CAPITULE II.

PASSAGES ELUCIDATING OUR LORD'S USE OF THE APPELLATION, THE SON OF MAN.

1

IN the discourses of our Lord, whether private or public, whether in the bosom of his friends or under the jealous observation of his enemies, the style which he was pleased most frequently to use, for describing himself, was that of the Son of man, o viòs Tọû åvěpáπov,1 with the article to denote particularity. On an examination of all the passages in which it occurs, it appears that, when this appellation is used, it is always with a reference to some acknowledged character, function, or work of the Messiah: so that, in nearly every instance, the sentence is an apophthegm of the doctrine concerning the Messiah, and might stand as such, quite independently of any particular

1 Some have affirmed that we ought to translate the phrase, the son of the man, and that the allusion is to David as the ancestor of Jesus. But this assertion proceeds on ignorance of the Greek idiom, or inattention to it. A noun governed by another noun which has the article, must itself also take the article; and vice versa. See Middleton on the Greek Article, pp. 69-71. On this particular phrase, that distinguished scholar observes, "He [Christ] was to be designated as ò viòs, for otherwise he would not have been distinguished from any other individual of the human race; and if ὁ υἱὸς then ΤΟΥ ἀνθρώπου, for ὁ υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου would offend against Regimen. Hence it is plain that the article before ȧv0ρúrov is not, if I may say so, naturally and essentially necessary, but is so only accidentally; and consequently it will not be admitted unless where Regimen requires it, i. e. where ò viòs precedes."—P. 354.

While it

individual who claimed to be that Messiah. was the title which Jesus evidently preferred to every other, and which he was most in the habit of employing, it is observable that it was never applied to him by any other person, except in the single instance of the martyr Stephen; that Jesus himself never returned to the use of it after his resurrection; and that the apostles on no occasion employed it, either in their preaching or in their writings.2

3

To rehearse the numerous and different opinions which have been given of this appellation, and the reason on which it has been supposed to rest, would be tedious and of little profit. That which appears to me the best supported by evidence, has been mentioned in a former part of this work. It is the interpretation which has been advanced by scholars and divines of the first erudition, and of very different theological sentiments: Beza, Episcopius, the Dutch Annotators of the Synod of Dort, Leigh, Venema, Wetstein, Bengelius, Abresch, Semler, Eichhorn, and many others, for the enumeration of whose names I am indebted to the ample and exact dissertation of

2 Rev. i. 13, and xiv. 14, are not exceptions to this remark, for in them the phrase is vi dvoρúrov without the articles, corresponding with the Hebrew and Syriac idiom, which occurs very frequently in the Old Testament (e. g. Num. xxiii. 19. Job xvi. 21; xxv. 6. Psa. viii. 4. Isa. lii. 14; lvi. 2,) and is universally known to be merely a periphrasis for a human being. In both those passages this is evidently the sense; so that they are improperly rendered in the common version, the, instead of a son of man. In the Peshito Syriac the phrase, barnosh and bar-nosho, is used in many places for avoрwnоç, especially, though not only, when the word is a general term, as in Matt. xii. 12. John ii. 25. Rom. i. 23. It is even used in Rom. vii. 22, and in the two instances in 1 Cor. xv. 47.

66

995

4

Mr. Scholten, a divine of the University of Utrecht, whose learning, diligence, and acuteness have anticipated almost every thing that could be advanced on the question. This opinion is, that the term was used with a designed allusion to the prophecy of Daniel : "I looked in visions of the night, and, behold! with "the clouds of heaven, came one like a SON OF MAN. This is among the clearest prophetic descriptions of the Messiah: and, though in its original connexion it is combined with lofty characters of majesty and honour, the expression in itself is such that nothing can be conceived more simple and unassuming. It was, therefore, admirably calculated to answer the purposes of our Lord's habitual testimony concerning himself, during that period in which his wisdom saw it right to suspend the universal declara

Cited above, p. 91. Kuinöl accedes to this idea of the origin of the phrase. See his Comment. in Lib. N. T. Hist. vol. i. p. 259. Gesenius, citing Dan. vii. 13, adds, "In the Book of Enoch, which was written about the time of the birth of Christ, partly as an imitation of the Book of Daniel, this expression [Son of Man] is in constant use for the Messiah, and is employed synonymously with Son of God, Anointed, &c. as in the New Testament." Handwörterbuch, art. . See the former volume, Book II. ch. vii. § 3.

5 Dan. vii. 13. Mr. B. remarks that "the expression may possibly signify nothing more than a person in human form; and this symbol of a human figure is explained, not of an individual, but of the kingdom of the saints of the Most High." P. 392. But these objections are, I think, removed by the considerations, that, (1.) In other instances of prophetic description the Messiah is exhibited in his own person, though associated with allegorical personages and scenery. See Rev. i. 13-20; xix. 11-16. (2.) The expressions of "the saints possessing the kingdom," &c. vers. 18, 22, 27, are fairly interpreted, in conformity with the elucidations supplied by the New Testament, of the deliverance from sin, persecution, and all evil, and of the final triumph and perfect happiness, which the servants of Christ shall receive from him as their Head and Saviour.

tion of his claim to be the Messiah.

It could hurt no

feelings, rouse no prejudices, offend no pride. It could minister no fuel to the rage of the violent, nor furnish any occasion to the captiousness of the artful, nor be wrested into a pretext for exciting civil discord, nor awaken the jealous fears of the Roman government. But, while thus humble and inoffensive, it was intelligible, clear, and definite, to those who "searched the Scriptures ;" and it went the full length of a claim to the Messiahship.

This view of the origin and design of the phrase leads to the conclusion, that, though it literally expresses only a human nature, it is applied, on the generalizing principle of language, to designate the MESSIAH, in the whole comprehension of his person and character, yet with an especial view to his state of humiliation. The circumstances of glory, power, and relation to the Divine Father, which in the original passage are attributed to him who bore the likeness of a Son of man, excite and seem to warrant this notion; especially if the interpretation be admitted,

"The very title Son of man' has every where a reference to the Incarnation of Christ, and is therefore significant of his acquaintance with human weakness. I have, indeed, observed that, in a majority of the places in which our Saviour calls himself the Son of man (and he is never in the N. T. so called, by others, before his ascension) the allusion is either to his present humiliation, or to his future glory and, if this remark be true, we have, though an indirect, yet a strong and perpetual declaration, that the human nature did not originally belong to him, and was not properly his own. He who shall examine the passages throughout, with a view to this observation, will be able duly to estimate its value. For myself, I scruple not to aver, that I consider this single phrase so employed, as an irrefragable proof of the Pre-existence and Divinity of Christ." Bishop Middleton on the Greek Article, p. 354.

which was proposed in the former volume, of a clause in that passage as declaring a close and intimate conjunction, by the greatest of all miracles, of the frail and lowly nature of a child of man with that of the Ancient of days, so as to form one person. Thus we are also furnished with a guide to the interpretation of several passages of the New Testament, which, on any other hypothesis, Trinitarian or Unitarian, present great difficulties.' The principal of these passages are now before us to be examined.

7" When we want to open a lock, and after having tried, to no purpose, a number of keys, we hit upon one which opens it with facility, we conclude that we have met with the right key. In like manner, when any phænomenon in nature is to be explained, such, for instance, as the aberration of the fixed stars; and we find that the hypothesis of the progressive motion of light, combined with that of the annual motion of the earth in its orbit, will completely solve that wonderful appearance, we rightly conclude that light is progressive or, when we find that the colours, figure, position, and all the other appearances of the primary and secondary rainbows, can be solved from the different refrangibility of the rays of light passing through globular drops of rain, we rightly conclude that the rays of light are differently refrangible, and the drops of rain globular; why may we not argue in the same manner on other subjects?" Bishop Watson's Anecdotes of his own Life. 8vo. ed. vol. ii. p. 222.