"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." - Matthew 8:20
"Son of Man": to acknowledge your origin in Adam — created from the mud, evolved through history, inheritor of both the frailty and glory of humanity.
"Son of God": to claim your origin and destiny in Spirit — in eternity, in the divine image, in the Light that was before time.
The two poles of the Incarnation.
Yeshua stands as an example of our true nature: fully Son of Adam, fully Son of God.
He is what we are meant to become — the awakened human, the Christed one.
Mystical transfiguration: The Son of Man becomes the Son of God.
The Name and Its Languages
The expression "the Son of Man" occurs 81 times in the four canonical Gospels and another four times in the rest of the New Testament. The equivalent Hebrew expression "son of man" (בן–אדם, i.e. ben-adam, lit. "son of Adam") appears in the Old Testament 103 times. In Hebrew the term for "human beings" is Benei Adam (בני אדם) — "the children of Adam."
The exact words vary by source language:
- Hebrew: בן אדם, ben-āḏām, "son of Adam"
- Imperial Aramaic: בר אנש, bar ‘enash, "son of man"
- Imperial Aramaic: כבר אנש, kibar ‘anash, "like a son of man"
- Koinē Greek: ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου, hōs huios anthrōpou, "like a son of man" – per the Septuagint (Dan. 7:13)
- Koinē Greek: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ho huios tou anthrōpou, "the son of the man" – per the New Testament
- Bar Enash (Son of Man) → Ben Elohim (Son of God)
- Adam Kadmon — the archetypal human, the blueprint of Man
The Scholarly Debate
In ordinary Hebrew and Aramaic, "son of man" just means "a human being." In the Psalms, in Job, in Isaiah, ben-adam is simply a way of saying "a mortal person." When God calls Ezekiel "son of man" 93 times, most scholars read this as God emphasizing: you are merely human. In Aramaic (bar enash), it could even function as a circumlocution for "I" or "someone" — the way you might say "a guy" when you mean yourself. Some scholars (notably Geza Vermes) have argued that when Jesus says "the Son of Man," he's simply using an Aramaic idiom for referring to himself — a modest, indirect way of saying "I." Under this reading, "the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" just means "I have nowhere to lay my head." Nothing cosmic about it.
But Daniel 7 changes everything. Whatever the phrase meant before Daniel, after Daniel 7:13–14 it also means a heavenly figure who receives an everlasting kingdom from God. Scholars who emphasize the Danielic background (N.T. Wright, Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham) argue that when Jesus uses the phrase, he is deliberately evoking this figure — especially in the sayings about "coming on the clouds" and "sitting at the right hand of Power." At his trial (Mark 14:62), Jesus is unmistakably quoting Daniel 7. The high priest tears his robes because he understands the claim.
The scholarly debate falls into three camps:
- Camp A (the minimalists — Vermes, Casey): "Son of Man" is just Aramaic idiom. Jesus used it as a way of saying "I" or "a person like me." The cosmic/Danielic readings were added later by the early church.
- Camp B (the Danielic school — Wright, Hurtado, Bauckham): Jesus deliberately chose this title because of Daniel 7. He’s making a veiled messianic claim — identifying himself with the figure who receives the kingdom — but doing it in a way that’s ambiguous enough to avoid immediate arrest (until the trial, when he says it directly and is condemned for it).
- Camp C (the multi-layered school): Jesus is doing something more sophisticated. He’s using a phrase that simultaneously means "a mortal human being" and "the Danielic heavenly figure" — and the double meaning is intentional. He’s holding both poles together on purpose.
Most mainstream scholarship today leans toward Camp B or C.
Why Call This Powerful Divine Figure "Son of Man"?
This is the key to the whole thing. In Daniel 7, the phrase is deliberately chosen as a contrast. The four empires of the world are represented as beasts — inhuman, monstrous, predatory. The figure who replaces them and receives the eternal kingdom looks like a son of man — that is, like a human being. The point is not that he’s just an ordinary person. The point is that true sovereignty is human, not beastly. The kingdoms of violence and force are inhuman. The kingdom of God is entrusted to one who bears the human form.
So even in Daniel, the phrase takes the most basic, humble designation — "a human being" — and elevates it to the highest possible station. The son of man as son of man receives the everlasting kingdom. Not despite being human, but because the human is the form God chose for sovereignty.
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is God and Man: God before all worlds, man in our world... But since he is the only Son of God, by nature and not by grace, he became also the Son of Man that he might be full of grace as well.
— Saint Augustine
Nicene Creed: "by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man."
Ben-Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures
The Hebrew expression בן–אדם (ben-adam) — literally "son of Adam" or "son of man" — appears over 100 times in the Hebrew Bible. Its meaning shifts dramatically depending on context, moving across a spectrum from the most humble designation of human frailty to the most exalted vision of divine sovereignty. To understand what Jesus meant when he called himself the Son of Man, one must hear all of these registers at once.
1. The Mortal Creature — Humanity in Its Frailty
In its most basic usage, ben-adam simply means "a human being" — mortal, finite, dust-born. It emphasizes the vast distance between the Creator and the creature, between the Infinite and the finite:
"What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?"
— Psalm 8:4
"Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish."
— Psalm 146:3–4
"How much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!"
— Job 25:6
"I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of man who will be made like grass?"
— Isaiah 51:12
"LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him! Or the son of man, that You make account of him! Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow."
— Psalm 144:3–4
In these passages, "son of man" is the lowest possible self-description — dust, grass, worm, breath. Humanity at its most creaturely, most mortal, most small.
And yet even here, something extraordinary is already present. For Psalm 8 continues:
"What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet."
— Psalm 8:4–6
The son of man — frail, mortal, dust-born — is simultaneously crowned with glory and given dominion. The lowest designation already contains the highest. This tension — between the dust and the Crown — is the entire mystery of the Son of Man.
2. God's Address to Ezekiel — The Prophet as Ben-Adam
In the Book of Ezekiel, God addresses the prophet as ben-adam — "son of man" — approximately 93 times. This is by far the most frequent usage in the entire Hebrew Bible:
"And He said to me, 'Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you.' Then the Spirit entered me when He spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard Him who spoke to me."
— Ezekiel 2:1–2
"And He said to me, 'Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me.'"
— Ezekiel 2:3
"Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel."
— Ezekiel 3:1
"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me."
— Ezekiel 3:17
"He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' And I answered, 'O Lord GOD, You know.'"
— Ezekiel 37:3
"And He said to me, 'Son of man, the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever.'"
— Ezekiel 43:7
God calls Ezekiel "son of man" as a constant reminder of two things simultaneously. First, it emphasizes Ezekiel's humanity, his mortality, his creatureliness in the face of the overwhelming divine Presence. The prophet has just witnessed the Merkavah — the Chariot-Throne of God — the most terrifying and glorious vision in all of Hebrew scripture. In the aftermath of that vision, God addresses him not by name but as "son of man" — you are human, you are mortal, you are dust.
But second — and this is the mystery — it is precisely this mortal, this son of Adam, whom God chooses as His messenger, His watchman, His voice to the nations. The one addressed as "son of man" is the one who stands in the divine council, eats the scroll of God's word, and speaks with the authority of heaven.
The lowliest title becomes the vessel of the highest function.
3. Daniel's Vision — The Apocalyptic Son of Man
The single most important passage for understanding Jesus's use of the title is Daniel 7:13–14. Here, "one like a son of man" appears not as a humble mortal but as a cosmic, heavenly figure receiving universal sovereignty from God Himself.
The context is Daniel's vision of four great beasts rising from the sea — monstrous empires of the world, predatory and inhuman. After these beastly kingdoms have had their day, the scene shifts to the divine court:
"I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His Head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire; a fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened."
— Daniel 7:9–10
And then, after the beasts are judged:
"I was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. Then 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 the one which shall not be destroyed."
— Daniel 7:13–14
This is a radical transformation of the term. In the Psalms and in Ezekiel, "son of man" means mortal, humble, dust-born. In Daniel, "one like a son of man" is a figure who comes on the clouds of heaven — a mode of transport associated throughout the Hebrew Bible with God Himself — and receives an everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days.
The beasts represent the kingdoms of this world — violent, predatory, inhuman. The Son of Man represents a different kind of sovereignty entirely: human, divine, eternal. Where the beasts rule through force, the Son of Man receives his Kingdom as a gift from the Ancient of Days. Where the beasts rise from the chaotic sea, the Son of Man comes from heaven.
Daniel 7:18 and 7:27 add another layer: these verses identify the "one like a son of man" with "the saints of the Most High" — a collective figure, not just an individual. The Son of Man is not only one person but potentially the perfected community, the restored humanity.
4. The Book of Enoch — The Pre-Existent Son of Man
In the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71), a text widely known in Second Temple Judaism and almost certainly familiar to Jesus and his contemporaries, the Son of Man is developed into a pre-existent, messianic figure of cosmic proportions:
"And at that hour that Son of Man was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, and his name before the Head of Days. Before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of Spirits."
— 1 Enoch 48:2–3
"He shall be a staff to the righteous on which they shall support themselves and not fall, and he shall be the light of the Gentiles and the hope of those who are troubled in their hearts."
— 1 Enoch 48:4
"For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, and the Most High preserved him in the presence of His might, and revealed him to the elect."
— 1 Enoch 62:7
"And all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the earth shall fall down before him on their faces, and worship and set their hope upon that Son of Man, and petition him and supplicate for mercy at his hands."
— 1 Enoch 62:9
In Enoch, the Son of Man is named before creation, hidden with God from the beginning, and revealed at the end of days to judge the kings of the earth. This is no longer merely a mortal prophet — this is a pre-existent heavenly being.
And in the most remarkable passage of all, Enoch himself — a mortal man who walked with God — is identified with the Son of Man:
"And he came to me and greeted me with His voice, and said to me: 'You are the Son of Man who is born to righteousness, and righteousness abides over you.'"
— 1 Enoch 71:14
A mortal human being is told that he is the Son of Man — the one who was named before creation, the one who sits in judgment. The one who was hidden with God from before the foundation of the world is also a man who was born, who lived, who walked the earth.
5. The Full Spectrum
Taken together, the Hebrew Scriptures present "son of man" across a complete spectrum:
- Psalm 8, Job 25, Isaiah 51 — the mortal creature, dust, grass, worm
- Ezekiel — the mortal prophet chosen by God as His voice
- Psalm 8:5–6 — the mortal creature crowned with glory and given dominion
- Daniel 7 — the heavenly figure who receives an everlasting Kingdom
- 1 Enoch — the pre-existent being, named before creation, who is also a mortal man
The arc moves from the lowest to the highest — from dust to the Throne. And in every case, the human being — the ben-adam, the son of Adam, the creature of dust — is the one who is addressed by God, chosen by God, crowned by God, given dominion by God. The frailty and the glory are not opposites. They are two faces of the same mystery.
The Son of Man in the Gospels
Jesus used "the Son of Man" as his primary self-designation — over eighty times, more than any other title. According to the Synoptic Gospels, he used it in three distinct contexts:
(1) His earthly work and its humble condition
(2) His coming suffering, death, and resurrection
(3) His future coming in heavenly glory to act with sovereign power at a final judgment
These three registers correspond to the full arc of the Hebrew meaning — from the mortal ben-adam of the Psalms, through the suffering servant, to the Danielic figure who receives the everlasting Kingdom.
I. The Son of Man in His Earthly Life — Present, Humble, At Work
"The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
— Matthew 8:20
"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' But wisdom is justified by her children."
— Matthew 11:19
"For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
— Matthew 12:8
"But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" — then He said to the paralytic, 'Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.'"
— Matthew 9:6
"The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
— Luke 19:10
"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
— Mark 10:45
Here the Son of Man is homeless, misunderstood, accused, rejected. He is fully ben-adam in the Psalmic sense — mortal, lowly, a man of sorrows. And yet even in his humility, he claims staggering authority: power to forgive sins, lordship over the Sabbath, authority to seek and save the lost.
II. The Son of Man in Suffering, Death, and Resurrection
"The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again."
— Mark 8:31
"The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and after He is killed He will rise the third day."
— Mark 9:31
"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again."
— Matthew 20:18–19
"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
— Matthew 12:40
"The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born."
— Mark 14:21
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."
— John 3:14–15
The pattern is always the same: suffering, death, and then rising. The Son of Man descends into the heart of the earth — the Nigredo, the tomb, the belly of the whale — and rises again. The death is not the end. It is the necessary passage.
III. The Son of Man Coming in Glory — The Cosmic King and Judge
"For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works."
— Matthew 16:27
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats."
— Matthew 25:31–32
"Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
— Matthew 24:30–31
"For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."
— Matthew 24:27
"Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven."
— Mark 13:26–27
"For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."
— Mark 8:38
At his trial, Jesus made the claim explicit by fusing Daniel 7 with Psalm 110:
"I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."
— Mark 14:62
And in the Apocalypse, John sees the fulfillment of Daniel's vision:
"And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the chest with a golden girdle. And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire."
— Revelation 1:12–14
The homeless wanderer of Galilee is also the one who will sit on the throne of glory with all the nations gathered before him. The same figure. The same title. The dust and the Crown held together in a single identity.
The Mystery of the Title — Why Jesus Chose It
Of all the titles available to him — Messiah, Son of God, Son of David, Lord, Rabbi, Prophet — Jesus chose the Son of Man as his primary self-designation. Why this title above all others?
Because the Son of Man holds the entire mystery of the Incarnation — and of the Great Work — in two words.
Son of Man is simultaneously the lowest and the highest title in the Hebrew tradition. In the Psalms, the son of man is dust, grass, a passing shadow. In Daniel, the Son of Man rides the clouds of heaven and receives an everlasting Kingdom. In Ezekiel, the son of man is a mortal prophet. In Enoch, the Son of Man is named before the foundation of the world. Jesus holds all of these meanings together in his own person — and in doing so, reveals the secret.
The secret is this: the distance between the dust and the Crown is not a distance at all. It is a transformation. The son of Adam becomes the Son of God — not by escaping humanity, but by entering it completely. The Son of Man does not transcend the flesh by rejecting it. He transforms it by inhabiting it fully — by suffering, by serving, by dying, by descending into the heart of the earth — and rising.
The tradition itself points in this direction:
- Psalm 8 says the son of man (mortal humanity) is crowned with glory and given dominion — already a statement about human dignity approaching the divine.
- Daniel 7 says the son of man receives an everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days.
- 1 Enoch says the Son of Man was named before creation — and then tells a mortal man (Enoch) that he is the Son of Man.
- Jesus uses the phrase to mean simultaneously "I am a mortal who suffers" and "I am the one who will sit on the throne of glory."
- The early church (Hebrews 2:6–9) explicitly takes Psalm 8 — "What is the son of man that you visit him? You crowned him with glory" — and says: this is fulfilled in Jesus.
This is why Jesus insisted on both poles. He is the one who has nowhere to lay his head and the one who will come on the clouds of heaven. He is the friend of sinners and the one who will sit on the throne of glory. He is the one who must suffer and be killed and the one who will rise on the third day. The entire arc — from the lowest to the highest, from exile to enthronement, from death to resurrection — is contained in the title itself.
The Son of Man is the alchemical name for the human soul in the process of its own transformation. It is ben-adam — child of dust, inheritor of the Fall, mortal, fragile, lost — who is also, at the same time, the one whom God has crowned with glory, given dominion, seated at His right hand. Both are true simultaneously. The Work is not to replace one with the other, but to realize the one within the other.
From Adamah to Adonai. From dust to Throne. From lead to gold. From exile to Kingdom.
What It Means to Say "I Am the Son of Man"
I was born into the human story, I am the accumulated experience and soul of Humanity. I am the great, great, great…….. grandchild and child of Adam — the first Man. I took on the sins and mistakes and errors and ignorance of this world.
"This is the Human Story, the journey from dust to glory."
Yet I am a bridge between Heaven and Earth God and Man Material and Spirit Time and Eternity Seed and Flower Fall and Redemption Separation and Atonement
From the "son of Adam" into the "Son of Christ." the "Son of Man" into "Son of God" "Son of darkness" into "Son of Light."
from Adamah to Adonai
The Son of Man & The Son of God
No one who carries Christ in him can fail to recognize Him everywhere—except in bodies. ²And as long as they believe they are in bodies, where they think they are He cannot be. ³And so they carry Him unknowingly and do not make Him manifest. ⁴And thus they do not recognize Him where He is. ⁵The son of man is not the risen Christ. ⁶Yet does the Son of God abide exactly where he is, and walks with him within his holiness, as plain to see as is his specialness set forth within his body. - [CE T-25.I.2]
⁷There will be great joy in Heaven on your homecoming, and the joy will be yours. ⁸For the redeemed son of man is the guiltless Son of God, and to recognize him is your redemption. - [CE T-13.II.9:7-8]
Their difference does not lie in how they look or where they go or even what they do. ²They share a different purpose. ³It is this that joins them to their like, and separates each from all aspects with a different purpose. ⁴The Son of God retains his Father’s will. ⁵The son of man perceives an alien will and wishes it were so. ⁶And thus does his perception serve his wish by giving it appearances of truth. ⁷Yet can perception serve another goal. ⁸It is not bound to specialness but by your choice. ⁹And it is given you to make a different choice and use perception for a different purpose. ¹⁰And what you see will serve that purpose well, and prove its own reality to you. - [CE T-24.VII.12]
One wholly perfect teacher, whose learning is complete, suffices (to save the world). This one, sanctified and redeemed, becomes the Self Who is the Son of God. He who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees himself as a body or even as in a body. Therefore, he is limitless, and being limitless, his thoughts are joined with God's forever and ever. His perception of himself is based upon God's Judgment, not his own. Thus does he share God’s will and bring His thoughts to still deluded minds. He is forever one, because He is as God created him. He has accepted Christ, and he is saved. Thus does the son of man become the Son of God. - ACIM, Manual for Teachers
Further Dimensions
The Son of Man in the Gnostic texts — particularly the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 86 echoes Matthew 8:20), and the Apocryphon of John where Adamas/Adam is the primordial light-being. The Nag Hammadi literature develops the idea of the Anthropos (the Primordial Man) as a heavenly archetype — which connects directly to the Adam Kadmon.