Ultimately the interpretation of
“Son of Man” as an expression of Jesus’ humanity failed because it made the
title superfluous: Jesus had no need to emphasize his simple humanity, since it
would have been apparent to all. As Beyschlag pointed out, “Jesus could not
possibly have felt any need of again and again assuring his contemporaries of
his true human nature, which none of them could doubt” (Beyschlag, New
Testament Theology, 1894: 1.61). The idea that Jesus emphasized his human
nature in contrast to his divine nature is anachronistic, since it presupposes
the orthodox dogma of Christ’s two natures, concepts that “belong to the
theology of the fifth century, and not to the biblical mode of thinking or
speaking” (Beyschlag 1894: 1.61). Furthermore, as James Stalker emphasized,
the statements made about “the Son
of man” are anything but characteristic predicates of humanity . . . things are
predicted about “the Son of man” which are the reverse of simply human.
(Stalker, The Christology of
Jesus, 1899: 47-48)
For instance, it does not belong
to the characteristic peculiarity of human nature to forgive sins, as in
Matthew 9.6 (Usteri , "Die selbstbezeichnung Jesu als des Menschen Sohn,"
Theologische Zeitschrift aus der Schweiz, 1886: 9), or to come on the
clouds of heaven.
Bernhard Weiss raised similar
arguments against the concept of the “lowly” human Son of Man:
For the genuine humanity of the
man who stood before them, and therefore, also the weakness that belonged to
His human nature as such, and the fact that it was subject to suffering and
death . . . these were points as to which they had no doubt; and neither the
homelessness (Matt viii.20) nor the suffering which is claimed for the Son of
Man in Mark viii.31 belongs to the common fate of man.
(B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of
the New Testament [1868] 1893: 1.74) (Delbert Burkett, The Son of Man
Debate: A History and Evaluation [Society for New Testament Studies
Monograph Series 107; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 20)
