m not going to find it if I’m looking at Romans 15. 1 Corinthians 15:26. You remember this is in the context of Paul thinking about Adam and Jesus as the two Adams that bookend God’s purposes.
And he says,
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:20-24, ESV)
Now see what’s happening? He delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. Now, if you ask the question, what was Adam supposed to do once he turned the whole earth into a garden? He was supposed to do what your little Leonardo da Vinci does, your eight-year-old Leonardo da Vinci does when you give him some pens and pencils and some paper and you say, go, give me a break, go into your room and draw for a while.
And he comes out and he says, Dad, I’ve done what you said. I’ve drawn a picture of you. And you look at the picture. Oh, you say, my son, thank you so much for loving me like this. You not only obeyed me, but you’ve drawn my portrait. That’s what Adam was supposed to do. He was supposed to go back to the Father and say, Father, I think I’m finished. I think no weeds left, flowers all over the place. Father, you gave this to me. Father, will you take this back from me as my love gift to you?
And so says Paul on that great day, this is the kernel of that great day. God help us that we get caught up in the mathematics. The kernel of that great day is not first what will happen to us. It is what will happen in the fellowship of the Father and the Son when the Son takes that kingdom that He has established and He goes to His Father.
Now realize Paul is speaking here about Jesus as the Son of Man, as the second man, as the last Adam, as the one who has come into our humanity to repair our humanity and to fulfill God’s purpose in our humanity and making us as the image of God. It’s in His humanity that suffered in the garden of Gethsemane, strengthened by angels, that when He comes with the angels back and He subdues all His enemies to Himself, He’s going to come with this kingdom and He’s going to lead us into the presence of the Father and we are going to hear the Son say to the Father as the second man, Father, will you please accept this kingdom that is mine and ours as our love gift to you?
And hold your breath.
27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:27-28, ESV)
Now, you either need one to rip that verse out of your Bible, which I assume you’re not going to do, or you need to understand what Paul is saying here. He’s not saying there’s a subordination within the deity of the Trinity, but he is saying when the Son of Man comes with all the angels and this glorified kingdom as our representative mediator and Savior and King with all of us with him and as He is our spokesman to His heavenly Father at that point in our humanity, it is as though the Son will Himself kneel before the Father and say, Father, it is all yours that you may be all in all.
And at that moment when the one who is the name that is above every other name kneels, by God’s grace in this kingdom, your every instinct will be to kneel. And then the fun can begin. Oh, to be there on that moment, to see the Son honored by the Father, and to see the Son as it were do the last thing that was intended to be the first thing and to say, Father, be all in all. In all. That will be a kingdom and a power and a glory forever.
Lord Jesus, how could you come so far for the likes of us? We thank you that you who have come so far down are already so far up that you’re being given a name that is above every other name. And we long for the day when you lead us in kneeling before your heavenly Father, that when you stand up, we all may remain kneeling before you. And this we pray for your glory. Amen. Thank you for being so patient.
