Ryan Hale

At the end of John 20, John makes a simple statement about the reason for writing his book, for writing down some of the things that the disciples saw Jesus do:

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:30-31

Just a few quick observations.

First, John says that Jesus performed many other signs, in addition to what he wrote down. John wasn’t trying to write everything down. You don’t need a record of everything that Jesus did to believe in him. You need to know a few things, and that can change everything.

Second, what John wrote, he wrote so that we would believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. He wrote it so that you would believe something specific. The Messiah is the one that was promised, the one that would could to gather a people for himself, the one that would save his people, the one that would conquer over all that which is evil.

And Jesus is the Son of God. He is God, who has come to earth in the form of a man. He came to reestablish God’s rule and reign here on the earth. Having been sent by the Father, he came to ransom his people away from the kingdom of darkness with his own blood into the kingdom of God. This is all found within what John is writing so that you would believe.

Third, there is something interesting within the context of this chapter that I think is worth noting. John wrote this so that we would believe all of this about Jesus, but even so, there were points along the way that John himself believed, even if he didn’t understand everything.

For example, just a few verses earlier, John says that he believed, even if he didn’t fully understand everything yet.

Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

John 20:8-9

From the broader context, we can understand that this “other disciple” mentioned in the first verse is actually John himself. Peter had gone straight into Jesus’s tomb to look for him, but John had waited outside. But when he went in, he saw, and he believed.

But then he says that they didn’t understand from the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

My point here is that we can believe even if we don’t understand everything just yet.

I remember, for example, a time when we had some interns with us here in Catania. I received a call in the late evening that some of them were with a few young men in their room at one of the refugee camps where we had been visiting. They asked me to come because they had some questions.

When I arrived, in reality, they had one question: Is Jesus God? How can the Father be God and Jesus also be God?

I explained the idea that God is one, but that he also shows himself to us as three different persons. Distinct persons, but one being.

Was that all clear? Did they understand everything perfectly? Of course not. I cannot understand it perfectly because God is God and we are simply human beings. He is infinite and we are finite. How can we possibly understand something as foreign to us as the idea that God is one God yet presents himself as three persons?

They didn’t understand everything perfectly, but somehow the explanation satisfied them because they believed. And that belief, that faith, that God was who he said he was and that we would continue to understand more of him over time, allowed them to move forward. The next day, they were baptized, and we still celebrate their decision, even to this day.

So perfect knowledge is not the same thing as faith. Perfect understanding is not the same thing as belief. No, instead, we continue to seek to understand, and it is definitely possible to understand more and more, but that level of perfect understanding is not the reason that John nor any other writer is writing. No one is able to explain everything. Instead, these things are written so that we will believe.

Jesus was sent by the Father and we also are sent by Jesus:

Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.

John 13:20

If you want to know God, you need to know Jesus. Without knowing Jesus, you cannot know God. If you think you know God and you do not accept Jesus for who he says he is, you do not know God.

In addition, Jesus has sent people so that others may know him. Do you hope and desire that others would know Jesus? Good! If you are in Christ, He has sent you. You are the one that has been sent so that others will accept the message that Jesus has given you, so that they will know Jesus, so that they will know the Father.

So now go. You have already been sent. Give others the message that Jesus has given you. Then, when they hear the message from you, they will accept you and they will accept Jesus. And by accepting Jesus, they will accept the Father.

And they also will be sent.

Jesus had one primary, overriding concern: Glorifying God. He stood there with his disciples, looking into the face of death, knowing that he would very soon be going to the cross. Within days this would happen, and rightly so, Jesus’s soul was disturbed.

But he would not be deterred. Jesus would not be turned to the right or left. He would not be dissuaded from his mission, he would not take a detour away from his plan. No, there was only one way and that way was the cross.

“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

John 12:27-28

Jesus was so interested in glorifying the name of God that he would endure death. He would endure separation from the Father. He would endure the punishment of a criminal.

And he would endure all of this pain and suffering because it would bring glory to God and his name.

But why? Why would God receive glory from Jesus going to the cross? Isn’t that just senseless killing? Useless death, like many of the other killings of the prophets by the Jews, or like many of the other killings of other dissidents by the Romans?

No, this death was much different. Jesus would take the punishment for many others so that they would be ransomed – purchased with his blood – away from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God. The sins of people would be paid for by one who did not deserve to be punished. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, the perfect “lamb” that would take away the sins of the world.

And because many would enter the kingdom of God, and because Jesus would open the kingdom to people all throughout the world, it would fulfill God’s mission and plan to have a people for himself, who would live to glorify him, all across the world. God’s image would finally be spread all across the face of the earth, and God’s glory would shine everywhere. Everywhere that there was a group of people, everywhere that there was a language, a nation, or a tribe, there would be those who truly represented God’s image as disciples of Christ.

This would truly bring glory to God. This would open the door such that God’s glory would fill the earth, just as the waters cover the sea, as Habakkuk said.

And as the Father replied, he has glorified his name, and he will do it again. And again. And again. God’s name was glorified through Christ and for each believer that lives for the glory of God and not for himself or herself, his name will be glorified once again.

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and if there was any doubt about whether Jesus would be known in all of Israel, or for that matter, across the world, all doubt was now removed. Everyone heard what had happened.

A man has been raised from the dead!

The Messiah has come!

Except now the Jewish leaders had a decision to make. Were they going to believe and rally behind Jesus? Or would they instead stand in opposition to him.

They were opposed to Jesus. Jesus didn’t fit the mold of the Messiah that they were looking for, what they thought he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be a political leader. Powerful. Forceful. Ready to take on the Romans and overthrow all oppression. Ready to take on any nation that would come against them.

But that wasn’t who Jesus was. He spoke forcefully to them, the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders, but he was most certainly not a political leader. He didn’t act like the archetypical Messiah that they had in their mind. Sure, he did miracles. Sure, he did things that only God could do. But he wasn’t on their side. He was against the ways of the priests. He was against the ways of the Jewish leaders. Plus, he was always talking about how he was equal with God, and he did miracles on the Sabbath. How could Jesus possibly be the Messiah?

So following Lazarus’s resurrection, they called a meeting, and they were afraid. The general consensus of the meeting was wrapped up in this one statement:

If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.

John 11:48

You might be asking yourself: Why would the Romans come just because they believed in Jesus? Why would the Romans, as a result of people believing in Jesus, take away both their temple and their nation?

The Jews weren’t thinking of Jesus as just a “savior” or a “lord” in a far-off conceptual or metaphorical sense. They were thinking of him as a savior and a king in the here and now. Right now, in their physical world. He would be the king, and he would lead them to “salvation”, in the sense that they would no longer be ruled by the Romans. No, they would instead be ruled as they wanted, by their own countrymen, and they would once again be the nation of Israel.

In other words, in their minds, Jesus should be a political leader. It wouldn’t be that much different than what we see in political movements today. People have always rallied behind political leaders with great fervor, and that is exactly the way in which they were thinking about this at that time. The Jewish leaders were essentially saying:

If more people believe in Jesus, the Romans will come to destroy us because of the rebellion that he is leading.

And, of course, they weren’t wrong. That is exactly what the Romans would have done. They would have come and squashed the rebellion. They would have killed many people. They would have destroyed Jerusalem, tearing down the walls and destroying the temple.

How do we know that is true? Because that is exactly what happened in 70AD, approximately 36 years after Jesus was resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven. The Jews had become restless for their freedom and had set up a provisional government against and independent from Rome, intending to throw off the Roman rule.

But the Romans wouldn’t have it. Rebellions must be put down. They must be destroyed. Insurrection cannot, and will not, be tollerated. And so the Jewish leaders were correct. Their city, their nation, and their temple would be destroyed.

So what would the leaders prefer? This man is doing works that only someone who comes from God can do. But the leaders, despite recognizing that Jesus has come from God, have preferred to put themselves as the arbiters of what should be. They believe they should be making the decisions, not the one who does what only God can do.

Don’t we often do the same? Don’t we often prefer to do it our way? Don’t we prefer to be the ones in charge, preferring the direction that we have in mind instead of the one who does what only God can do? Yes, of course we do. We do it all of the time. We choose our way instead of God’s way. We choose the way of man, the expedient way, the way that benefits me instead of that which glorifies God. Sometimes we even say, as the Jewish leaders would have no doubt said, we are glorifying God by disregarding the one who does what only God can do.

We fear that the Romans will come. We fear that, by doing it God’s way, we will make a decision that will put us in a bad light before others. We fear that, by doing it God’s way, we will make a decision that will remove our security, or make us poorer, or send us in a bad direction economically.

In the case of the Jewish leaders, they were afraid that they would lose power. The Romans would come and take their “nation” out from under them, take their temple out from under them. They were holding on to the little that they had so that they wouldn’t lose this shadow of who God made them to be. All for fear that the Romans would come…

The Pharisees were upset at Jesus because Jesus had just told them that they were spiritually blind. They couldn’t understand what was happening right in front of them because they were blind. They were unable, and for that matter, unwilling to see.

Jesus went on to try to explain it to them even further, essentially saying that they were not only blind, but they were unable to recognize the voice of the shepherd that they should have been looking for. Not deaf necessarily, but they didn’t recognize the voice of the very one from whom they said that they were wanting to hear. In short, they couldn’t understand because they weren’t his sheep:

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

John 10:3-6

The sheep know the shepherd’s voice. They have listened for it and sought it out. They will follow the shepherd, but another person, another stranger, they won’t follow because they don’t recognize the voice.

So, I see a couple of points here for each of us to consider:

First, it is extremely important that we hear the voice of the shepherd. Yes, we must specifically know the words that Jesus has used, but I think it is also as important, if not moreso, to understand the overall story that God has been telling us through the entirety of the story of the Bible. In this way, we can understand not only Jesus, but the context of his life, death, and resurrection.

Why did Jesus need to come to his people?

Why did Jesus specifically come into the world as a Jew?

What was he accomplishing? And for what purpose?

What needs yet to be done? Where is all of this going, and what is our part in all of this?

How can we do that? First, we need to read the scriptures, read the Bible, for understanding. We need to understand the theological and practial living principles, but we also – and I might argue primarily – need to understand the overarching story that God is telling through his word. Why? Because when we know the story that God is telling us, we can also quickly discern what is false and that which is different, that which men tell us as lies that come from Satan.

Second, we need to seek God for revelation of his word through the Holy Spirit. Through prayer, through meditation and reflection, and simply through asking the Lord what he wants to tell us, God will speak to us and help us to understand what he wants to say from his word.

In these ways, we can know the voice of the shepherd. We will recognize it and we will follow it instead of the voice of a stranger.

But look at how that paragraph ends. In verse 6, as John is recounting Jesus telling this story, he says that the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them. There were other people in the crowd that were listening to Jesus speak to Pharisees and they began to not only understand but believe. But the Pharisees? They didn’t understand. They couldn’t understand. They didn’t belong to the shepherd. They didn’t belong to Christ, so the result was that they didn’t follow him. Others believed, but they did not because they did not understand.

Are we willing to risk for the sake of giving God glory? Are we willing to potentially ruin our reputations or our financial situations or even our positions within our communities or the marketplace so that God would be glorified?

There are moments when this is the question that we have to answer:

Me? Or him?

Do I choose my security? My comfort?

Or do I choose God’s glory?

Jesus had healed a man who had been blind from birth. Even Jesus’s disciples had fallen into the trap of the story that had been told by the local Jewish leaders as an explanation for why this man had been born blind: Either this man was a sinner, or it was his parents. One or the other.

And so the disciples asked Jesus, which one was the sinner? Surely this is true, isn’t it? No, Jesus explained. This is only that God’s works would be shown in this man. And so Jesus healed the man and he was able to see!

Now the Jewish leaders came to the man’s parents for an explanation. How was their son healed?

“We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

John 9:20-23

Did the man’s parents know that Jesus had healed their son? Yes.

Did they think that Jesus was the Messiah? Very likely.

So what was the problem? They weren’t willing to risk being put out of the synagogue. They preferred their position in the society. They preferred their position in the synagogue. As a result, they were willing to deny what they believed before others, especially those in authority, and keep what they had.

And what was their prize? What was their reward? They could stay in the synagogue, the very place led by people who were denying that their son was healed, preferring instead to continually declare that either they, or their son, were sinners that deserved the punishment of their son’s blindness.

So, because the parents deferred the response to their son, the Jewish leaders called him in. He had, in fact, already told them once what had happened, but the leaders weren’t satisfied with his response, so they wanted to hear from him again, hoping that he would change his story.

The man, of course, knew the consequences of his testimony. He knew as well that he could be thrown out of the synagogue. He knew as well that he could lose whatever position, or whatever place in the society that he had.

But he was willing to risk it all. The man was willing to speak of what he knew and what he believed.

And why? Because his life had changed. He was blind and now he could see:

The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

John 9:30-33

Unfortunately, the man did have the pay the penalty for not aligning himself with the Jewish leaders. Those who were in charge of the synagogue did have a specific idea of what they wanted the man to say, but he wouldn’t say it. The man knew what had happened to him. He knew that he had sat in darkness for decades, and now he saw the light. And that was enough for him. He would speak of what he knew. He would speak of what he had experienced.

The consequence, though, was that he was thrown out of the synagogue. He had taken a risk and, at least within the context of the society that he lived, it didn’t work out. He was willing to risk and he was punished for his right stand.

But there was a reward that was even greater. Instead of maintaining whatever position he had in the society, this man found Jesus. He went to Jesus and looked into the face of God. He found and heard the Son of Man. And he worshiped him.

We also have moments in which we can risk for the cause of Christ:

Do I speak with this person about Jesus and risk my relationship with them? Or risk what they would think about me? Or do I stay silent?

Do I take on this ministry? Or this project? Do I risk looking like a fool if it doesn’t work? Do I risk losing my money or my position? Or would it be better to stay as I am?

Should I move somewhere? Should I risk changing my job? Or my source of income? Or should I stay where I am?

Reckless risk is foolish. There is a type of risk that makes no sense and lacks wisdom.

But there is a type of risk that is simply overcoming fear. There is a type of risk where you are simply allowing God to use you. You are overcoming the inertia of where you are currently, or who you have been up to now and you place yourself in a position where God can do what he wants to do.

Risk is required if we want God to use us. Fear is found within each of us. For those that God is using in great ways and those that God is using in small ways, every one of them has been afraid. Afraid to fail. Afraid to get hurt. Afraid to lose.

Yet they were willing to take a risk. They had faith that God would use them, and so they started. Or they spoke. Or they went. This is the nature of faith. Not faith in themselves, but faith in the one that goes with them. Faith that the works of God would be shown in them, just as they would be in the man who had been born blind. Faith that it is OK to take a risk.

I’m a pretty good guy.

I haven’t sinned as badly as that other person.

I’m doing better…

Well, actually, I’m doing worse, but I’ll do better…

We tell ourselves a lot of stories about who we are. We tell ourselves that we’re actually pretty good. If we look around us, it isn’t very hard to find someone else to whom we can compare ourselves and come up with a determination on our own that we are pretty good.

But we should ask ourselves about the standard that we are using. If I say that I am pretty good, what exactly am I basing that upon?

Jesus was having a long back-and-forth conversation with the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders in the temple courts as the Jews attempted to figure out who Jesus claimed to be. They were certain that he was not the Messiah, but they tried to understand if Jesus himself claimed to be.

Through the course of the conversation, Jesus talked about the difference between the free man, the one who listened to him, did what Jesus said, and then would be, as a consequence, set free.

But the Jews thought that they were in no way slaves. This was interesting, of course, because they were living under Roman rule and were waiting for the Messiah that would come to lead them in overthrowing the Romans and taking back their nation, but this isn’t the tact that Jesus takes. He leads the Jews in a completely different direction:

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:34-36

Jesus doesn’t speak about slavery from the perspective of being ruled by someone physically in this world. That existed in that time, of course, even in addition to the oppressive government that was imposed by the Romans. But instead, Jesus was referring to a spiritual enslavement. He was saying that, if they are sinning, they were slaves to sin.

Everyone that I speak to will acknowledge that they are a sinner. “Nobody is perfect. We’re all sinners,” we might say without reservation.

But not everyone will therefore recognize that we are, therefore, slaves to sin. We become ensnared, caught in the lie that we are OK…enough. Sinners: yes, of course. Slaves: no, never. Not me.

And so that deception prevents us from understanding our need for rescue. We don’t realize that we are enslaved. We think that we can get out. We think that we can handle it. We think that we can choose. After all, I’m not really that bad, am I?

Well, in fact, we either are slaves to sin, or we have been slaves to sin and have been rescued from that slavery by the Messiah who has come to lead us out of our slavery. Sin is our Egypt and it is holding us. God has come to lead us out, just as he did with Moses and the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt, but we have to recognize in the first place that we are enslaved so that we can understand that we need to be freed.

It is easier for us to see slavery with chains or with bars and holding cells. It is even easier for us to see slavery with addiction.

But for many of us, or maybe for all of us, it is very difficult to see our slavery to sin. We believe that we can do it. Especially us in the western world. We believe that we have agency over our lives. We believe that we are in control. We believe that we can start something and end something when we want.

But the truth is that we are slaves to the sin that we commit. We can only do that which we are commanded to do, and that is exactly what we do.

We must wake up. We must recognize that we are in slavery so that we can recognize our need to be set free. We need to be freed by the one who can make us free. Jesus is the Son and the Son came to set us free.

Do you realize that you are a slave to sin? Do you want to be free? These are important questions for each of us and there is one way in which that can happen: By doing what the Son, what Christ himself says to do, we will know the truth and that truth will set us free.

The Jewish leaders understood exactly what Jesus was saying.

Today, there are many people that deny what Jesus said, or try to explain it away, or work to distract people from the truth.

But the Jewish leaders were there. They were listening to Jesus in person, and they knew precisely what he meant:

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

John 5:16-18

Jesus had healed a man who couldn’t walk on the Sabbath. He was lame, paralyzed, and hoping for a solution, hoping for a miracle. And that is what he got. Jesus came by the pool at Bethesda and asked the man if he wanted to get well. That is an important question… Sometimes we prefer the situation that we find ourselves in. Do we want to get well?

The man did, and so Jesus healed him, telling the man that he needed to pick up his mat and walk.

Now Jesus knew the Law and the traditions of the Jewish leaders. He had just healed the man on the Sabbath, but instead of recognizing the incredible miracle that had just happened, what did the leaders focus on? The fact that the man was carrying his mat! Jesus had told the man to carry his mat, knowing that it was the Sabbath, specifically to rile the Jewish leaders, to cause a reaction upon the wrong thing. Jesus knew that they would react to the man carrying the mat instead of the fact that the man was in fact standing and walking after having been paralyzed and lame his entire life.

Jesus referred to himself as the Lord of the Sabbath. He was “entitled” to heal someone on the Sabbath – as if we would ever need an exemption from the Law to do good for someone else – because he is the Lord of the Sabbath. He made the law that says rest on the Sabbath. He could determine how it would be applied. He wasn’t breaking the Sabbath. He was doing good on the Sabbath!

But the Jewish leaders saw what they wanted to see. They saw that the man was carrying his mat and so, having been identified by the man who was healed, they went to Jesus, just as Jesus knew that they would, and Jesus explained himself this way:

My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.

That’s right. He said it: “My Father…” God himself is working, and so am I. That’s why I healed the man on the Sabbath. Because God worked that day. God did good on the Sabbath, and so I do good on the Sabbath. God worked on the Sabbath, so I work on the Sabbath. My Father worked on the Sabbath, so I worked on the Sabbath.

So yes, the Jewish leaders heard him correctly, and they wanted to kill him for it. According to them, Jesus was blaspheming. He called himself equal with God. And they were right. That is exactly what Jesus was doing. He was calling himself equal with God. He was calling himself God.

As I said before, there are many today that attempt to deny or distract us from the reality of who Jesus claimed to be. Muslims will say that he was a prophet and only a prophet.

Is that what Jesus said? Or is that what the Jewish leaders understood? Far from it. They understood him perfectly: Jesus claimed to be equal with God.

Or Jehovah’s Witnesses will explain away Jesus as being “a” son of God. Not God.

Is that what Jesus said or what the Jewish leaders understood? Far from it.

Or Catholics will say that we need to pray to the saints or talk to Mary. We need to pray to dead people. Just people. Not one of them claimed to be equal with God. And does that make any sense given who Jesus claimed to be or who the Jewish leaders understood him to say? Not in the least.

God himself came to earth in the form of a man to reestablish his rule and reign, to redeem and purchase a people for himself with his own blood. That reality, and that story, is greater than any lie or any distraction that could be told today. When Jesus’s disciples looked at him…when the Jewish leaders looked at him…and when we look at Jesus through his words in the Bible today…we are all looking directly at God. Jesus, as the Jewish leaders correctly understood, claimed to be equal with God.

There are those who won’t believe without signs and wonders. There are also those who base their faith on signs and wonders. Neither is good. Jesus doesn’t want us to just believe based on signs and wonders. He wants us to base our faith in him and on him.

Jesus healed people. He performed miracles and those miracles confirmed his words as he routinely, and at command, did that which only God could do.

When Jesus went to Cana for the second time – at least the second time recorded in John’s gospel – there was a nobleman who came to Jesus asking Jesus to heal his son who was dying back in Jesus’s current hometown of Capernaum. But as he comes, Jesus replies to him:

“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

John 4:48

It seems like a harsh response, but Jesus does go on to heal the man’s son, and as a result, the man does believe.

But we can contrast this with that which happened at Sychar in Samaria. Just before going to Cana, Jesus had been passing through Samaria where he met the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus performed a “sign” in the sense that he told the woman that she’d had five husbands, and was now living with a man who was not her husband, something that he couldn’t have known without supernatural understanding or knowledge.

So the woman went and told everyone that she had found the Messiah and they came to see him, believing initially based not on a sign that they saw, but on the woman’s testimony. But then, they believed for themselves…

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

John 4:39-42

The point here is that some believe as a result of a sign. Maybe there is something that happens that causes them to believe. This is good, and is consistent with what Jesus did when he was with people, but he wanted the people to grow beyond a sign to know him.

And there are others that will only seem to be able to maintain their faith if they constantly see signs. In fact, they routinely ask for signs, as if their faith depends upon it.

This isn’t the heart of knowing Jesus. Yes, we expect to see God at work around us, and yes, we expect to see the miraculous. But no, our faith should not depend on seeing signs. After Jesus fed the 5000, they continued to pursue him, yet Jesus told the people that they only came to them for food. Now, instead, if they want food, they must eat the food that is provided from heaven. He said they must eat his flesh and drink his blood . In other words, they must know him. Not just enjoy the signs or be amazed by the miracles. But to know him, our king. Our savior. Our Lord. We must live for him because of who he is, not just because of the signs and wonders that he performs.

Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man 88 times in the Gospels, either by himself or other people. In the book of John, the first time that Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man is when Nicodemus comes to visit him:

I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven —the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

John 3:12-15

Why does Jesus use this moment to first call himself the Son of Man? I think it is because Jesus knows that Nicodemus will understand the reference. Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, adopting the name from Daniel 7 where Daniel makes this prophetic statement:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Daniel 7:13-14

Why would Jesus adopt this name from this prophecy in Daniel? Let’s see what we can understand from Daniel’s prophecy:

The Son of Man was in heaven, coming to the Ancient of Days on the clouds of heaven, to the One that Jesus would call Father.

He would come and stand in the presence of the Ancient of Days.

The Son of Man would be given authority, glory, and sovereign power.

The Son of Man would rule over the nations and they would worship him.

His dominion – or another way to say it – his kingdom where he would be king and would reign forever would never pass away and would never be destroyed.

After calling himself the Son of Man many times, Jesus then authoritatively yet humbly said this to his disciples before returning to heaven:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Matthew 28:18

Do you see what he is saying? Jesus called himself the Son of Man. He performed the signs that only God could perform. He forgave sins as only God could do. He fulfilled prophecies given throughout the entire Old Testament. He was resurrected from the dead.

Now he says that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. Just like the Son of Man in Daniel 7.

Of course, Jesus uses this form of speech precisely because Nicodemus would have understood these words. He would have understood who the Son of Man was to be.

Someone might object, though… But wasn’t Ezekiel also referred to as the son of man?

Well, almost.

Ezekiel was referred to as “son of man” or “a son of man”. One of many. He was a prophet, but he was a son of man. He was a human being. He spoke the words that God gave him to speak, but he was a human just like each of us. Calling Ezekiel a son of man was a term to remind him of the humility of his position, the humility of who he was as he stood before God, yet delivered the words of God.

Jesus, on the other hand was called, and referred to himself as, the Son of Man. It was a singular article. A unique article. Similar to how Jesus referred to himself as the way, the truth, and the life he also refers to himself as the Son of Man. He he unique. He is the one that Daniel was referring to in his prophecy. No one among many like Ezekiel. But one. And only one.

Jesus is the one who would come riding on the clouds, just as he himself prophecied that he would in Matthew 24:

Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

Matthew 24:30

Jesus is the one who was in heaven and would return to heaven, just as I already quoted above from John 3:

No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven —the Son of Man.

John 3:13

And Jesus is the only one who will be worshiped by all nations, tribes, and languages along with all of the angels, elders, and creatures of heaven:

And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”

The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Revelation 5:9-14

Jesus is the Son of Man and it is important that we understand what he meant when he gave himself this name. Let’s not read too quickly, but instead follow Jesus’s words closely with a broader understanding of the references that he is making, and to whom he is making them so that we also can follow and worship him for who he truly is.