Thieves by the Throne

Podcast Date: March 4, 2019

(67:57)

Speakers in the audio file:

Jon Collins 

Tim Mackie

Tim: Hey, this is Tim at The Bible Project. This is the final episode of Jon and I's conversation about the Son of Man. This was a phrase that was Jesus' favorite title to describe himself. In all the episodes, up to this one, Jon and I have been exploring this theme, and how it develops throughout the whole biblical story, the Son of Man from Genesis 1, all the way up to Daniel 7.

In the last episode, we talked about how the New Testament gospels portray Jesus as a Son of Man that is as a new Adam, except this Adam doesn't give in to evil. He doesn't try to grab at power influence. Rather, he overcomes the temptation in the wilderness and then moves out to launch God's kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

In this time episode, Jon and I are going to talk about some of the different teachings of Jesus where he actually uses this phrase, "the Son of Man." And if you track with what Jesus says about the Son of Man, you could see patterns. These are well-known stories about Jesus forgiving people sins, how he picked grain with his disciples on the Sabbath, the story of his trial before the high priest. And when you focus in on why Jesus calls himself the Son of Man at just these moments, all this new light is shed on these familiar stories and sayings of Jesus. There you go.

I'll let the conversation speak for itself. Turn your heart and mind onto learning mode and get ready to discover along with Jon and I. Here we go.

Jon: We're continuing our conversation on the Son of Man. We talked about Jesus represented in Mark and Matthew as the new Adam, new David, Daniel figure who pass the tests in the wilderness. That was cool to see how the detail, especially in Mark of when he's in the wilderness we're told that he's there with the beasts. So he's ruling as man the land animals, Genesis 1 kind of commission. But then the angels are ministering to him. So he also rules over the angel.

Tim: Yeah, they're his staff.

Jon: He's a human, but we know from his birth narratives there's something more to him. He's called by Mark the Son of God, and that he's given this a designation of being given the status of a ruler.

Tim: I think the birth narratives are making a claim that the Christian tradition has come to call the incarnation. That he isn't just a super-powered human like a Moses or a David, but that he is actually the God of this story become human, to be the human that no human is capable of being. I think that's the implication of the conception by the Holy Spirit.

So when Jesus is declared the Son of God at baptism...Actually, this is an important clarification because there are some readers throughout history have taken that to mean Jesus was a human who got supercharged at his baptism. If you didn't have the Holy Spirit conception idea, like in Mark or according to Mark, there's no birth narrative. You just get Jesus showing up on the scene.

And so, some people think that, that preserves the earliest view of Jesus is that it's called “adoptionist” Christology. That he's a human that was filled with God's Spirit

and adopted as the Son of God. Against that concept, however, is the whole view of Jesus in Paul's letters that we explored in a previous series. Paul's letters have a fully divine-human, Jesus, and Paul's letters predate the Gospels by a decade or two. Then Matthew and Luke both have the birth narratives that make clear the incarnational idea.

Jon: But calling someone the Son of God is not saying that they are man and God. Because David was called the Son of God, Israel was called the—

Tim: That's right. When Jesus is introduced as the Son of God, the story that you're about to read is going to give a new level of depth to that preexisting term.

Jon: I'm supposed to be thinking royal human ruler.

Tim: Human adopted to the status of divine rule.

Jon: Divine rule.

Tim: Every Son of God I've met in the story, Adam, David is a human who's elevated to rule on God's behalf.

Jon: Got it.

Tim: However, it's clear that the gospels are using that pre-existing idea but also making an even greater claim about Jesus. He didn't become divine, rather, he was the God of Israel become human. That's the claim that they're making.

Jon: Mark calls him the Son of God, but Jesus likes to call himself the Son of Man. And he uses it a lot. We're going to look at some of the times he does that.

Tim: Yeah, some examples. This whole series and conversation got started saying Jesus called himself the Son of Man. We actually haven't looked at any yet.

Jon: Let's look at some.

Tim: Let's look at some. People who study the Son of Man sayings of Jesus notice some patterns. If you look at all the sayings where he calls himself the Son of Man, you notice three different nuances that he gives. In other words, if you look at—

Jon: The collection of sayings.

Tim: If you read those in context, you'll notice three patterns, three common themes. The first one is where Jesus will talk about the Son of Man having some kind of divine authority.

Jon: Which makes sense.

Tim: Here's the first example where Jesus will use the "Son of Man" phrase to describe himself as having divine authority. Mark 2. I'll set up the scene and then I'll let you read the words of Jesus.

Jon: All right.

Tim: This is Jesus' teaching in a house. All these people are gathered around the house. There's some guys who have a friend who is paralyzed, he can't walk, so they try to bring him to Jesus, they can't get near him.

Jon: There's too many people there.

Tim: Too many people. So they find a way up onto the roof and start shredding the roof apart. I've just tried to imagine the scene of like Jesus in the house, and there's like dust and debris falling from the ceiling. You know, just like, "What? I'm trying to talk here."

Jon: John Mark taught on this recently, and he called it vandalism. He's like, "You just got friends who will vandalize for you."

Tim: Yeah. You got to someone else's house and just are shredding it to get...They get this guy in front of friend. Jesus says, "Little boy, your sins are forgiven." But the religious leaders are sitting around and they say, "Why does this man speak this way? He's blaspheming," which means offending God's honor. "Who can forgive sins, but the one God." But the one God. And then the story picks up.

Jon: "So Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, "Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven'; or to say, 'Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk'? "But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins "-- He said to the paralytic, "I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home." And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone. And they were all amazed."

Tim: "And were amazed and they started glorifying God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this.'" So Jesus is identifying himself as the Son of Man, and he's doing it in the third person. "So that you may know the Son of Man." All right.

This is interesting. In Greek, the phrase is the son of the human. Jon: two the(s)

Tim: The son of the human. So really significant, the Son of Man has been a small like industry in New Testament studies in the last hundred years. It's a long rabbit hole as to why it's been complicated. And people write whole books in response to each other's books. But one of the most important landmark summaries and studies done was by a scholar named Joel Marcus.

Jon: You've quoted from him before.

Tim: Yeah. It was in a scholarly journal, but he published two like 30-page essays as parts one and two. He wrote a small book in this journal. It's called "The Son of Man as son of Adam." He makes an argument, and many people are compelled by it, that the son of the human, the human there as a reference to...because remember, in Hebrew, adam is human.

Jon: Yeah, the son of the Adam.

Tim: The son of the Adam, namely, the ultimate Adam. So he points out here that Jesus' focus is that the Son of Man has authority on earth.

Jon: But to forgive sins.
Tim: To forgive sins. That's right.
Jon: Which is kind of like heavenly kind of thing to do.

Tim: Yeah, exactly. Clearly what the religious leaders pick up on, "who can forgive sins, but the one God?" You go to the template for that, and the priests doesn't forgive you. He tells you that God forgives you because you've done what God told you to do. But here Jesus is waltzing around dispensing God's forgiveness as if it's his to offer. And he thinks the focus here is on earth - the Son of Man has authority on earth.

Here, I'll just quote Marcus here because he has a good summary. He says, "Adam was created to be the terrestrial representative of the heavenly king to rule on earth as God rules in heaven."

Jon: This is to be in the image of God.

Tim: Correct. Genesis 1. Jesus here is emphasizing that his authority to forgive sin on earth derives its ultimate authority from God's prerogative to forgive sins in heaven. In other words, the assumption in all this is God is the one who forgives sins. Where is he? He's enthroned in the heavens over heaven and earth. But now Jesus is identifying himself as the one on earth—

Jon: Carrying out God's rule.

Tim: Correct. There it is. There you go. So the first Adam is associated both as royal rule but also with sin and death. "So here Jesus is portrayed," Marcus goes on, "as the Royal human who has power over both sin and death. And death is made concrete here in this story in terms of the man's paralyzed, broken body. So for Jesus, to forgive and to heal are really just two sides of him as the new Adam who has power over evil and death."

Jon: So when he says, "Which is easier, to say to you are forgiven; or to pick up your pallet and walk"? kind of point there is to say, "Anyone can walk around saying, '"You're forgiven. You could actually heal the person."

Tim: That's right.

Jon: But in a way, they're both equally authoritative. One is divine. They're both equally impressive.

Tim: They're both things that only God can do - assumed here. Both to forgive and to bring new creation to someone's body.

Jon: That's cool. I've never read these Son of Man passages thinking about being a new Adam. It really fill’s it out in a new way of when he says, "Authority on earth," that was the whole point.

Tim: that's right.

Jon: For man to have authority on earth, to rule on God's behalf, what does that look like? Well, if you have God's divine rule, you're doing God's stuff.

Tim: That's right. What does God do?

Jon: And what does God do?

Tim: He brings healing and forgiveness. Actually, this is good. It's the Son of Man embodies God's ethic of power and influence, which is not a satanic mindset according to the temptation that Jesus underwent, which is to cease and to take and hold.

Jon: The Zur power.
Tim: Correct. It's to give it away, thereby qualifying yourself to truly, truly hold influence. [00:13:26]

Tim: Here's another one, another son of man saying. This is in Mark 2. Not far from the story we just read. "And it happened that while Jesus was passing through grain fields on Shabbat, on the Sabbath, his disciples began to make their way along and "Hey, you know we're walking by a grain field. Deuteronomy and Leviticus say, "Don't harvest the edges of your field. Leave it for hungry people in your community." So they started picking grain.

"The Pharisees were saying to him, 'Look, why are they doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath?'"

Jon: Because you're not supposed to harvest on the Sabbath?

Tim: Yeah. It can be interpreted as a form of harvesting and there's many other days of the week to do that. "Jesus said to them, 'have you read the Bible? Do you remember what David did when he was in need? When he and his companions were hungry, he actually went into the temple on the time of Abiathar, High Priest, and he ate the consecrated bread, which is not legal for anybody to eat except priests." And then David gave it to his crew - his hungry crew."

Jon: "David broke the rules. Why can't I break the rule?"

Tim: Yeah. On one level, so he's getting at. Another level is David is the Son of God. He's God's royal appointed ruler on earth. So, if the temple is a little micro Eden, then the bread of Eden is made for Adam and Eve in the garden.

Jon: Is that part of the point of that story then in that detail of the story? When you see David eating that bread, are you supposed to be thinking like, "He's not supposed to be doing that, but he is the Son of God and this is micro Eden?"

Tim: Yeah, dude. The way that this narrative features in the David story, yes, it's awesome. But it's in the section where Saul is no longer the king of Israel in God's eyes, but David, is rather...he is the real king in God's eyes, but he's not made public. So there's whole stretch of the story where David's the real king, but he's waiting patiently for God to exalt him as king while the false kings of Israel do their thing.

So you have David fleeing into the wilderness, he's about to go into the wilderness and he makes a stop by the temple shrine. And he enters into it and he picks up the sword of Goliath and he picks up the bread. The priests give him bread.

So in the narrative, yes, this image of the real king of Israel isn't public yet, but yeah, he can go into the holy place and have authority over it. That's the new Adam over Israel. For sure that's what's going on.

Think, if Jesus is placing himself in the place of David, and David's soldiers, he's putting himself in that role, who in this story is fitting into the Saul, the false leaders of Israel story?

Jon: The religious leaders.

Tim: Right. So he's putting himself in the spot of the underdog David, who is the true king, but just not recognized.

Jon: Which would then lead them to be like, "Who do you think you are?"

Tim: Totally. But Jesus doesn't give them a chance because then he says this. "The Sabbath was made on account of or because of the human and not to the human because of the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." This is riddler Jesus. He's totally riddler.

Jon: Don't let me go down this road. Tim: Well, we kind of have to.
Jon: Great, awesome.

Tim: Well, here. Again, I'm quoting from Marcus here. Marcus notes, "From Genesis itself to be sure, one might get the impression that the Sabbath was not created because of the human, but because of God."

Jon: That's what I was going to say.

Tim: "God rested on the seventh day from the labor of the preceding, six days and therefore hallowed the seventh day in perpetuity. However," he notes, "in Jewish tradition, scholars went to great pains to make clear that God wasn't tired. It's not

like He needed a rest, but that the purpose of the Sabbath was for humanity to provide rest for them."

Jon: And you've mentioned this. It's God's resting in creation. It's like Him taking up His royal place within the world.

Tim: Correct. Yeah, filling it with his presence and it becomes His dominion, His place where rules.

Jon: So in the Genesis narrative, it's about His inauguration as king of creation? Tim: Yeah, that's right.
Jon: But then as it becomes a law or as part of the...Yeah, it's part of the law.

Tim: Well, let's pause here. And then you get humans who are also appointed to rule on God's behalf and the image of where they rule is that of cultivating a garden. You know, they have to work and care for it. Dude, it just produces your food. That you have a garden. It's a labor but it's a labor that gives easy produce.

You're there with the animals, the food just comes right off the trees. It's the image. The inversion, the curse, that's the blessing. The inversion or the curse is now...

Jon: ...that you're working hard at.

Tim: Totally. Now you're going to grind yourself back to dust through sweat and hard labor to get any food out of the ground. It's going to kill you. The grounds going to kill you as you try to get food out of it. It will slowly kill you.

So the Sabbath is a way God declares that there's a day of rest. The human future, destiny, and purpose isn't governed by its slavery to survival from the land. But you declare a whole day where you imitate God's rest and rule over creation and you live like the first Adam and Eve to just rest in God's world, and trust that your provision and security is all given as a gift. You don't have to scratch the—

Jon: It's the images of Adam and Eve living in the Sabbath, living in the inaugural reign of God who's resting in creation and things. You work, but there's this amazing kind of producing for you happening at the same time.

Tim: I mean, I think what Jesus is reflecting on here isn't just his reflection. This is a Hebrew Bible depiction of the Sabbath, which is it's God's presence filling all creation so that as humans represent him as rulers, they live in a world that is friendly to them, that welcomes them, that they are in authority over.

Jon: We almost need a term because we have creation, and we talked about creation, but we are generally talking about the state of things now.

Tim: Yeah, that's right.
Jon: We have a new creation.

Tim: It's the Genesis 1 ideal. Jon: It's the ideal.
Tim: It's the ideal.

Jon: And the ideal is Sabbath. But when Jesus says, "The Sabbath was made," is he referring to that seventh day of creation? Was he referring to like the law was given that points to that ideal?

Tim: Let me just continue the Marcus quote here. He says, "The Sabbath, according to Jesus' logic in Mark 2 was created for Adam's sake and the humanity he represents, not the other way around."

Jon: When he says the Sabbath, he's referring to what?

Tim: The ideal of Genesis 1.

Jon: The ideal of Genesis 1 was for humanity.

Tim: Yeah. The Sabbath was built into the structure of the world that was made subject to Adam.

Jon: Okay, got it.

Tim: Therefore, Adam's final son, the Son of Man, who has recovered the dominion that his great forefather forfeited, he's lord, not only of the world in general but of the Sabbath in particular. We're going to start conversations about the Sabbath for a video coming down the pipeline.

But yeah, the Sabbath one ideal is a picture of the ideal creation. And it's not made to end, it doesn't have an ending like the other days of Genesis 1 - there was the evening and there was morning. It's the culmination, and it's precisely that Sabbath rest that is forfeited in the rebellion of the humans in the garden because now they die scratching out an existence in the dirt.

Jon: And so then, the practice of the Sabbath, then becomes a way to remember and to also try to live and initiate that ideal that was lost.

Tim: That's right. Which Isaiah will call a new heavens and a new earth. New creation. Well, Paul will call it a new creation.

Jon: So when he says, "The Sabbath was made because of the human," he saying, when God created the seventh day came and rested with the humans, that was for the sake of humanity, humanity to be living with God in this abundance?

Tim: Yeah. And as His appointed rulers and authorities.

Jon: And it wasn't that God was like, "I know, this is really cool, special place I want to have. Oh, no, I'm lonely. I'll create humans so that they can take care of this place

that I want." That would be like the Sabbath and humans were catered for the Sabbath."

Tim: Yeah, I got it. I've never thought of the opposite of it before. Humans were not made for the Sabbath.

Jon: God created humans and—

Tim: "I want a day off every week guys, and so you humans are going to do likewise."

Jon: Right. Or to say, "In the logic of the narrative, God creates the humans and then there's the seventh day where they rest and reign." God rest and reign—

Tim: And they participated.

Jon: They participated. But you could have another narrative where God creates this kind of wonderful utopia and then He's like, "I kind of just need some humans around to take care of this for me." And then, "Okay, I'll create some humans, now they can live in this utopia." That would be like God created the garden and then the humans later. Wait. Genesis 2, is that the flow?

Tim: He makes the human, then plants the garden and then puts humans in the garden.

Jon: So the Sabbath was made because of the human, not the human because of the Sabbath.

Tim: Yeah. The Sabbath is the ideal reality that God destines humans for. It's the culmination of Genesis 1 - end of all human history. Therefore, the Sabbath isn't supposed to be practiced in a way that prohibits human flourishing. You know, the things that Jesus will get in trouble for doing on the Sabbath is eating and healing people.

Jon: Which is an Eden ideal.

Tim: Yeah, eating and having healthy whole bodies are definitely Eden ideals. So here, Jesus is saying, "I'm the truly human one appointed to rule over heaven and earth, so I declare that hungry people getting food is exactly what the Sabbath is for. And so, even if it means picking from a grain field, which is what a farmer does, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and that's considered work, but on the Sabbath, it's just considered like eating from the trees of Eden."

Jon: There's supposed to be a bit of a... like, something he's doing with the way he's using "the human" and then "the son of the human."

Tim: Oh, sure.
Jon: Sabbath was made because of the human. Tim: Adam. Humanity.

Jon: So the son of the human, what's the difference there? In his mind is like, "It's made because of the human so the son of the human?"

Tim: Marcus made the point. The idea is the Sabbath was built into the structure of the world that was made subject to Adam. Therefore, Adam's ultimate son, the son of Adam has recovered the dominion that his forefathers forfeited. And so, he's not just Lord of the world in general, he's Lord of time. He's the divine Lord.

Jon: He's the Lord of eternal rest and the ideal.

Tim: Of heaven and earth, of its end of its future destiny. Son of Man is Lord at the Sabbath. I mean, that's a riddle. That's why it puzzles readers, but it's an invitation to them.

Jon: This is another example of Son of Man being connected to authority.

Tim: Divine authority. Yeah. A number of the Son of Man sayings of Jesus are like this. He'll use it to describe the figure who has God's authority.

[00:26:45]

Tim: Second pattern of how Jesus uses the phrase "Son of man," he talks about the suffering Son of man. Mark 10: "James and John, the two Sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus saying, 'Teacher, if we ask you to do something, will you just do it for us?' And he said to them, 'Well, what is it you want me to do?'"

Jon: "It depends."

Tim: "Grant that we may sit one on your right and one on your left in your glory." So underneath that is, for sure, when you are the exalted Son of Man..."

Jon: So they're picking up on—

Tim: Got it. You're right. In one level, this could be just when you go kick back Jerusalem and bring the kingdom of God. But in your glory...Yeah, totally. That could also be loaded as we're going to see with Son of Man imagery. "But Jesus said to them, 'You have no clue what you're asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized?'" Riddler Jesus again? "They said to him, 'Oh, yeah, we're totally able.'"

Let's pause real quick. The cup and the baptism is images.

Jon: The cup I know from the Lord's Supper referring to...is that what that is?

Tim: Oh, that's the Passover cup. This is different. Actually, it's totally related terms because it's cup imagery. It's all connected.

Jon: I don't know what he's talking about. Tim: Jesus is going to have to drink the cup.

Jon: He's going to drink it.

Tim: Here what should light up in your mind is Jeremiah 25 and 27, Isaiah...It's cup of wrath. It's cup of the wine of God's wrath.

Jon: That cup.
Tim: That cup.
Jon: He's going to drink God's wrath? That does not sound tasty.

Tim: No. Jeremiah 25. "Thus Yahweh the God of Israel says to me, Jeremiah, to say to all the nations, 'Take the cup of the wine of wrath from my hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I am sending among them.'" So he's having a vision or a dream. Jeremiah is.

"I took this cup from the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to him, the Lord sent me to drink it. Then it lists the nations: Jerusalem, Egypt, all the kings of the land of UZ - this is where Job lived - the Philistines, Moab, Edom, Ammon, Tyre, everybody." I mean, just it goes on.

Both are drinking a cup. It's also a sword. It's Babylon. It's Nebuchadnezzar it coming to town to subjugate all of his wicked, violent nations.

Jon: That's the cup.

Tim: The cup is Babylon. The drunkenness, the being drunkenness and being reduced and shamed and attacked by the sword is Babylon. He's handing the nations over to Babylon. That's the cup. It's also Isaiah 51, Psalm 75. These are all the cup passages in Hebrew Bible. Actually, this is exactly Paul's vision of wrath in Romans 1.

Jon: Oh, yeah.

Tim: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all humans who suppress the truth and wickedness and godliness. And then when he tells a story is God handing humans over to catastrophes of their terrible decisions. In Jesus' mind, he's going to drink the cup.

Jon: He's going to get slayed by Babylon.

Tim: He's going to Jerusalem to swallow the sward of Babylon on behalf of Israel and the nations. And the agent to do it is the Babylon reigning over Jerusalem right now, which is the temple establishment, and it is representing Caiaphas and Pilate.

Jon: The powers.
Tim: Yeah, the powers.
Jon: And then they're baptized with the baptism?

Tim: Yeah.

Jon: That's such a corky phrase. Baptized with the baptism.

Tim: This is such a good example to show that Jesus read the Hebrew Scriptures as a whole network of design patterns. Because this is the flood. This is actually the dark chaos waters of Genesis 1. This is the passage through the floodwaters, Noah in the boat. This is Israel going through the waters of the sea that destroy the powers of evil, but rescued through death. This is Jonah - his passage through the death waters in a very strange vehicle.

Jon: The large fish.

Tim: Yes, exactly. Oh, man. This is all about the book of Jonah. The only other time you get an image of a human swallowed by a great sea creature is in the poetry of Jeremiah 51. And it's Babylon depicted as the sea dragon swallowing up Israel. It's an image of exile.

The exile of Israel is another passage through the waters of death. Read the book of Isaiah. It's just all about that. The exile to Babylon is a flood that purges Israel. It kills Israel so that the Israel that emerges out the other side is—

Jon: Oh, that's an image in Isaiah.

Tim: Isaiah, both 11 and 43, the exile into the nations as a flood.

Jon: That's really interesting. So James and John come up, and they're like, "Hey, when you start ruling, we want to be right there with you on your right and your left - your chief guys." And Jesus is like, "Yeah, I don't think you get it." And they're like, "No, we get it." Then like, "No, I'm going to be slain by Babylon, and I'm going to go through the chaos waters."

Tim: Which is death.
Jon: Death.
Tim: They go into exile and death. Cut from the land of the living. Jon: And all of these stories of the flood and of the sea—

Tim: If Jesus is a new humanity, and he's also the new Israelite, he is Israel embodied as their king and representative and priest, then he is undergoing in his own self the whole story of Israel in miniature. Which means going into death and exile on behalf of his people, precisely because he knows that by God's power he will be brought out the other side, just like the dry land was delivered from the waters and just like Israel came out of the waters of the sea, and so on. All that's loaded into the cup in the baptism.

Then they said to him, "Oh, yeah, we'll drink the cup." Jon: "We're down."

Tim: "Yeah, we're down." And Jesus said to them, "Well, actually, you know what? You are going to drink the cup and you are going to under that baptism, but to sit on my right hand and my left, that's not my authority to give."

Jon: Why not?

Tim: "But for those for whom it has been prepared." Now, hold on. What Jesus is getting at is "the cup in the baptism that is going to lead me to glory on the throne..." Because they say, "When you sit on your throne, we want to sit beside you." Well, Jesus point, essentially, the way I'm going to get to that throne, you have no idea what you're asking for." He's dying.

Then they say, "Oh, yeah, we're down for that." And he's like, "Well, actually, it is. You're going to die for the kingdom of God."

Jon: "I'm glad you're down."

Tim: Look at this. This is really cool. It's actually Jesus' cross is going to be his means of exaltation of the throne. This is what we did in the Son of Man video. The cross is his throne. And so, who is it that has been appointed to be on the right and the left of Jesus when he ascends his cross throne?

Jon: Two criminals.

Tim: Two criminals. And you go read the passion accounts, the narratives is very specific. One on his right, one on his left. This is a foreshadowing of the two criminals sitting. For sure. Notice the inversion of all the imagery, or they want to be exalted as his glorious princes.

Jon: He's like, "Yeah, you will suffer, but to suffer besides me while I suffer, there's actually two dudes that are already signed up for that."

Tim: Yeah, they're rebels.
Jon: Yeah, they are rebels.
Tim: Rebels against Rome. Israelite rebels against Rome. [00:36:23]

Tim: So, hearing this, the rest of the disciples began to feel angry with James and John. So calling everybody to himself. Now everybody's angry like, "You asked for the power seats?"

Jon: Totally.

Tim: He calls everybody, he says, "Listen, look out there on the Gentiles - the nations - people who are recognized as rulers among the nations, they lowered their power over their subject."

Jon: It's the way of Babylon.

Tim: Yeah. "Great, powerful men exercise their authority, but it is not this way among you. Whoever wishes to become great shall become your slave or servant. Whoever wishes to be first among you, shall be the slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." This is such an important teaching of Jesus.

So the Son of Man has divine authority. That's the first pattern we looked at. But there's a number of these where he'll use the Son of Man to talk about the one is go to Jerusalem to suffer under the temple establishment in Babylon and actually, that's his calling, and that's his way to his glory.

Jon: What is he going to do with his power? He's going to serve and suffer. And it's not the way. Look out at any kingdom, that's not how people rule.

Tim: Yeah, that's right.
Jon: But that's how the Son of Man, the one with—
Tim: Truly human one.
Jon: Truly human one who is the one who can rule with God, that's how he rules.

Tim: That's right. Marcus' point here is, the first Adam is given rule and authority, but precisely through deception and rebellion, he forfeits that authority and brings death. Exiles him, all of his descendants into the realm of death and struggle, and they're going to have to survive by acting like animals and killing each other.

So, for the ultimate son of Adam, to reverse all of that means that the death and the violence, it has to be dealt with. In other words, this interesting, we don't just need a new human who comes in and is like, "Forget the past, I'm just going to do it right this time." You need somebody who will do what has never been done, but also in some way has to deal with the train wreck of human history, and its violence and horror.

Jon: One way to deal with it is just wipe it out. But it seems like he wants to deal with it in a different way. He wants to redeem it.

Tim: I guess then he does have to wipe it out. I mean, if the Son of Man, Jesus, is the future of humanity, he has to die to his current mode of existence to be transferred into his glorious reigning over heaven on earth kind of existence. So it does need to die, but it needs to die to become truly human.

I mean, if you think about it, this is exactly Paul's worldview when you read Paul's letters. If you have a conception of heaven as the disembodied, eternal place you go after you die, then you could really misconstrue this as like, "Oh, our current humanity has to die. We have to go to heaven forever - the non-physical place, and that's the ideal."

Jon: It's interesting because the paradigm I had growing up death is an exit from the body in the spiritual sense. But here, it's like death becomes a metamorphosis into like a

new humanity that is more human in the sense that more to be in the image of God ruling the way that humanity was supposed to rule.

Tim: Yeah, that's right. I'm just reflecting on when you said, "One way, God could do it is to wipe everybody out." Let's start over. In a way, that's what's happening on the cross. That's his whole point is "I'm going to drink the cup for everyone else." God's handed the whole world over to Babylon, but here is one who's going to drink the cup of Babylon himself on everyone else's behalf so that-

Jon: But to spare Babylon.

Tim: Precisely so that he goes through the other side so that his death and his new life can—

Jon: Can be an offer from Babylon into the new thing. And then if you stick around Babylon, then it will go away.

Tim: Correct. This is why I say that it is connected to the bread and the cup and the baptism.

Jon: Right, right, right.

Tim: Baptism becomes the sacred symbol of you dying. That's what Paul says in Romans 6. And the bread and the cup, 1 Corinthians 11, it's our participation in his death.

Jon: It's interesting. Baptism is in a way a ... dying with Jesus but it is in some way anticipating fact that we will actually die to be resurrected too. Because that's the way through.

Tim: That's the way through. Unless, as he says in Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians, you happen to be among the generation when the kingdom of God fully comes, in which case you'll be metamorphosed. It's the Greek verb he uses.

Jon: Metamorphosed. Actually, that word was rattling in my brain when we're talking about this. I think is we're transfigured or something. But yeah. It's like a caterpillar that turns into this new body.

Tim: I mean, there's so many metaphors you could use. Or think of like the acorn and the tree that it becomes. Literally, its current shape has to die, decay, and decompose so that it's real, ultimate identity and destiny can be realized. And that's the biblical stories view of the universe.

Jon: The universe that is slave to sin and death, not the universe as God created it representing the Sabbath.

Tim: Yeah.

Jon: So it's like a tree got turned into an acorn that needs to then die to become a tree.

Tim: Or what was supposed to become a tree ended up being acorn that has to die so that the real tree can grow.

[00:43:47]

Tim: The third pattern. We’re chasing three patterns of Jesus the Son of Man teachings. The third pattern is where Jesus will call himself the Son of Man or to refer to the Son of Man who after suffering will be enthroned in glory with a new humanity. You can see a narrative here. The first one—

Jon: Son of Man has authority to rule, Son of Man will suffer and die. Tim: Suffer and die to enter glory.
Jon: And then the Son of Man will be—
Tim: Exalted and vindicated...

Jon: ...after his death.

Tim: Yeah. Mark 8:38: "Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father and with the holy angels." There's a concept here of me, and my followers are going to face opposition in this generation. We're back to that rejection - rejected and persecuted suffering.

But eventually, the Son of Man will be vindicated and he'll be the one in charge, and come in glory, the glory of his Father with angels.

Jon: To be ashamed of him and his Word is kind of like to be like, "Oh, man, what a dumb way to live. You're going to suffer and die. And how weak and how foolish—

Tim: To consider it shameful.

Jon: It's shameful. Just didn't turn up your nose at that and just be like, "What does he know? We know how to rule. We got it figured it out."

Tim: We got to figure it out. We've arranged a comfortable situation with Rome. A comfortable life, compromise, and some people are benefiting from that.

Jon: So if ruling through suffering and dying is a shameful thing for you, then, in the new creation, you got no equity there.

Tim: That's a good way to put it. If the currency of the kingdom of God is treating other people as higher rank than yourself and serving them is more important, then...

Jon: You're going to look foolish in the new kingdom.

Tim: ...you will turn out to be the fool, and the kingdom of God is simply something you wouldn't even want to participate in. It's not something you would want. See, here it's about public shame. People who are shaming Jesus, and are going to kill him and try and stop out his followers, they're going to find that they are the ones on the outside when the true kingdom comes.

Jon: To say that you feel ashamed is assuming then that you do want in the kingdom? I guess, maybe not. But I mean, if I felt like, why would I care, why would I feel shame if I can't be a part of your party if I don't want in your party?

Tim: Yes, right. Your parties illegitimate. It's shameful. So, the Son of Man will say, "Actually, you're shameful. The way you live in the world is shameful." It's the reversal. In Luke, it's the upside down kingdom.

Jon: Right, right, right.

Tim: The kingdom of this world will find that they are the ones who are publicly shamed because of the glory and the beauty and the love of the kingdom of God.

The Son of Man coming with glory, there's multiple statements about this. And you can see this maps on to the final bit of Daniel 7, the enthroned human one after being exalted above the beasts.

Then we've looked at this from multiple angles, but this is top of page 32. This is Jesus' trial scene. This played a crucial role in the video that we made.

Jon: You're talking in past tense now because the video has come out since this part of the conversation?

Tim: The video has not come out. Good point. We referred to this in the first episode. The high priest who is an exalted ruler over Israel now, says, "Tell us if you are the anointed one."

Jon: "Are you the one that's supposed to have my job?"

Tim: Yeah, the high priest is an anointed one. "You want my job? Is that what you want?" And Jesus said to him, "You say so. You say I'm the Messiah, the Son of God. Nevertheless, I tell you, from this moment on, the moment you condemn me is the moment that you will see the Son of Man." Actually, this interesting. Sitting at the right hand of power, he didn't get that from Daniel 7. The sitting at the right hand...

Jon: Well, that's in Daniel 7.
Tim: That's Psalm 110.
Jon: But isn't the throne at God's right hand in Daniel 7?

Tim: Multiple thrones in Daniel 7. The Son of Man is exalted, this is a great example of Jesus merging Daniel 7 and Psalm 110. There's multiple thrones or just more than one thrones and the Son of Man came up to the Ancient of Days presented before him, and to him is given dominion and glory in the kingdom.

Jon: There's no detailed of the right hand?

Tim: The detail of the throne at the right hand by the divine throne, that's introduced earlier in Daniel 7, but it's not resolved. It's never brought up again. But because in Hebrew Bible, Psalm 110, it's fully linked in, hyperlinked—

Jon: Someone on Twitter a while ago, asked like, "Where do you get the empty throne?" And I was like, "Well, I guess one had to be empty." It's the Son of Man comes and sits in it. But part of it is also Psalm 110.

Tim: One is there's multiple thrones and the Ancient of Days took his seat, sat down. So you go, "Okay, well, there's more than one throne, right now, there's one sitting on them." Which means what are these other thrones or the other thrones? It doesn't clarify.

One common view is that those are the thrones of the Divine Council. But even so, the whole point is that here is a human being exalted up to that Divine Throne.

Jon: He needs somewhere to sit.

Tim: Right. If he's being worshiped and receiving rule over the nation, the whole point is that he is taking up a spot. And you have multiple thrones mentioned. Then within the framework of the Hebrew Bible, this is exactly the role that the future seed of David plays in the book of Psalms. So when you get to Psalm 110, you already know that you're looking for a royal priest-king from the line of David who's going to suffer and be exalted, and he's going to Psalm 110 to sit at the right hand of God.

So you can see in Jesus' mind, he's joined the seed of David of Psalm 110 with the Son of Man, Daniel 7. Also notice that if you're trying to paint a logical scene in your mind, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds in heaven. Remember in Daniel 7 the point is—

Jon: He comes on the clouds to get to the throne.

Tim: To get to where he sits down. In other words, it seems like those are synonymous images. Those are two ways of talking about the same thing.

Jon: Rising up on the cloud is taking—

Tim: The clouds were what got him up to the divine throne where he sits down. There’s two ways. One is referring to his exaltation; another one is to him taking up his rule. Then the high priest—

Jon: That makes more sense if you flip those. You'll see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven and sitting at the right hand of God.

Tim: Exactly. That's what saying. That's what I'm saying that I think they're meant to be synonymous as opposed to a sequence.

Jon: Got it.

Tim: And then the high priest freaks out. And what he says he's blasphemed, namely, he's dishonored, God claiming to be the one who sits beside God to rule the world.

So you put all these together, you have Jesus as the Son of Man with authority over heaven and earth. That's first pattern. You have the Son of Man who's going to gain that authority by drinking the cup, by suffering and dying. But after suffering and

dying, he is going to be exalted up to that divine rule. There you go. It's the whole biblical story in these Son of Man sayings in Jesus.

This is Crispin Fletcher-Louis, his book, "Jesus monotheism." It's a great title. "Jesus monotheism." He says, "Jesus' constant talk about the kingdom of God evokes the overarching biblical story, reaching all the way back to the bestow of royal authority on Adam in Genesis 1. Jesus' kingdom announcement picks up all the key features of a biblical vision of the completion of God's purposes for humanity and the cosmos.

The administration of creation with true wisdom and justice, the final defeat of evil, the return of the land to its Eden like bounty, and the completion of Israel's role in the service of the whole world bring blessing to the nations. For Jesus to enact and announced the inauguration of God's kingdom means that humanity is now, at last, fulfilling its original purpose to manifest God's own royal authority. In Jesus, we see one who exercises God's rule in creation as was expected of Adam."

Let me ask you. Now, this seems so clear to me, why the gospels are what they are, and why they show Jesus doing and saying things that he's doing. It's hard for me to remember back to when I was trying to understand the Gospels but had no reference point for any of that stuff.

Jon: I can remember, like it was yesterday. It kind of feels like yesterday still. Tim: Isn't it? It's just so interesting to me.
Jon: The problem I always had with the Gospels was—
Tim: Tell me your problems with Gospel.

Jon: Well, because I was told a very clear gospel kind of logic of I've got a problem and God's not going to put up with it, but Jesus took that problem. He drank the wrath—

Tim: God killed him instead of you. Jon: Yeah, that's the nuance there. Tim: Was that not supposed—

Jon: Totally that was it. I was totally exposed. The death punishment I was supposed to have, Jesus took. And in order to get that gift, and this is where it gets fuzzy, it's like I confess and believe that Jesus is Lord, and then in there you unpack this whole like, "Well." And then what? Is that it? Or is there more strings attached? Whatever.

Anyways, I go back, I read the Gospels and I'm looking for that. And so, you get to Jesus, and like when he goes and talks with Nicodemus, for example, I'm ready for Jesus to be like, "Hey, Nicodemus, I'm going to die on your behalf. You just need to believe that and then you need to follow me as Lord." Or just any of his encounters. I'm just waiting for him to break that down and he never does. He never says that thing.

Then he does all these other things that's kind of like, "Well, that just seems random. That just seems out of the blue in, and like all these riddly sayings and all these things that he does." But now reading it through the narrative of a human coming to rule, to be the one who can rule, it doesn't completely dismantle that.

Tim: No.

Jon: It just kind of puts it within a bigger, more robust story, that gives it more meaning and then gives meaning to everything else Jesus is doing.

Tim: That's right. I'm trying to think of an analogy where you go do something but you're given a really small inadequate tool to do it. What you really need is like a full toolset.

Maybe it's like going to assemble one of those outdoor sheds for your backyard and all you have to assemble it is a screwdriver. And it's like, "What?"

Jon: One of those like IKEA Allen wrenches. Tim: It's like, "Hey, you can get some stuff done." Jon: You could build a whole shed—

Tim: Totally. You could actually probably build all these different pieces of the shed with that single tool. But you're not going to be able to deal with all this other stuff. All these pieces, you're not going to know—

Jon: What to do with.

Tim: That doesn't go with the screwdriver so what could that be for? So what you end up with is only having use half the materials and the shed looks crazy wonky.

Jon: And all the other stories and parts of the shed, you're just kind of like, "I don't know what to do with this." And you just kind of leave it to the side.

Tim: Some of it looks crazy. Crazy pieces that don't fit, and you're like, "How could that be a part of the shed? That doesn't make any sense."

Jon: Right.

Tim: But then you go back, and in the kit came like a 10-piece tool set. Then you realize, like "Oh, I see there's this type of Allen wrench and there's this type of screwdriver, there's these bolts." Now, all of a sudden, each tool you have now matches and accounts for everything that came in the box.

In a way, that's like what you're saying. It's not terrible to say, "Well, the screwdriver was wrong." It's like, "No, it wasn't wrong. It was just not adequate to account for the whole thing."

Jon: Sure. For me, when we started this project and we started talking a lot about ruling with God, and humanities calling to be God's authority on earth and reading

everything through that lens, it felt so new and it felt wrong. It felt like I was waiting for that to hit a dead end in a way. Or not hit a dead end, but just kind of I wasn't completely convinced that that was like—

Tim: The gateway to understand.

Jon: Yeah. But then you get to stuff like this and you're just like, "What else is this about? How else can you make sense of these kinds of things that Jesus is saying and doing?" Man, I'd love to think of another example too. I'm like right on the cusp of...

If you ever had the experience where it's like you've been somewhere before, but now that you've gone back with a new experience, the place is completely different. That's the thing I'm trying to think of. Maybe it's been someone your childhood and you have memories of that place, and you think of that place in a certain way, and then you have all these life experiences and a bigger framework. And you come back, and you're like, "I did not realize how, whatever, this was placed was."

It's that kind of feeling too of like, I've been to these passages before and I've talked through these things, but it's being able to see it in new eyes that all of a sudden...What's kind of so remarkable about the human psyche is we can just ignore things that don't fit into our puzzle.

Tim: It's as if they don't exist.

Jon: Yeah, as if they don't exist. You just don't see them. Because otherwise, you're dealing with all this complexity and ambiguity and weirdness that just to uncomfortable you just can’t deal with it. Like we actually just have this ability to ignore things that don't make sense and to smooth over bumps just to get a coherent sense of things. Is almost a sense of, I didn't realize even how much I was doing that?

Tim: With the Gospels, particularly.

Jon: Yeah. I knew that the gospels were...like there was weird bits that didn't fit, but I didn't even know how much I was smoothing things over it to make it work. Anyways.

Tim: That's good.

[01:00:17]

Tim: I mentioned the scholar Joel Marcus earlier, who wrote this small book called "The Son of Man is the son of Adam." This is a way that he summarized to the presentation of Jesus as a new Adam - the Son of Man figure. It really captured my imagination.

It says, "The Son of Man is an apocalyptic symbolic figure." Jon: The Daniel 7 Son of Man.

Tim: Correct. So apocalyptic doesn't mean the end of the world in the Bible. Apocalypse is the word for to uncover or to unveil. The point is, surprise, here's—

Jon: There's something you didn't see.
Tim: Something you didn't see that changes the way you say everything else. Jon: It's what we're talking about.

Tim: It's what we're talking about. So the Son of Man is that. If the Son of Man is a new Adam, then the Jesus of the Gospels is presenting himself as the founder of a new humanity. This is why the Gospels depict Jesus carrying out his ministry in the last days as the recapitulation, like the replaying but also the perfecting of the beginning.

In other words, if he is the ultimate Adam, he's both replaying all the history of humanity and the history of Israel in himself. It's recapitulation. But he's also perfecting it.

Jon: He's doing it in the way that it's complete.

Tim: He's taking the road that humanity in Israel was never able to attain. "In this context," Marcus goes on, "the good news of Jesus' opening message in Mark 1, the time is fulfilled." Fulfilled. Filled full. The time has been this thing building up towards some moment of fullness. And here it is.

"The kingdom of God has come near. This is not simply a time of waiting for a new event to happen and then it's over. Rather, he means that the old universe is dying, and a new creation is being born."

So when we get to Paul and he's talking about old humanity, new humanity, and the new humanity is Jesus, or he'll talk about the current evil age and slave to the powers, but then the age to come that has already started, this isn't a new idea. This is what the ministry of Jesus forced people to either say, it's all hogwash, he's a sham, he was crucified, it's a failed project, or to bear witness to the resurrection. As he says, it's a new universe, a new creation coming into existence. And that's what the Son of Man theme is all about. What a remarkable story to be invited into. It's like spend any day looking at the news—

Jon: Which I've been doing too much of lately. I've been confessing.

Tim: I mean, it's very easy to get swept up into the narrative that like humans are ultimately in control. And in a way we are.

Jon: Yeah, we're supposed to be.

Tim: That's the authority we've been given. But the resurrection of Jesus is an apocalypse. It's like uncovering that in reality, he's the human who holds the true destiny of our universe in his hands. We're destroying ourselves. The good news is that there is one who was subject to that destruction on our behalf and it's gone out the other side, and some new thing that we can't create in our own effort.

Jon: It's why I love so much the parable of the yeast in the dough because it's this picture of something growing within and transforming.

Tim: Changing everything.
Jon: And changing everything.
Tim: But remember he says the woman hides it in the dough. Jon: She hides it.
Tim: Yeah, it's hidden. It's not—
Jon: It's not playing.
Tim: It's not playing.

Jon: There's something hidden, not playing of this upside down way of being human that is now made possible. Because, according to the Scriptures, the God of the universe became human to show how to do it and to do it on our behalf, and to inaugurate it.

Tim: And to be subject to our evil and death and letting it both overpower him so that he could overpower it. What a strange view of the world. I mean, really, it's remarkable that this story and movement actually still exists. It's so counterintuitive and none of us actually live as if this is true.

Jon: Well, yeah.

Tim: Even most of the people who say that they believe this, including myself.

Jon: Right. Pull someone off the street and ask them, "What does it mean to follow Jesus?" And you're not going to get this answer.

Tim: No, no. It's too scandalous. But there you go. It's clearly what Jesus was talking about. And we're left to reckon with it. And then also to reckon that he understood that it was hard to understand, which is why he didn't write long essays about it. He just did it. And then he gave us these rituals, symbols.

Jon: Then he appointed Paul to write it out.

Tim: To at least explain a little more. There you go, man. So of Man.

Jon: Thank you.

Tim: Thank you. These were very helpful conversation for me, and I'm pleased with video.

You guys, thank you for listening to this episode of The Bible Project podcast. We have just one more episode left, which is a question and response episode on the

Lauren:

Son of Man. We'd love to hear your questions that have occurred to you while we've been exploring the Son of Man theme.

So if you want to send us a question, here's how you can do it. You can send an audio file to info@jointhebibleproject.com. If you can say your name, where you're from, that would be awesome. And if it's possible, please try to keep your question to about 20 seconds.

Today's show was produced by Dan Gummel, theme music by the band Tents. And as always, we want to say thank you so much to those of you who listen to the podcast, those of you who watch the videos, and those of you who support what we're doing. The whole reason The Bible Project exists is because of a whole small army supporters and people who believe in getting the unified storyline of the Bible that leads to Jesus out to the world in ways that are creative and engaging.

So we're grateful that you all are behind us. We're going to keep making more content, exploring the Bible. Thanks for being a part of this with us.

Hi, this is Lauren. I'm from New York City. My favorite thing about The Bible Project is that it's an extremely generous way to spread the news of Jesus and teach the Bible in our culture. We believe that the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcasts and more resources at thebibleproject.com.