Peter said, in a classic passage: "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Pet. 2:21-23).
Jesus was surely the one man in all human experience who lived a perfect, sinless life. He was perfect man, truly human, and yet fulfilling His humanness as no other man can do. He is thus capable of providing perfect guidance and help for us in every situation. "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points [tested] like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:15-16).
Son of Man
The perfect humanity of Christ is implied in the singularly appropriate title "Son of Man." This was evidently His favorite expression for himself. He called himself "Son of Man" no less than 80 times in the four Gospels.
The title is, of course, in no sense a denial of the deity of Christ. He is also the Son of God and, in fact, He frequently used the "Son of Man" title itself in a way which could only be applied to God. Thus: "The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins" (Matt. 9:6); "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10); "Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:62).
The title is thus itself an indication of deity. No one man could in himself represent all men; only God is capable of this. Jesus was not just a son of man; He was and is the Son of Man. That is, He is the second man, the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45-47). He is the heir of man, the inheritor of all the promises to man.
He is the perfect man — man as God intended man to be. Furthermore, He is man as we shall someday become, when "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). It is as the Son of Man that John saw him in the vision of his glory (Rev. 1:13).
It was as the Son of Man that He was lifted up to die on the cross (John 3:14; 12:32-34), bearing in His own body the sins of all men. The human body in which God thus became incarnate as man is the body which was laid in the tomb and which on the third day rose again from the tomb. It was in that body He ascended into heaven. Stephen said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56).
It is thus as the perfect, resurrected, glorified Son of Man, eternally incarnate, that the Lord Jesus Christ exists today at the right hand of the Father. It is as Son of Man that He will come again (Matt. 24:30) "with power and great glory" and as Son of Man that He will receive "everlasting dominion" (Dan. 7:14).
By His very title, therefore, with all the realms of revelation it implies, Jesus Christ is both set above all other men and yet is made one with all men. He is and always will continue to be uniquely the Son of Man.
The Son of God
Although He spoke of himself most frequently as the Son of Man, Jesus Christ also claimed to be the Son of God. In speaking to Nicodemus, for example, He said, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18). Many other Scriptures show that Christ frequently claimed to be, in a very unique sense, the Son of God (note, for example, John 5:25; 9:35; 11:4; etc.).
It was, as a matter of fact, this very claim that gave his enemies the opportunity to have Him condemned to death. In the Jewish law, blasphemy was a capital offense. At His trial before the elders, chief priests, and scribes, the climax came when they asked Him, "Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am. And they said, What need we any further witness for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth" (Luke 22:70-71).
It had been prophesied in the Old Testament that the coming Savior and Messiah would be the Son of God. In the second Psalm, David speaks of the Lord and His Anointed (i.e., Messiah) in verse 2, and then quotes the Lord, in verse 7, as saying: "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." Other Old Testament Scriptures speaking of God's unique Son include 2 Samuel 7:14 and Proverbs 30:4.
John the Baptist said, "And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God" (John 1:34). Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God" (Matt. 16:16). Martha said, "Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God" (John 11:27). As soon as Paul the Apostle had been converted, "Straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). In fact, all the disciples acknowledged, saying, "Of a truth, thou art the Son of God" (Matt. 14:33).
Even the centurion that carried out His execution said, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mark 15:39). Demons recognized Him as such. "And devils also came out of many, crying out and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God" (Luke 4:41). Finally, none other than Satan himself acknowledged Him to be the Son of God. At two of the temptations in the wilderness, he began by saying, "If thou be the Son of God . . ." (Matt. 4:3, 6). The word "if " actually is better translated "since." It is interesting, in the light of 1 John 4:2-3, that Satan readily acknowledged Him as the Son of God, but refused Him recognition as the Son of Man.
It should be understood that Christ is not a Son of God in the sense that other men may be sons of God by a spiritual relationship to their Heavenly Father. Men are not born as children of God; they become sons of God by being "born again," through the Holy Spirit (John 1:12-13; 3:3-7).
Jesus Christ, however, is the "only begotten" of the Father (John 1:14, 18; 3:16; 1 John 4:9). He is not the only son of God, as many modern translations would have John 3:16 and other such Scriptures say, but the only begotten (Greek monogenes) Son of God. There are at least five ways in which the Scriptures identify Him as Son of God in a special sense:
By eternal generation. He is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature" (Col. 1:15). He was a Son with the Father before the world began (John 17:5, 24). He has been "going forth …from everlasting" (Mic. 5:2). Eternally, He has been in relation to the eternal Father as His Son.
By special creation. The technical phrase "Son of God" is applied in Scripture in a formal way only to those whose bodies have been specially formed by God, and were not produced by natural processes of human generations. Thus angels are sons of God by creation (Gen. 6:2; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Dan. 3:25), and so was the first man Adam (Luke 3:38). The body of Christ was also formed directly by God (Luke 1:35).
By resurrection. Jesus Christ was the "beginning, the first-born from the dead" (Col. 1:18). Paul preached: "And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" (Acts 13:32-33). He has been "declared to be the Son of God …by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1:4). Finally, the apostle John, introducing the final book of the Bible, identified Him as "Jesus Christ …the first begotten from the dead" (Rev. 1:5).
By inheritance. As the son is the father's heir, in things human, so Christ is to inherit all things from the heavenly Father. He "hath been appointed heir of all things" (Heb. 1:2). "He that built all things is God …But Christ as a son over his own house" (Heb. 3:4-6).
By nature. The phrase "son of — " is a graphic expression denoting one's nature. Thus, James and John were "sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17), Elymas the sorcerer was called "son of the devil" (Acts 13:10), Barnabas was so named by the Apostles because he was "the son of consolation" (Acts 4:36); etc. Jesus Christ similarly was called the "Son of God" because His nature was that of God. He challenged the Jews: "Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my