BibleProject - The Empty Throne - Son of Man E1

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

In part one (0:00-19:30), the guys discuss what “son of” means in our current culture. They bring up certain phrases like “Sons of Anarchy,” “Sons of Liberty,” etc. Tim says this means that someone identifies with an idea or ideology. Tim then offers the fact that historically people have referred to Jesus as Christ. Christ is actually a Greek word meaning Messiah. Messiah in Hebrew means the anointed one. Tim then says that Jesus never referred to himself as Christ or Messiah, and when others would refer to him as this, he would reply that he is the “Son of Man.” Why is this? For example in Luke 9:18-22: "Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, 'Who do the crowds say I am?' They replied, 'Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.' 'But what about you?' he asked. 'Who do you say I am?' Peter answered, 'God’s Messiah.' Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, 'The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.'" Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man in the third person immediately after Peter called him the Messiah. Tim then posits that Paul doesn’t use the phrase “the Son of Man” in his writings. Instead, he uses phrases like “the firstborn of all creation” or “the new humanity.” Tim says this is because Paul is taking the message of Jesus to an international audience that isn’t familiar with what the Son of Man means. So what does the Son of Man mean? And where does it come from? Well in part two (19:30-32:00), Tim takes us to Daniel 7, a famous dream that Daniel had where the Son of Man appears. Tim says that this dream is very iconic and well known in Jewish history. Everyone would have known about it. Daniel has a dream about a succession of beasts that trample humanity. There are thrones established in the heavens over the earth, but only one of them is filled. It’s filled by the Ancient of Days, which is Daniel’s phrase for God/Yahweh. So there is an empty throne, then a figure called the Son of Man rides up on a cloud to the Ancient of Days. The Son of Man is presented to the Ancient of Days and then is given dominion. The Son of Man then sits down on the empty throne. In part three (32:00-end), the guys break down the phrase the Son of Man. If someone refers to themselves as “the Dark Knight,” people automatically know that they are referring to Batman. Similarly, if someone calls themselves “the Son of Man,” they are referring to a certain character in the Hebrew storyline. They discuss what it means for Jesus to be comfortable inserting himself into Daniel’s dream. Thank you to all of our supporters! Show Produced By: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins Show Music: Defender Instrumental, Tents Someday Be Free, Copyright Free Instrumental. Miss Emili, General Vibe Show Resources Our video on the Son of Man: https://bit.ly/2FvYzGb

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. Before we get into this episode, a quick housekeeping note. We promised a final question and response episode to cap off the God series. But unfortunately, we're a bit over-scheduled and we can't get to it. That's the bad news, but the good news is, we are beginning a brand new series on the podcast. It's a series on... The Son of Man.

So you're reading the Bible somewhere in the Gospels and you'll come across a phrase, usually a phrase of the mouth of Jesus. And that phrase is the Son of Man, something Jesus loves to refer to Himself as. But it's typically not what we refer to Jesus as. The most common word in the New Testament and throughout Christian history to refer to Jesus is Christ, this beside. Put that fact alongside another fact.

If you read through the four gospel accounts, you'll notice, if you pay attention, that Christ is the least used title by Jesus Himself. And there are a handful of stories where other people call him that, and he immediately calls himself by a different title, The Son of Man. So why does Jesus like this title, The Son of Man, and where did he get it from? Well, this phrase comes from a pretty strange dream found in the book of Daniel. Strange Dream found in the book of Daniel. Daniel 7 is like a super-packed distillation of the whole biblical story. This dream is the source of the most common phrase, the title of Jesus, you subscribe to yourself. So today, on this

episode of the podcast, we're gonna dive into Daniel's dream in Daniel 7. We're gonna discuss why Jesus saw himself, his mission, his death and resurrection. How his entire identity is wrapped up in this very charged story about the Son of Man. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. So on this day, John Collins, when you hear the phrase, Son of Man, tell me what it gives to you. Well, what I understand about the Son of Man now is, well, Son of is a Hebrew way to talk about one of a type. A member of a category. Yeah.

Not necessarily the offspring. Yes, you can. You can refer to offspring because if I'm a son of humanity, it's because I was born from a human. Yeah, John son of Robert. Yeah, Tim son of Paul. Right, yeah.

So there it actually is linked. Being one of the type means I was born into that type. Correct. But it doesn't always born into that type. Correct. But it doesn't always mean that in Hebrew. Correct. Or let's start even more basic. Extending more basic would be like both Elijah and Elijah have a group of prophetic disciples that they're training and they're called the sons of the prophet.

Yeah, but they weren't Elijah and Elijah's kids. Excelled Suns, their prophets and training. Profits. They're young Jedi. Yeah. And so they're Suns of the Jedi. So we don't have that idiom in English. Yeah, not quite. As much.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Sun about Suns of Thunder, isn't that something? Oh, it's a movie. That's a movie. Yeah, I think. Suns of... I'm showing my cultural ignorance here. I bet there's a movie. Yeah, I think. Sons of my cultural ignorance here. I bet there's a lot.

Yeah. Here. I'm just gonna do suns of and see what Google like wants me to. Suns of Anarchy. Oh, that's a show. Oh yeah, that's a popular show on AMC or something. It's a motorcycle crew. There you go. Okay, well. That works. Yeah. same idea. Same idea. Yeah. Well, here it's sons of like an idea or an ideology, right? Anarchy. There's sons of liberty. There's all kinds of sons of. Yeah. And Hebrew you wouldn't necessarily use it that way. No, here it's like, and you can reverse it because Hebrew is a language that has gendered nouns, puts nouns in a gender category. So you can also have daughters of. So the daughters of Jerusalem

refer to the villages around Jerusalem. Right. Metaphorically. Because Jerusalem then is the class or the type. Yeah, Jerusalem defines that region. Yeah. And then there's the mother. Should be a part of it. Yeah. And then there's the mother. Should it be a part of it?

Yeah. And then the daughters, which are the suburbs and the little villages that I'm about. So a member of a class. A member of a class. So son of, we're just talking about the phrase son of. Son of. In son of man right now.

So son of man as a Hebrew idiom means one of the class of humans. Yeah. Someone from the class of humans. Yeah. And man, not referring to a singular male, it from the class of humans. Yeah, and man not referring to singular male. Yeah, it's the word Adam which just means human son of humanity. Yeah, a son of humanity Yeah, that's the phrase a human one. Yeah, which may make me just a human a human So this video is about Tim your son of man. Yes, so are you?

So it's every human being. Yeah is son of Adam, or Ben Adam in Hebrew. The video actually is titled A Human, or The Son of Man. The human. The human. Nice. Yeah, the human. That's what it means. This is about the human.

The theme of the human. The human. Okay, so there's a few places we can start the video. Here's one that, to me, is interesting just because it brings us to Jesus immediately and then creates a puzzle about the titles that he used to call himself. And then it forces us to go back to the beginning of the biblical story to answer this puzzle that we meet in the person of Jesus. So that's one way to design the hook of the video.

Right. Would be, start with Jesus. A fact about him. Shall we begin with the fact? About Jesus. About Jesus in this phrase. Yes, let's do that. So most people, when they think of the other word or title or name,

to refer to Jesus, it's actually the one that people often think is Jesus' last name. Christ. Christ. Yeah. The Christ. If he's born to Joseph Christ and Mary Christ, he's Jesus Christ. Yeah.

So of course that's not what's going on. So the Christ is a title. It's actually the most common title to describe Jesus in the New Testament. So Christ is a Greek word that has been spelled with English letters. Excuse me. Okay. So Christ. Christos. It comes from Greek Christos.

Greek Christos is a translation of a Hebrew word. Okay. Machiach. Machiach. Machiach. So Christos is a translation of Hebrew Machiach Machiach So Christus is the translation of Hebrew Machiach. They both mean the one who had oil poured on their head Most literally it means yeah the one who the oiled up one. Yeah, the one who got oil oiled Oiled or are we saying English which was a a which had a very specific and important

Yes, like yeah, it's a symbolic ritual. Mm-hmm. That was performed in the Hebrew Bible Only performed on two types of people. It was used to appoint kings Uh-huh, and then it was used to appoint the priests. How did it become a thing to pour poor oil in the head? No, so how you kind of is it become a thing to pour oil in the head? Yeah, no. So how you kind of, is it like a... In the Hebrew Bible, it becomes a symbol of divine abundance. Because oil is a rich... It's from the olive. Yeah, it's all this nutrients.

Yeah, that's right. Abundant orchards and abundant olives give you an abundance of olive oil. And it's like taking a bath in it Yeah, and olive oil has all these important associations in the Hebrew Bible I've have a lot more homework to do on all of this But there's some kind of Eden garden like divine gift of abundance all focused in on one Human who's being appointed as the representative for the other humans focused in on one human who's being appointed as the representative for the other humans. Which is the priest, high priest, and then the king. So those are the two anointed ones. The two messiahs in all testament are the priest and the king. Why haven't Christians got on this like,

make some oil shampoo, I think some good marketing there. Yeah. Be anointed in your shower. Yes, a good point. Well, the ritual continued anointing James or Jacob in the New Testament talks about anointing people went to the sick when you're praying for them So the ritual has a long yeah, and I know people still use oil. Yep. Yep often in my tradition So I'm not as familiar with it. Yeah, that's right. So all that's a is anointed one. So you have Christos Which is a Greek word translating Hebrew masjihach because mean anointed. The interesting thing is that masjihach also got spelled with English letters, which is our word Messiah. So yeah, so you begin with masjihach and then they got

translated into Greek as Christas. That got spelled with English letters as Christ, but Machiach also got spelled with English letters as Messiah. So in Greek there was two words for the same Hebrew word. No, it's that we have two English words, Christ and Messiah. Oh, for one Greek word. That came from a Hebrew word. One comes from the Greek word, one comes from the Hebrew word, but they both mean one thing. So in the Greek New Testament, if it says Messiah, it was Christos.

Correct. Yeah, that's right. Except sometimes, like in the Gospel of John, he'll actually use spelling Greek letters, Messias. Oh, really? He'll spell. Anyway, it's all that says, it all means anointed one, but it spawned all these different

words and spellings and translation and transliteration. Because to have the oil poured on you means you're being anointed for something. Anointed. Anointed. Anointed. Yeah. I don't use that word in everyday English. Yeah, you don't. What does that mean to anoint?

Anoint. Yeah. Ooh. It's a good point. Should we? I'm pretty sure it means to pour some sort of symbolic liquid. Yeah. To smear or rub with oil as a part of religious ceremony. That's dictionary.

OxfordDictionary.com. That doesn't help. I mean, to ceremonially, this is OxfordDictionary.com. Second definition. To ceremonially confer a divine or holy office upon someone, a priest or a king by smearing or rubbing with oil. Yeah, it literally means to smear with oil. Yeah, originally.

Correct. But you only smear someone with oil, oh, that word smear. You only smear someone with oil if they're being, trying to not use the word. A point. I know, that's anotherear. You only smear someone with oil if they're being trying to not use the word. A point. I know, that's another word. Like, well, not annoyed, a point.

Oh, a point. Yeah, to appoint someone. To appoint someone. Yeah, you're designating them. You're designating them for task. And we do with oil, you're doing it for like a really important task. Yes.

Like being a king. Or what else was it used for? Priest. Or a priest. Yep. So when you smear with oil, then the word is annoying and okay. Yep, you got it. Okay. You got it.

Okay, so this is the most common word and idea used to describe Jesus in the New Testament in terms of just number of times. The smeared one. Yep. So right here, I've just pulled the opening line of four books of the New Testament. Mark, chapter one. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter one. Paul, in a puzzle of Christ Jesus, Messiah Jesus, James, letter of James, opening sentence, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation, opening words, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show. So there's just literally at random hundreds and hundreds of times in the New Testament. Jesus is called. When New Testament authors refer to Jesus, They refer to him as the Christ.

Okay, here's the puzzle. The most common word in the New Testament and throughout Christian history to refer to Jesus, the most common title to connect it with him is Christ. The smeared one. The smeared one. Smeared with oil. Put that fact alongside another fact. If you read through the four gospel accounts, you'll notice, if you pay attention,

that Christ is the least used title by Jesus Himself to talk about his identity. He doesn't use that word. He never calls himself Christ in public, and he only ever does it in private, and even then it's in a kind of ambiguous or oblique way. You never see a sentence where Jesus says, I am the Messiah, that sentence does not occur.

Wow. So that's interesting. And there are a handful of stories where other people call him that, and he immediately calls himself by a different title in the context. So interesting. And guess what that title is? Son of man. So here's one example.

This is in Mark chapter 9. It's where Jesus takes the disciples aside and says, who do you all say that I am? Peter speaks up and says, you are the Messiah, the Christos, anointed one. Then Jesus immediately warned them not to tell anyone. Yeah. And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the chief priests and elders. That's interesting.

Because that title, Messiah, is very loaded, right politically. Correct. And religiously. Yeah. Yeah, it's a loaded term. There's many people walking around saying they were the Messiah. Jesus wasn't the only one. That's right.

Yeah. In terms of his royal overtones, yeah, messianic figures could be in Jesus' day, people claiming to be the true representative of the ancient kingdom of David. I'm gonna revive it and overthrow Rome. Yeah. Let's go kill some Romans. It's like saying, it's kind of like saying your king. Correct.

In a way. Yep. Yeah. And a way. Yep. Yeah. And there's priestly overtones too. Because the priest was also called the anointed one. And in G.S.S. Day, the priest, there's no kingdom of Israel anymore. Yeah, they don't have a king. The governing figure who has taken the functional role of their king, it was the High Priest.

Oh, okay. So, yeah, it's a term that Jesus avoids. Yeah, it's interesting. Yes, he never calls himself that in public. When he is called it, even by his own disciples in private, he changes the subject. He's like, listen, don't tell anyone that. Yes. And then...

Yeah, it happens again in his trial, this is right below in the example, where Jesus is questioned by the high priest, by the anointed one. Yeah. In Mark chapter 14, and the high priest says, are you the Messiah, the son of the blessed one? And Jesus says, I am, or in some, in Matthew, he says, you say I am.

And then his next line is, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand and so on. So then pair this with the other last observation, that the one title that Jesus most often uses to refer to himself numerically is the phrase Son of Man in his teachings, both public and private. So everyone else after the apostles

after Jesus, they all call him Messiah. Jesus himself almost never calls himself Messiah. And even when he acknowledges the title, he immediately shifts the topic to referring himself to the Son of Man. And Son of Man is the phrase that he used most often to talk about himself. So this title, Son of Man, and Son of Man is the phrase that he used most often to talk about himself. So this title, Son of Man, is central to his identity. Apparently. If you're just reading the Gospels, and you're just paying attention to what Jesus is called, people call him Messiah.

He avoids that. He doesn't disagree. He doesn't disagree, but he avoids it. And he instead calls himself most often by another phrase. It was interesting, again, back to observation number one, that apostles in the New Testament writings referred to him as Christ. You don't find Paul or James or Peter in their letters calling Jesus the Son of Man. That phrase doesn't appear. It was Jesus's phrase to talk about himself. And then, as his followers went on to spread the movement,

they referred to him not as the son of man, but by a variety of titles, Christ, anointed one, being the main one. So that's just an interesting puzzle. The New Testament scholars have for generations been puzzling over and trying to figure out. Yeah, they call them Lord. Yeah, there are other titles too. They call them.

Yeah. So it's a good example where, again, the phrase clues you into a larger theme in the biblical story. And as you read on through the New Testament, the fact that you're not coming across the sent of man's phrase doesn't mean that idea's not there, it is there. Why do you think that is that the apostles didn't continue the phrase? If that's what they heard him say about himself constantly.

My hunch is that Paul's viewing Jesus's Son of Man reference to himself in light of the bigger biblical story. And so he uses a wider set of vocabulary, just like the Bible does. And then two, I think it's because Son of Man is a Hebrew phrase. Yeah. That doesn't translate.

Doesn't translate. And Paul's main mission is to translate the Hebrew biblical story into international terms. So he starts using new vocabulary. He talks about Jesus as the new human, in Ephesians, or the image of God, which, as we're gonna see, is huge overlap with the Son of Man. So again, the idea is referred to as it turns out,

by all kinds of different words and the apostles started using other vocabulary, not just Hebrew phrase, some of man. It's an odd phrase in English. The son of man. The son of, it is an odd phrase in English and it was probably equally odd in Greek and these other, yeah. But in Hebrew, they're making circles.

As we'll see, the phrase had a clear set of associations. Not quite a title, like Prime Minister, or the President, but it had a clear set of references. An image came into people's minds. Yeah. The son of human, the son of humanity. Yeah. So that's the puzzle. This is G.S.'s main title to refer to himself.

And he just assumes that you know the backstory behind it that gives meaning to why he constantly calls himself Son of Man. So let's go to the immediate reference point. Okay. Most likely where he got the phrase and it's of course it's a phrase that comes from the Hebrew Bible or in this case an Aramaic text within the Hebrew Bible. Which are rare. Yeah, which are there's a handful. Some in Ezra Nehemiah and then a whole section of the book of Daniel is in Aramaic.

And the phrase and the way that Jesus alludes to it on multiple occasions makes it clear that there's one specific chapter of the book of Daniel in his mind that he's using this phrase to focus in on. And it's from Daniel chapter seven. Okay. So, let's use an analogy. So, imagine a culture where there's a movie scene. It's so epic. Yeah. Everybody's seen the movie.

Everybody grew up on the movie. Like in Titanic when Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are on the bow of the boat. Yes. With their arms out. Yes. You know what I never saw that movie. You're like, the only one.

I might be. For me, it's Star Wars. I just assume everyone's seen Star Wars, the good ones, the good ones from the 70s and the 80s. The original one. What would be the scene in Star Wars? Uh, wow, the guys are so many. That's the problem.

There's so many. But one one maybe from I'm impressed strikes back Darth Vader holding out his hand saying Luke. Yeah. I'm your... Well actually he doesn't say that. Oh that's true. That's a paraphrase isn't it? Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's right. He doesn't say Luke I am your father. He just says I am your father. He says I am your father. So for me that was one of the first movies I ever saw. That's why. Yeah, stuck in my brain. Just epic. Yeah. I am your father. Yeah. No, it's not true. So probably there isn't any one movie scene that you could say

permeates all of Western culture. Yeah, it's just too frantic. Oh culturally, but that one definitely would be in a top list. It would be in the top list. Yeah. So top 10 movie lines. Yeah. OK. Sorry, this is all part of analogy.

Imagine a culture where there's a scene like that. And so all you have to do is in some situation you're with your friends. Yeah. And then... And you say, Oh, I am your father? Yeah, totally. Yeah.

And all you need is to say a few words from the scene, everybody knows. Yeah. Everybody can then like mentally map the movie scene onto that moment that you're doing, right then. Yeah. You know. And that's what Jesus is doing when he calls himself the Son of Man.

Yeah. He's using a title from one of the most charged, symbolic, important passages of scripture for Jews in his time period. And he's putting himself as the central actor of a drama Yeah. From that famous movie scene. You're trying to think of other examples, I can see you. I was thinking about the dirty Harry line. Mm, yeah, clean Eastwood. Go ahead, make my day. Yeah, it's like that. It's like that.

So that movie scene is Daniel chapter seven. Darth Vader and Luke on the Weather Rain, I'm your father. Clint Eastwood pointing the gun. Go ahead and make my day. Yeah. Jesus calling himself the son of man who has authority. The son of man has authority on earth not only to heal but to forgive sins. Hmm. This is a why he needs to be. Or his disciples are getting some food on the Sabbath and the Pharisees are watching. They're like, well, they're breaking the Sabbath. And he says, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

Yeah. Or he'll be in a debate with people and he'll be like, the Son of Man has been given authority from the Father to create life and to judge. So he would throw out these lines with vocabulary from Daniel 7 and that usually make people angry. Or it makes the current leadership angry. And he uses it to explain why he just did or said something that he did. So there you go. That's the idea. Okay. So what's happening in Daniel 7? Daniel 7. So Daniel is having a dream. Daniel's son of David, a member of the Lion of the Royal Seed of David, who's been hauled off into exile in Babylon.

Okay. And so one of David's sons, he's one like, he's great, great, great. He's come from that Lion. Yeah. The opening line of the book tells you that Daniel and his friends are from the Royal Seed. Oh, they are all are. Yep, from the line of David. Yeah, that's very important for the Royal Royal Royal. It's like being a Kennedy or something. Yeah, that's right, totally.

Yeah, it's like being the one of the, that's right, in America, being a Kennedy. So he has been elevated to royal service. We'll talk about Daniel later on. But just the culminating scene is he has a dream where there were these terrible sequence of beast, mutant beasts that symbolize kingdoms, empires, world empires, that come one after another, and they're violent,

they're terrible, they trample on people. And then enough is enough of these violent beasts ruling the world. He keeps looking in this dream and he sees thrones established in the heavens over the earth, plural thrones. But only one of them's filled. And it's filled with a figure he calls the ancient of days, or the eternal one.

It's an image of God of Israel, created God. And his clothing was like white snow, his hair was like wool, his throne is on fire with flames, and the wheels of the throne were flaming. And it's a chariot, got the godmobile. It's a chariot in the sky. Toy. Like unto the royal chariots that ancient kings rode on. It's an ancient throne chariot.

Think of a king riding a procession. So this is who wasn't his throne like in his throne room. This was like the one he was out and about on. Oh, I see. Well, yeah, it's the mobile throne. The mobile throne? Yeah, I see. Well, yeah, it's the mobile throne. The mobile throne? Yeah, mobile throne. Yeah.

Mobile. Then there's a river of fire flowing out from before him. Now, this is interesting. So there's a lot of fire. A lot of fire. So the throne is, it looks like it's on fire. The throne's on fire, and then there's a river of fire. Oh, he's on fire too.

Yeah, his throne's the blaze with flames. The wheels are burning fire, and there's a river of fire. Does it say he's on fire too. Yeah, his throne is the blaze with flames. The wheels are burning fire. There's a river of fire. Does it say he's on fire? Oh, no, he's shining like white. He's shining like white. He's shining bright. He's shining bright. White snow, hair, what, yeah. White hair. That's where we get the like white hair god kind of image. And the white is images of gleaming. Yeah, shining. Yeah. Okay. Daniel seven is like a super packed distillation of the whole biblical story. Huh. So really what we're gonna do after this is just explore how Daniel 7 is summarizing the whole biblical storyline. Okay. We begin with Daniel having a dream of the cosmic mountain looking up into the heavens. Uh-huh. We're heaven and earth meat. Okay. He's seeing into the temple. What he's seeing is what a high priest would see when looking up into the heavens, where heaven and earth meet. Okay.

He's seeing into the temple. What he's seeing is what a high priest would see when he goes into the Holy of Holies. Okay. And what that, all right, of the Ark of the Covenant, the Cherubim, over which the invisible God of Israel is enthroned, he's enthroned about the Cherubim. It's all smoky.

Yeah. So if he's not in the temple, there is no temple. Yeah, what the high priest is Symbolically reenacting by going into the Holy of Holies is itself a storyline of humans being in union with God on the cosmic mountain in Eden. Yeah. Yeah, all these Storylines overlap. Yeah. So what Daniel's seeing is the Eden cosmic mountain where God dwells on his throne So what Daniel's seeing is the Eden Cosmic Mountain, where God dwells on his throne. But if you remember the biblical storyline, humans were invited to share God's throne

and rule over the world, that they rebelled and so they were expelled out of the garden, holy mountain. Okay. And so the whole biblical story is how did humans get back to the throne, restored to the throne, to rule the world alongside God. Oh, right. That's a way, that's what this video's going to be about.

Huh. I guess that's the first time I had the image of, you know, in Eden, God is there, but he's never talked about as being on a throne or anything. No, no. You get that from later in the biblical story that kind of backfills the imagery. the biblical story that kind of backfills the imagery. But that's interesting to think about God on a throne in Eden, and then an empty throne next to him that Adam and Eve were supposed to fill. Yeah. Daniel 7 is repainting the Genesis Garden of Eden, Genesis 1 and 2, setting and depicting the absentee human rulers and the fact that that's a glaring absence that God doesn't want to have that post unfilled.

Yeah. And it uses the image of an occupied throne and then an occupied throne beside him. Yeah. And what we need from page 3 of Genesis onward is a human who will go ascend the Holy Mountain, go back to Eden and become the truly human one who will rule the world alongside God. And that's what Daniel's vision is about. So there you go. So the vision continues. He sees the royal throne surrounded by all these angelic beings, holy ones surrounding

him. Then it says, the court sat, and the books were opened. There's a courtroom, a single one. So final act of justice, a final reckoning happening, or an ultimate, let's say ultimate reckoning happening. The divine judge is sitting, all creation is before him, and the divine record books, so to speak. Then Daniel says, I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of the heavens, clouds of the skies, one like a sun of humanity was coming up to the ancient

of days. So remember the ancient of days is up in the clouds on the divine throne. And so he sees a human riding a cloud. And he calls them like a son of man. He says, one, yeah, like a human, like a son of man. And he's coming and he's riding on the cloud up to the divine throne. And then it says he was presented before him.

The son of man's presented before the ancient of days. And to the son of he was presented before him, the Son of Man's presented before the ancient of days. And to the Son of Man by the ancient of the days is given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all peoples and nations and people of every language might serve him literally be prostrate before him. That human one's dominion is eternal. It will not pass away. His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. And then the next thing happens in the dreams that the beasts are all destroyed and killed, and this sentiment figure is exalted over the nations. That's the dream. This dream is the source of the most common phrase and title that Jesus used to describe himself. The source. Is it the first time it's used?

There's just the most important time it's used. It's the most crampact one. And if you look at all the times Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, there's other things in those sayings that make it clear that he's referring to. He talks about the Son of man having authority. That's what this is talking about. This is about the Son of a human being given authority. So So there's a little storyline in the stream of God wants to rule the world together with a human. For some reason, the throne's empty, right? And instead of a human ruling, you have have empty throne and you have wild beasts trampling humans in the world.

And so one human is elevated out of the trampled mass of humanity and then elevated and brought up to ruled the world. And then all the nations are honoring and serving and worshipping this human and the ancient of days together. Yeah, like there at D.O. Yeah, totally. So there you go, this Daniel 7. There are other texts from the Second Temple period, Jewish texts, that are actually not either contemporary with Daniel or later than Daniel, lots of debate here, but the famous book of Inak, first Inak, which is essentially a whole, but it's just ancient biblical theology of the whole biblical story,

and your tour guide for the story is the figure of Inak. And he has a vision just like this, where he looks up in the heavens, you know, I've got it quoted here, but it's very similar. He sees the divine throne, he sees all the kings and governors of the world praising the one who rules everything, and then this is in 1st Enoch chapter 62. He says, for the Son of Man was concealed from the beginning, the most high one preserved him in the presence of his power, then he revealed him to the holy and chosen ones. On that day, the kings, the governors, the officials, those who rule the earth will fall down before him on their faces and worship and raise their hopes in the Son of Man. So Enoch, this is a text, most likely it's aware of the Daniel 7 story, but it's putting all the pieces together. it's aware of the Daniel 7 story, but it's putting all the pieces together. And so it's important because it's another contemporary Jewish author writing to a group of people

who assumes that, yeah, we all know what Daniel 7 is about and he recasts it in a larger frame. It's interesting, he's like, he called out the King's governors and landlords like anyone with power on earth are eventually going to. That's right. Yeah. The Son of Man is apparently a king of kings. Yeah. So within the Hebrew Bible, Braised Son of Man occurs most prominently in Daniel 7, the charged symbolic dream that

brings a whole biblical story together. The Son of Man, however, the phrase isn't a title like Machiauch, the anointed one. That's people referred to David or Saul or the high priest as the anointed one. And the Son of Man... Because of shorthand for how to refer to someone. Yeah, I mean, titles work like this, like in any language, I think. Yeah.

Straighten title. We talk the Prime Minister. Right. The Senator. I'm thinking of Governor Titles here. The Chief Executive Officer. The First Basement. These Titles.

But then you can also have phrases that have a clear set of meanings and associations that aren't an official title. It's kind of like nicknames. It's kind of like a nickname. Yeah, let's think of other examples. It's kind of like nicknames. It's kind of like a nickname. Yeah, let's think of other examples. It's a phrase. The phrase that is not a title, but can be used to refer to someone. Yeah, you can use it to refer to someone, and it's not referring to an official position.

It's rather portraying them as within a well-known story. So you could walk into an organization and you could say, who's the boss, the boss is a title? Or you could say, who's the headhunt show? Oh. Which is a phrase that isn't a title. Yeah. But, yeah.

So what we're talking about is a movie scene. Okay. A famous movie scene or a scene from a famous book that has a phrase. Has a phrase referring to a figure in a scene. Let's become a scene. And then you can just refer to somebody by that phrase. That's the analogy. Oh, okay. Oh, the Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight. That's how they referred to Batman sometimes. Uh-huh. And then that's actually Christopher Nolan when he did his Batman reboot. He just called it. He just called it dark night, but that was never his title. Yeah. It's a phrase. It's a phrase. Yeah. That was then could be used as a title. Yeah. The dark night. Mm-hmm. I like the dark night. Let's go with the dark night. The dark night is not Batman's title. Yeah, but the problem is we don't know of a scene where he's referred to as a dark night. The dark night is not Batman's title. Yeah, but the problem is we don't know of a scene where he's referred to as a dark night.

Oh, I bet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, but that's okay. Yeah. But the point is a storyline of like a guy who's the billionaire isolated and alone. Yeah. Can't take it anymore.

Yeah. And so he takes it on himself to become the vigilante who rescues orphans and widows and the innocent, the Dark Knight. His title is Batman. But the Dark Knight is a phrase that has all these. Someone used it at some point. And now it's so embedded into his identity that it becomes a title. But it's not a title. Yeah, that's right. And so it's so embedded into his identity that it becomes a title. But it's not a title. Yeah, that's right.

And so it's the difference between the original Batman shows, who's like the guy in Spandex. Right? Like that's a Batman? Saving kittens. Yeah, totally. Yeah, versus the Dark Knight,

which is intense. Yeah. It's a metaphor. Right. Right? And it has all this symbolism and associations of his work and outside the system at night. Dark person.

Yeah, I like it. The dark night. The dark night. Yeah, that's the Son of Man. It's the Son of Man because the title would be Messiah. Or the title would be... Yeah, the title would be Messiah, or the title would be... Yeah, the title would be Messiah. Let's go with that.

The title would be Messiah, which could be referred to. Which is a normal title, everyone's familiar with that. We don't use it nowadays, but it says normal as calling someone king or president or chief or whatever. Yeah. And so you'd walk around and say, Hey, there's the Messiah.

Are you the Messiah? Are you the Messiah? Are you the Messiah? Yeah, and Jesus responds, no, I'm the Dark Knight. Yeah, it's like you met Bruce Wayne and you're like, hey, are you Batman? No. No. All right, you say that I am. Yeah, I do say that I am.

But you have seen the Dark Knight. The Dark Knight. Shrouded in shadow, fighting crime. Yeah, that's what Jesus is doing. That's what he's doing. Yeah. He's using a turn of phrase, turning it into his title, but everyone knows what he means, and it conjures up all these images. Yeah, and the storyline. And the images are specifically from Daniel 7 of humanity being trampled by these of humanity being trampled by these crazy wild beasts, these malgamation of all these animals, and they're creepy and they're crazy.

And humanity is just one after the next, they're just oppressing humans. Yeah, the animals are symbols of human kingdoms. If there's symbols of human kingdoms. Yeah, they're humans treating other humans like animals. Yeah. It's humans coming together, combining their power and then using that power to oppress humans. And it's ugly.

And when Daniel, in the midst of this, he's like, well, these guys, these beasts are just wearing us down. And then he looks up in the sky, and he sees the flaming God chariot, mobile. Yeah, he's a divine king. Yeah. Who's in authority over even the beasts. Yeah, just pff, flames and bright white,

ancient of days, there he is. And next to him is an unoccupied throne. Yeah. That's such an important image, the unoccupied throne. That's right. It's key. A forfeited throne. A forfeited throne. For some reason, but from the biblical story, you know, it's a forfeited throne. Yeah. From Genesis 3. And it doesn't give it, is it the same size throne? It just says throne. It just says there's thrones. We're set up.

One of them had the ancient of days. Were they both on the same chariot mobile? Oh, it's got to be. It's got to be. It's got to be. That's where the divine throne is. It's a two-seater. The ancient of days' thrones.

Yep. Yeah. And he's looking up. He sees us on our occupied throne. He sees us on the flaming ancient of days and then suddenly Mm-hmm on a cloud coming up to the throne is One like the son of man. Yeah a human one. Yeah, and the human one comes sits down at the throne It's now occupied and he's up in God's territory

God space and sitting next to God It's now occupied and he's up in God's territory. God's space. God's space. And sitting next to God and then everyone on earth worships the Son of man alongside God. The Son of Man is given authority over everything. Eternal authority. What happens at the beast at this point? Oh, the beast is destroyed. So I've actually excerpted the scene here. At first, Daniel sees the divine throne with an occupied throne. And then the judgment scene begins.

The books are open. Oh, right, right, the courtroom scene. Yep. Then Daniel looks at the beast, the fourth super beast, and it's slain, and it's thrown into the fire. So this happens before the Sun of Man shows up. Then I kept looking after the beast is destroyed, and the Sun of Man. So God up on the flaming mobile opens up his documents, and then also you realize you're in a courtroom.

Yes. Yes. Because what the heavenly hosts are there. What is it? Like a... It's the court sat. Yeah, who's the court? Ah, it's the divine council. The divine council, that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's the divine courtroom. It's taking session and then the books are opened. Yeah. Means the cases are being made. Yeah, and then boom, super beast. Super beast destroyed. Destroyed.

And then you're like, yes, sweet awesome God to care of it But now there's just one left puzzle which is this unoccupied throne. Yeah, yeah, we've taken care of the beast Yeah, the beast take care of but why is there why does God have is this just a second in case he needs to shift around Yeah, and then the sun of man comes. The sun of man, exactly. The human one. That's it. Daniel's response to the dream, he says, as for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me. And the images in my mind were terrifying me.

It's like waking up from a really vivid, disturbing dream. Totally. But it ended well. It does. Yeah, it ends well, but there's still a lot of trampling and violence. Yeah, he wakes up and he realizes like, that was a dream and the super beast is still out there. That's right.

It's like the opposite of waking up from a bad dream. Yeah, totally. It's like waking up from a good dream and then realizing your, yeah, the bad dream still happen. Yeah, that's right. So we'll come back to Daniel 7, once we've considered all the biblical story leading up to it, but that's it right there.

Jesus is referring to himself as the elevated human sitting on the divine throne. And. Yeah, and that becomes clear when like he's talking to, is it Pontius Pilate, and he says, you will see the Son of Man lifted up. Correct. Like the Son of Man was lifted up in the clouds.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, and when Jesus actually, it's the moment he's before the high priest, the Messiah, anointed one. Oh. And the high priest, anointed one, says, tell me if you're the anointed one. Right.

Yeah. And what he says is, from this moment on, from now on, you will see the Son of Man lifted up high and exult. So this is a conversation with the... Yes, so this... That priest. Totally. Yeah, it's one anointed one talking with the other anointed one, except the other anointed

one doesn't want to call himself the anointed one, he calls himself the Son of Man. Game of Thrones. He says, you will see, from this moment on, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the most high and coming with the clouds. I don't want your seat right there. That's right. That's not the point. You're gonna see me lifted up next to the ancient days.

And what Jesus is referring to is the cross, his lifting up. Well, he's referring to Daniel 7. He's referring to Daniel 7. But then also. No, what he's referring to Daniel 7. He's referring to Daniel 7. But then also. No, what he's referring to is the fact that you're going to condemn and crucify me in innocent man. Yeah.

In your mind, what you think you're doing is executing a troublemaker who's going to cause trouble for you with the Romans. What's actually happening is Daniel 7. What you're actually going to be doing is paradoxically, without you even knowing it, you are the beast who's going to trample the son of man. You think you're killing the son of man, but actually what you're doing is exalting him up to his divine throne. That's what Jesus is doing. It's such a charged moment. That moment couldn't be more charged.

Does the high priest realize what he's doing? Yeah, high priest then says, blasphemy, he deserves to die. Yeah. And of course, Jesus just said, I occupy the empty throne. Yeah, I'm the one who occupies the divine throne. Yeah.

Alongside Yahweh, they got this room. Right. It would have been better if you just was like, yeah, I want your job Yeah, had he said I'm the Messiah all he would be saying is yeah, totally I'm supposed to take your job Yeah, which they would have killed him for that too Right, yeah, you took it to another level I'm a part of the identity of the God of Israel and I share in the divine rule over the world. That's who I am. Yeah. And you're killing me is actually enthroning me. Wow. So gnarly. That's a dirty hairy moment.

It totally is. Yeah, it totally is. And think again, these are all Bible nerds sitting in that room. It's a high priest. We're gonna say. So he knows like it would be crystal clear. This is like Luke saying to the high priest like, or Darth Vader saying to the high priest, you know, I am your, you finished the line. You know, on the high priest would be like, you dare. Yeah, right. You dare portray yourself as Darth Vader or that kind of thing.

Yeah. So it's clear, these are the words that seal the deal. So there's that, interesting moment. Okay, this could be a moment. We'll come back to this, but in the video, you know, we can do a lot with overlaying things, but if we establish the icon scene of the Son of Man being exalted, and then are able to show in similar composition, the high priest in the place of the beast. Jesus in the place of the son of man, the divine throne as the cross. I think we'd be capturing what's going on in

Jesus' trial scene here. The throne is the cross or the throne is the way to the cross, or the cross is the way to the throne. Well, no, it's, especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the exaltation being high and lifted up from Daniel 7. That's a way to refer to the cross. A way to refer to the cross. The Gospel author's want us to see the cross as a throne. A type of throne. He's given the crown, the cape, the title, king, right?

A king of the Jews. So the Gospel has wanted us to see the cross as the exalted divine thread. It's the place where you see how God rules the world. It's the moment when He dies for His enemies. That's the theological one to punch. That's His real power. His real power is in giving up his life. Yeah.

So that's where we'll culminate and that's already rich. But then once you go back and trace the son of man man versus the animals and man becomes an animal. Yeah, that's what we'll get into. Yeah, that's what we'll get into and then it all moves forward and all of sudden these stories in the gospels that you thought you already knew pop with new color and depth in really important ways. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project podcast. If you'd like to learn more about the Suttoman theme, you might enjoy the video that we released a few weeks ago on our YouTube page. YouTube.com slash the Bible project. Or you can also find it at thebibletproject.com.

It's simply called the Son of Man. Today's show is produced by Dan Gummel, the music by the band Tense. We're a nonprofit crowd-funded animation studio. We're located in Portman, Oregon. And you can learn about everything we're up to on our website, thebibletproject.com. Next week, we continue this conversation on the Son of Man, and to do that, we need to talk about animals.

The Son of Man theme is a way of thinking about the whole biblical story through the images of humans and animals. On page one, that ideal is that humans are placed in a role in responsibility for the animals to rule it. But that raises the question that's both ancient and modern about humans' relationship to animals. What does it mean to rule the animals? Thanks for being a part of this with us.

Hi, this is Nancy and I'm from Wenzhou, China. Hello, I'm Nancy. I'm from China. What Hao, Wuxi Nianxi, Woolai Zi, Wenzhou, Zhongguo, Wenzhou. What I like best about the Bible project is that it provides framework for me to understand what each book of the Bible is. Because yeah, for a lot of the Bible books, one of the first times I read it,

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他是一個主持人 他是一個主持人 他是一個主持人 他是一個主持人 他是一個主持人他是一個主持人他是一個主持人BibleProject.comOK我们相信盛经是一个统一的故事 让我们学习到医术是谁 它是 BibleProject是通过像我一样的

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