Section Third. On The Names Of Christ In New Testament Scripture, And, In Particular, On The Use Ofχριστός andΥἱὸς τοῦ.
ALL the names of the Redeemer were originally appellatives. They expressed some leading property, or exhibited some specific aspect of His person, His mission, or His kingdom. The term Christ is no exception, nor even Jesus, which simply denotes Him as emphatically the Saviour—although being the individual name borne by Him from His infancy, it was familiarly used, and might from the first be regarded as a proper name. The Old Testament designations not only were originally, but for the most part continued still to retain an appellative character; such v for example, as The Angel of the Lord, The Angel of the Covenant, Immanuel, The Prince, The Son of God. But in others the appellative passed, even in Old Testament times, into a kind of proper name; and, as a consequence, the article, which was originally prefixed to them, ultimately fell away. In one of them, indeed, Michael—which has already been investigated in connexion with the subject of angels—the article was not prefixed; for in the only book where it occurs (Daniel) it was employed substantially as a proper name; yet it was really an appellative, and, for the purpose of indicating more distinctly the Divine nature and exalted position of Messiah, was preferred to some of the earlier and more common designations used by the prophets. As a proper example, however, of the change from the appellative to the individual form, let us trace the manner in which the term Zemach, or Branch, came to be applied definitely and personally to Christ. Isaiah first speaks in Isaiah 4:2, with reference probably to Messianic times, but in a somewhat general way, of the Lord’s branch (עֶמַח יְהֹוָה) which he said was yet to be beautiful and glorious; and at Isaiah 11:1, a little more specifically, at least with a more special reference to the house of David, and an individual member of that house, he gives promise of a stem of Jesse, and a branch, or sucker, from his roots. Here, however, the word Zemach is not used, but חֹטֶר and רעֶנֵ, showing that such terms were employed simply in an appellative sense, and merely because indicating a certain characteristic of the future scion of the royal house. With a still nearer approach to the personal, Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 23:5, prophesies of a time, when the Lord would raise up to David a righteous branch (Zemach,) and a king (viz. the branch already mentioned) should reign and prosper. And, finally, when through these earlier prophecies the appellative had come, in the general apprehension, to be associated with the one object of hope and expectation, to whom it pre-eminently pointed, it is used as a sort of proper name by the prophet Zechariah—though still with an obvious reference to its appellative import: Zechariah 3:8, “Behold, I bring my servant, Branch;”—and again, Zechariah 6:12, “Thus saith the Lord, Behold a man, whose name is Branch.”—Much in the same manner Melek, king, is occasionally used; for example in Psalms 45:1, Psalms 72:1, where the theme is that King by way of eminence, to whom even then the eye of faith looked forward as the crowning-point of Israel’s glory; it is applied to Him individually, and without the article, as a strictly personal designation. This progression, however, from the appellative to the proper use of names, appears still more distinctly in the epithet, by which in ancient times the coming Redeemer was most commonly known—the Messiah, or, adopting the Greek form, the Christ. In its primary import and application there was nothing strictly personal, or even very specific, in the term. A participle or verbal adjective from מָשַׁח to anoint, it was applied to any one so anointed; for example, to the high- priest, who is called in Leviticus 4:3, “the priest the anointed,” (hamaschiach, rendered in the Septuagint ὁ ἱερεύς ὁ χριστός. At a later period it is similarly used of Saul by David not of Saul as an individual, but of him as the possessor of a dignity, to which he had been set apart by a solemn act of consecration; as such, he is designated ὁ χριστὸς τοῦ Κυρίου, the christ or anointed of the Lord, (1 Samuel 12:8; 1 Samuel 12:5, etc.) It was Hannah who first gave the term this kingly direction, when, at the conclusion of her song of praise, she proclaimed the Lord’s intention to give “strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed (meschiho)” evidently using His Messiah, or anointed, as synonymous with His king in the preceding clause; and singularly enough, doing so, before there was an actual king in Israel, and when as yet the act of anointing had not been applied to any one filling the kingly function. The prophetic spirit, in which her song was conceived, and the elevation especially of its closing sentences, seem to point above and beyond the immediate future, and to bear respect to that universal King, of whom Jacob had already spoken as the Shiloh, and to whom the gathering of the peoples was to be—whom Balaam also described as “the Star that should come out of Jacob, and the Sceptre that should rise out of Israel, who was to smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of tumult.” This was the child of hope more especially in the eye of Hannah; for the anointed King, of whom she speaks, was to stand pre-eminent above the states and powers of the world, and through Him the adversaries of the Lord were to be broken, and the ends of the earth to be judged. Not long after we find the term Messiah applied in the same manner by David—not to a merely human and earthly monarch, but to the Son of the Highest, to whom as such the heritage of the world, to its utmost bounds, by Divine right belongs. And at length it became so appropriated to this higher use, in the diction of the Spirit and the expectations of the people, that its other possible applications were lost sight of; it came to be regarded as the distinctive name of the promised Saviour—as in Daniel 9:25, “Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah, Prince” (no article;”) and again in the next verse, “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off.”
These remarks will explain some apparent grammatical anomalies in the New Testament use of the term Χριστός. But before quitting the Old Testament usage, it is not unimportant to notice, that there are two or three passages, in which the term is applied to persons not precisely included in the cases already noticed; applications which have given rise to the idea, that the term was loosely extended to include any person of note, and in particular the collective people of Israel. This is a mistaken view, and loses its apparent plausibility, when respect is had to the symbolical import of anointing with oil, out of which the word Messiah arose. Such anointing, as a religious ceremony, was always symbolical of the communication of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus the anointing of the tabernacle and all its furniture bespoke the indwelling of the Spirit for purposes of life and blessing among the members of the Theocracy. Hence, when David was anointed to be king in the room of Saul, it is immediately said, that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him from that day forward, and that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul,” (1 Samuel 16:13-14;) and David himself, when by his iniquity he had forfeited his title to the place he held in the kingdom, prays that God would not take His Holy Spirit from him, (Psalms 51:1-19)—would not deal with him as He had dealt with Saul, and leave his anointing a shell without a kernel. Still more explicitly Isaiah, pointing to gospel times, and personating the Messiah himself, says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach glad tidings to the meek,” (Isaiah 61:1)—the possession of the Spirit because of the anointing; as if the one necessarily inferred the other; and, indeed, in this case the reality alone was made account of; the symbol was dropt as no longer needed. And, to mention no more, in the vision presented to Zechariah, Zechariah 4:1-14, there is first the symbol of two olive-trees, pouring a perpetual stream of oil into the candle-stick, with its seven branches—emblems of the church; and then the explanation of the symbol in what is said to Zerubbabel, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts:”—So that the presence of the Spirit, pervading the affairs of the covenant, and carrying these triumphantly over the difficulties and dangers around them, is the reality indicated by the oil that flowed from the olive-trees into the candlestick.
Now, it is by a reference to this symbolical import of the practice of anointing that the passages in question are to be understood and explained. One of them is Isaiah 45:1, where Cyrus is designated by the name of Messiah (“Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus;”) so designated, however, not from his being simply a prince or a ruler, but from the peculiar relation in which he stood to the covenant-people, and the important service he rendered to their interests. On these accounts he was justly regarded as one possessed of a certain measure of the Spirit, having the reality, though not the outward symbol of an anointing, which qualified him for discerning in some degree the truth of God, and for acting as God’s chosen instrument at an important crisis in the affairs of His Church. In the judicious language of Vitringa, “The anointed person here is one who was separated by the Divine counsel, and ordained to accomplish a matter that pertained to the glory of God, and was furnished for it from above with the necessary gifts; among which were his justice, his regard for the Divine Being, his prudence, fortitude, mildness, and humanity; so that he could not seem to be unworthy of being made an illustrious means of executing the counsels of God.” Again, in Habakkuk 3:13, it is said, “Thou wentest forth for the salvation (help) of Thy people, and for the salvation of Thine anointed” (Sept. τοὺς Χριστούς σου;) where the anointed, in the last clause, is often viewed as synonymous with people in the first. But this is erroneous; the former expression points to the God-anointed king of the people, in whose behalf the Lord is often also in the Psalms represented as coming, or entreated to come, for the purpose of bringing deliverance (Psalms 28:8; Psalms 20:6.) Finally, in Psalms 105:15, it is said respecting the patriarchs, “Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm;” and the reference is still of the same kind—it points to those heads of the Jewish nation as vessels and instruments of God’s Spirit, to whom were communicated revelations of the Divine will, and by whom were accomplished the more peculiar purposes of Heaven: on which account also Abraham is expressly called a prophet (Genesis 20:7.) To style thus the patriarchal heads of the covenant-people, and even Cyrus the heathen prince, by the name of God’s anointed, is itself convincing evidence of the respect that was had, in Old Testament times, to the reality in the symbol, and shows how, where the external form of anointing had failed, this might still be regarded as virtually present, if the things signified by it had actually taken effect. To return, however, to our more immediate object, we have seen that while the term Messiah was properly appellative, yet, toward the close of the Old Testament writings, it came to be used of the expected Redeemer much as a proper name, and hence, naturally, without the article; still, not as if it thereby lost its appellative import, but only because this import was seen concentrating all its fulness in Him, so that He alone seemed worthy to bear the appellation. It should not, therefore, excite any surprise; it is rather in accordance with what might have been expected, if, sometimes at least, and especially when persons spoke, who were peculiarly under the influence of the Spirit, or who had no doubt as to the individual to whom the name properly belonged, it is found to be similarly used in New Testament Scripture. It is in reality so used on the very first occasion on which Χριστὸς occurs in the Gospels, viz., when the angels announced to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem that there had been born a Saviour, ὅς ἐστιν Χριστὸς Κύριος, “who is Christ, Lord” (Luke 2:11.) In like manner, the woman of Samaria, when speak ing, not of any definite individual, but of the ideal Messiah, or the specific, though still unknown individual, in whom the idea was to be realized, uses the term absolutely, or as a proper name, “I know (she said, John 4:25) that Messias comes, who is called Christ (ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός:) when he shall have come, He will tell us all things.” So, yet again, Jesus Himself in the only passage in which He is recorded to have applied the term directly to Himself, John 17:8, “And Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” Here especially commentators have often found a difficulty, from not seeing the matter in its proper light; and Dr. Campbell even suspects, in the face of all the MSS., that the article has somehow been lost before Χριστόν. He might, however, as well have suspected a like omission in the address of the angels to the shepherds, or in Daniel 9:24-25, before Messiah. The same principle accounts for the omission in all the cases, and satisfactorily explains it; viz., the distinctive application of the term Messiah, even before the close of Old Testament Scripture, to the promised Redeemer, which rendered it substantially a proper name, when used by those who looked with some degree of confidence to the individual that was entitled to bear it. But from the circumstances connected with our Lord’s appearance in the world, which were such as to occasion doubts in many minds respecting His Messiahship, it was quite natural that when the term was used during the period of His earthly sojourn, it should not commonly have been employed as a proper name, but should rather have been taken in its appellative sense, and as only with a greater or less degree of probability applicable to the Saviour. The question, which at the time either consciously agitated, or silently occurred to men’s minds, was, whether this Jesus of Nazareth was entitled to be owned as the Messiah; whether He was in reality the person, in whom the characteristics and properties implied in that designation were to be found. Hence, being commonly used with reference to the solution of such a question, the name Messiah, or Christ, usually has the article prefixed, till after the period of the resurrection, when all doubt or uncertainty vanished from the minds of His followers, and the name began, equally with Jesus, to be appropriated to our Lord as a strictly personal designation. We can thus mark a general progress in the usage of the sacred writers, and a diversity in respect to Χριστὸς, quite similar to that, which was noticed in the Old Testament respecting Messiah: an earlier use, in which respect is had more to the appellative import, and a later, in which the word comes chiefly to be applied as a proper name. And accordingly in the Gospels it is but rarely found without the article, while it is almost as rarely found with the article in the Epistles. This more advanced stage of matters, when Christ as well as Jesus had come to be used as a proper name, had already entered when the Gospels were written. Hence we find the Evangelists, at the beginning of their narratives, and when speaking from the point of view which had then been reached, employing the term Christ in as personal a manner as Jesus. Thus Matthew, at the beginning of his genealogy, “The book of the generation ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ,” of Jesus Christ; and again at the close of it, “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστὸς.) In like manner Mark heads his Gospel, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” So also John in John 1:17, “The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by” Jesus Christ.” But immediately after such introductory statements, when they begin to report what persons thought and spake, while the events of Gospel history were in progress, we mark in the use of the article the regard men had to the appellative import of the word. Thus in John 1:20, the Baptist is reported as confessing, that he was “not the Christ;” and at John 1:42, Andrew says to Peter, “We have found the Messias.” In Matthew 2:3, Herod demands of the chief priests and scribes, “Where the Christ is born;” i.e. the person to whom that appellation should really belong. And Peter in his memorable confession says, “We believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
It would undoubtedly have been better, and would have contributed to the more easy and distinct understanding of some passages in New Testament Scripture, if our translators had been more generally observant of the difference in style now under consideration, and had more commonly rendered the article when it exists in the original. We miss it particularly in some passages of the Acts—as at Acts 4:42, “They ceased not teaching and preaching Jesus Christ,” properly, Jesus the Christ, meaning, that Jesus is the Christ; Acts 17:3, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is Christ;” Acts 18:28, “Showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ;” where, in both passages, the meaning would evidently gain in distinctness by inserting the article, as in the original, “That Jesus is the Christ.” At the same time, as the name, even when it became a kind of personal designation, always bore a reference to its original import, so it never wholly loses this in the minds of thoughtful readers of the Bible; and there are probably not very many, at least of serious and thoughtful readers, who are in the position described by Dr. Campbell, when he says, that they consider Jesus Christ as no other than the name and surname of the same person, and that it would sound all one to them to say, that Paul testified that Christ was Jesus, as that Jesus was Christ. (Preliminary Dissertations. ) No one could possibly be insensible to the difference in these statements, who reads with ordinary attention the authorized version—excepting in the sense, which would not suit Dr. Campbell’s purpose, of ascribing an appellative import to Jesus as well as Christ. In that case it would be much the same to say, that Jesus or Saviour is Christ, and that Christ or Messias is Jesus. All, however, that can with propriety be affirmed, is, that the omission of the article in such cases renders the meaningless palpable and obvious than it would otherwise have been.
Even when the word Christ was passing, or had already passed into a sort of personal designation, pains were taken by the apostles to keep up in the minds of the disciples an acquaintance with its proper import. Thus Peter on the day of Pentecost speaks of God having made the Jesus who had been so recently crucified both Lord and Christ—καὶ Κύριον και Χριστὸν; and, somewhat later, the assembled company of apostles, after the liberation of Peter and John, say in their joint address to God, “Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou didst christen,” or anoint, (ὅν ἔχρισας, Acts 4:27.) Still more explicitly was this done in the address, of Peter to the household of Cornelius, when, after briefly adverting to the general outlines of our Lord’s history, and styling Him simply, Jesus of Nazareth, he adds, “how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power,” (ὡς ἔχρισεν αὐτὸν ὁ Θεὸς Πνεύματι ̔Αγίῳ καὶ δυνάμει, Acts 10:38.) Indeed, the verb χρίω on this very account—that is, because of its symbolical connexion with the gift of the Spirit, and in particular with the name and consecration of Jesus itself acquired a kind of sacred value, and in New Testament Scripture is only used of this higher, spiritual anointing. With one exception, it is never used but of Christ Himself, as the Spirit-replenished servant of Jehovah; and even that exception is not without a close respect to the same. It is in 2 Corinthians 1:21, where the apostle says, “He that establisheth us together with you into Christ, and hath anointed us, is God,” (ὁ δὲ βεβαιῶν ἡμᾶς σὺν ὑμῖν εἰς Χριστὸν κὰ̀ χρίσας ἡμᾶς Θεός,)—that is, He has so knit and consolidated us into Christ, that we have ourselves become Christ-like, replenished with a portion of His enlightening and sanctifying Spirit. The verb ἀλείφω is the word employed in reference to anointings of an inferior sort, done for the sake of refreshment merely, and without any sacred design. In some of the later passages of the New Testament this reference to the original meaning of the term is undoubtedly lost sight of; and Jesus is designated Christ, when, as far as we can see, Lord, or Redeemer, might have been equally appropriate. Thus in Ephesians 5:21, according to the correct reading, we have “being subject to one another in fear of Christ,” (ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ;) Christ being simply an appellation of the Divine and glorified Redeemer, as the object of humble reverence and submissive regard. Passages of this sort, however, are not very frequent; and where there is no distinct, there often is a concealed or implied reference to the appellative import of the term. It is to this, that we would ascribe the occasional employment of Christ, rather than any other name of the Redeemer, to denote the organic union between Him and His people. Thus in Galatians 4:19, the apostle says, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you;” and in Ephesians 4:20, “Ye have not so learned Christ.” In these passages we are not to dilute the term Christ, so as to take it for a kind of concrete designation of Christian doctrine; we are rather to regard it as pointing to that intimate spiritual fellowship between the soul and Christ, which renders genuine believers so many images of Himself—smaller vessels and partial embodiments of that grace, which in infinite fulness and perfection is treasured up in Him. So again in 1 Corinthians 12:12, we read, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ;” i.e., Christ and those who are His—the whole corporate society of the faithful; they are together designated by the name of Christ, as having their spiritual being in Him, and in Him receiving the unction of the same Spirit. It is quite possible also, and even probable, that out of this import and use of the word Χριστὸς may have grown that common name Χριστιανοί, Christians, by which the followers of Jesus became so early, and have so uniformly been distinguished. We are told in Acts 11:26, that they were so called first in Antioch; and Dr. Trench, (in his Study of Words, p. 98,) as well as many in former times, have thought that the name was imposed upon them by their heathen adversaries, and consequently at first had somewhat of the aspect of a nickname. We cannot positively affirm it was otherwise; but the phraseology of St. Paul approaches so very near to the use of the word as a common designation, that if it did not actually originate in the Church itself, we might almost say, it should have done so; nor, assuredly, would it have become so readily owned, and so extensively employed among the Christian communities, unless it had either spontaneously arisen from within, or as soon as heard awakened a response among the members of the Church. Hence, as conscious of no reproach in the appellation, yea, rather as owning and accrediting its propriety, the Apostle Peter says, “But if any of you suffer as a Christian—ὡς Χριστιανός —let him not be ashamed,” (1 Peter 4:16.) And as regards the spiritual use to be made of the appellation, the most natural and appropriate turn, in our judgment, to be given to the matter, is, to direct attention—not to the supposed accident of the origin of the term—but to the real meaning involved in it, when rightly understood; in other words, to the fulness of grace and blessing which ought to distinguish those who have their calling and designation from Him, who is THE CHRIST—the Spirit-anointed Saviour.
Another thing to be noted, in connexion with this name and its cognate terms, is the rise that took place from the outward and symbolical, to the inward and spiritual. This had begun, as we have noticed, even in Old Testament times; persons were even then designated as Christ’s or anointed ones, who had received no outward consecration with holy oil. The application of the term to the patriarchs in Psalms 105, and to Cyrus by Isaiah, was manifestly of this description; and in the New Testament the external symbol, so far as regards the use of χρίω in all its forms, falls entirely away; it is applied only to the inward communication and endowment with the Spirit’s grace, which was symbolized by the external anointings with holy oil. The spiritual reality was so well understood, that while the old language was retained, the ancient symbol was felt to be no longer needed; so that the anointed one now is simply the vessel of grace—Jesus pre-eminently and completely, because in Him resides the plenitude of the Spirit’s grace; then, subordinately to Him, the members of His spiritual body, because out of His fulness they receive grace for grace.
It is proper, still further, to note the relative order and gradation, that appears in the names usually applied to our Lord as regards their individual import and common use. The first name by which He was known and addressed was Jesus, which, though of deep and comprehensive import, and requiring the exercise of lively faith and spiritual discernment, if used with a proper knowledge and apprehension of its meaning, was yet for the most part regarded as simply a proper name. When called Jesus of Nazareth by the men of His generation, our Lord was merely distinguished from the other persons of the place and neighbourhood. The first question that came to be stirred in men’s bosoms, was, whether He was entitled to have the further name of the Christ, or simply to be called Jesus Christ. As soon as inquirers attained to satisfaction on that point, they took their place among His disciples; they recognised Him as the promised Messiah, and confessed Him as such. It was a further question, however, and one not so readily decided, what personally this Christ was? Was He simply a man, distinguished from other men by superior gifts of nature and of grace? Or was He, in a sense altogether peculiar, the Son of God? A considerable time elapsed before even the immediate followers of Christ reached the proper position of knowledge and conviction upon this point; and the first distinct, or, at least, thoroughly intelligent and assured utterance of the truth, was that which came from the lips of Peter, when he said, “We believe, that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” If he had stopt at “the Christ,” there had been nothing very remarkable in the confession; Philip virtually confessed as much at the outset, when he said to Nathanael, “We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus the Son of Joseph;” and by Andrew, when he informed Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” But it was greatly more to be able to add? with a full understanding and conviction of what was said, “the Son of the living God.” Peter appears to have had precedence of the other disciples in the clearness and strength of his convictions on the subject. Nearly the same confession in words had been uttered at an early period by Nathanael, when he exclaimed, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel;” but we can scarcely doubt that his mind was still imperfectly enlightened regarding the person of Jesus, and that he really confessed to nothing more than some kind of indefinite superiority in Jesus over ordinary men. But the truth had been communicated to Peter by special revelation, and had taken firm possession of his soul; and the Sonship of Jesus to which he confessed was that essentially Divine one, of which Christ spake when He said, “All things are delivered to Me of My Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him,” (Matthew 11:27.) And it was, beyond doubt, in this higher sense, which had been indicated in various discourses of Christ, that the Jewish high priest used it, when he solemnly put the question to Jesus, whether He were the Christ, the Son of God; and on receiving an affirmative answer, condemned Him for blasphemy. So that to confess Jesus, as at once the Christ, and the Son of God, was to own Him to be all that the prophets foretold He should be—all that His Divine mission required Him actually to be; it declared Him to be possessed of a nature essentially Divine, as well as human, and thereby rendered capable of receiving the entire fulness of the Spirit, to qualify Him for executing in every part the Work of man’s redemption.
It is somewhat singular, that our Lord Himself never, except on one occasion—the one already referred to in John 17:3—appropriated the names, Jesus and Christ; and only on a very few occasions, and even then somewhat obliquely, did He take to Himself the title of the Son of God, (Matthew 11:27; John 5:25; John 9:35; John 11:4.) The epithet, under which He usually spoke of Himself, was that of the “Son of Man.” There are on record upwards of forty distinct occasions on which He is represented to have employed it in His discourses. Yet it was never applied to Him by the evangelists, when relating the events of His earthly ministry; nor is He ever mentioned as having been addressed under this title either by friends or foes. Stephen, however, after the resurrection of Jesus, made use of it, when in ecstasy he exclaimed, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God,” (Acts 7:56.) On no other occasion do we find it used, either of Christ or to Him, in New Testament Scripture—unless we may so regard what is written in Revelation 1:13, where the Apocalyptist speaks of seeing in vision one ὄμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου, “like to,”—not, as in the authorized version, the, but—“a son of man.” It is in itself a quite general expression, although it doubtless points to the glorified Redeemer. This, however, we only learn from what follows: from the connexion it appears, that the individual, who in the vision bore such resemblance to a son of man, was none other than the once crucified but now exalted Saviour; but the description, “like a son of man,” is not in itself more specific and personal than the corresponding phrase in Daniel, Daniel 7:13—where, after the vision of the four wild beasts rising from the sea, and representing the four successive worldly monarchies, one appeared in the night visions “like a son of man, (no article in the original,) coming with the clouds of heaven, and receiving dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him.”
There can be no doubt that this passage in Daniel is the fundamental one, on which not only that in Revelation, but also our Lord’s favourite and familiar use of the phrase in question, is based; and without knowing the precise import and bearing of the representation in the prophet, it is impossible rightly to apprehend the reason and object of the language derived from it in New Testament times. There are two .points of contrast brought out in the prophet between the representative of the fifth, the really universal and everlasting kingdom, and the representatives of the earthly kingdoms that preceded. These latter are all exhibited as deriving their origin from beneath; they appeared coming out of the sea, that is from the world, in its heaving, troubled, and agitated state; and not only so, but they, one and all, bore the aspect and possessed the nature of wild beasts, having only earthly properties about them, and these of the more savage and selfish description. In marked contrast to both of these broad characteristics, the representative of the fifth and ultimate kingdom was seen descending from above, borne on the clouds of heaven, the distinctive chariot of Deity, and bearing the aspect, not of a nameless monster, or savage tenant of the forest, but of “the human face Divine”—ideal humanity. Introduced in such a connexion, and with the obvious design of exhibiting such a contrast, it is surely a meagre representation of its import, which is given by many commentators—for example, by Dr. Campbell, when it is said, “Nothing appears to be pointed out by the circumstance, one like a son of man, but that he would be a human, not an angelical, or any other kind of being; for, in the Oriental idiom, son of man and man are terms equivalent.” (Dissertations, v. 13.) Be it so; the question still remains, Why only in respect to this last—the sole world-embracing and perpetual monarchy—was there seen the attractive form of a human likeness, while the others, which were certainly to be constituted and governed by men, had their representation in so many irrational and ferocious wild beasts? And why, possessing the likeness of a man, should the former have appeared, not coming from beneath, like the others, cast up by the heaving convulsions of a tumultuous and troubled world, but descending from the lofty elevation of a higher region, and a serener atmosphere? These things assuredly were designed to have their correspondences in the realities to which they pointed; and the difference indicated is but poorly made out in the further statement of Dr. Campbell, when he says, “This kingdom, which God Himself was .to erect, is contradistinguished from all the rest by the figure of a man, in order to denote, that whereas violence, in some shape or other, would be the principal means by which those merely secular kingdoms should be established, and. terror the principal motive by which submission should be enforced, it would be quite otherwise in that spiritual kingdom to be erected by the Ancient of Days, wherein every thing should be suited to man’s rational and moral nature; affection should be the prevailing motive to obedience, and persuasion the means of producing it.” True, so far as it goes; but the question is, How was such a spiritual and Divine kingdom to be set up and administered among men? And when a prophetic representation was given of the fundamental difference betwixt it and the merely worldly kingdoms that were to precede, was the human element alone thought of? Did the Spirit of prophecy mean to exhibit a simple man as destined to realize, on the wide field of the world, the proper ideal of humanity? That certainly is by no means likely; and if the whole vision of the prophet is taken into account, is plainly not the case. The simply terrene or human kingdoms are there represented by the wild beasts; and if one like a son of man is brought in to represent another and better kingdom, and one both receiving His kingdom from above, and descending thence, as on the chariot of Deity, to take possession of His dominion, the obvious inference and conclusion is, that here at last Divine and human were to be intermingled in blessed harmony, and that till such intermingling took place, and the kingdom based on it was properly erected, the ideal of humanity should remain an ideal still, bestial properties should really have the ascendant, and should retain their sway, till they were dislodged by the manifestation and working of Him who, with Divine aid, should restore humanity to its proper place and function in the world. Such is the fair and natural interpretation of that part of Daniel’s vision which relates to the fifth monarchy, and its representation under one bearing the likeness of a son of man. And it sufficiently explains our Lord’s partiality for this epithet, when speaking of Himself, and some of the more peculiar connexions in which he employed it. He was announced to Israel by His forerunner as coming to set up “the kingdom of God,” or “of heaven.” It was this kingdom which John declared was at hand—in other words, the fifth monarchy of Daniel, which was to come from above, and which was destined to supplant every other. How natural, then, for our Lord, in order to keep prominently before men this idea, and impress upon their minds correct views of the nature of His mission, to appropriate to Himself that peculiar epithet, “Son of Man,” under which this kingdom has been prophetically exhibited, as contradistinguished from the kingdoms of the world? In so appropriating this epithet, He by no means claimed simple humanity to Himself; on the contrary, He emphatically pointed to that union of the Divine with the human, which was to form the peculiar characteristic of this kingdom, as that through which its higher ideal was to be realized. He was the Son of Man personified, to whom prophetically, and in vision, were committed the powers and destinies of the kingdom, which was of God—the kingdom, in which humanity was to be made to re-assume its proper type. Hence we can readily explain, and see also the full propriety of such representations as that in John 1:51—the first occasion on which the phrase in question is recorded to have been used—“Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”—on Him, as uniting, according to Daniel’s vision, heaven and earth, the Divine and the human. Or that in John 3:13, “And no man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, who is in heaven”—a seeming contradiction, if taken by itself, hut, when placed in connexion with the passage in Daniel, embodying a most important truth. For it tells us that no one, who is simply a man, fallen and degenerate, ever has ascended to heaven, or can do so—the tendency is all in the opposite direction—not up wards to heaven, but downwards to hell. The Son of Man, however, in whom the idea of humanity was to be realized, is of a higher mould; He belongs to the heavenly—that is His proper region; and when he appears (as in the person of Christ He did appear) on earth, it is to exhibit in Himself what He had received from the Father, and raise others to the possession of the same. By the very title He assumed, He claimed to be the New Man, the Lord from heaven, come for the purpose of making all things new, and conforming men to the image of Himself. Hence, too, the peculiar expression, embodying another seeming incongruity, in John 5:27, where our Lord says of Himself, that the Father “has given Him authority also to execute judgment, because He is Son of Man.” To execute judgment is, undoubtedly, a Divine work; and yet it is committed to Christ precisely because He is the Son of Man. How? Not, assuredly, because in Him there were simply human properties; but because there was the realization of that form in Daniel’s vision, which represented the nature and aspect of the Divine kingdom among men—the Son of Man, in whom humanity was to attain to its proper completeness, and in whom, that it might do so, the human should be interpenetrated by the Divine, and hold its powers and commission direct from a higher sphere. He, therefore, could execute judgment; nay, as concentrating in Himself the properties of the kingdom, it was His peculiar province to do it; since to man, as thus allied to heaven, God has put in subjection the powers of the world to come. And there is still another peculiar passage, which derives a clear and instructive light from the same reference to the original passage in Daniel; it is Matthew 26:64. The high priest had adjured our Lord to confess whether He were indeed “the Christ, the Son of God;” and His reply was, “Thou hast said [rightly;] nevertheless [rather, moreover, in addition to what I have declared] I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” It is very striking, how our Lord here drops the title, “Son of God,” to which He had confessed when put by another, and immediately reverts to His wonted appellation, “Son of Man;” while, at the same time, He affirms of this Son of Man what might have seemed to be more fitly associated with the Son of God. The explanation is found in the passage of Daniel, the very language and imagery of which it adopts; and our Lord simply asserts Himself to be the Head and Founder of that Divine kingdom, which was presented to the eye of Daniel in vision, under the appearance of one like a Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven; but which a moment’s reflection might have convinced any one He could be, only by, at the same time, being in the strict and proper sense the Son of God.
