The Son of Man: Jesus Showing Us Who We Are Meant to Be

I was sitting in church at The Bridge this morning when a thought crossed my mind that I’d honestly never spent much time thinking about.

Why did Jesus refer to Himself as the “Son of Man” so often?

I’m Catholic, but I’ve always enjoyed visiting other Christian churches and worshiping alongside people who love Jesus. And sometimes, no matter where you’re sitting on a Sunday morning, something just hits you a little differently.

So I grabbed my pen and wrote down a question.

Is Jesus, in some way, a representation of all of us?

Think about it. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man around 80 times. More than any other title He regularly uses for Himself.

Now, obviously, Jesus is the Son of God. He’s fully God and fully man. But why did He so often choose a title that emphasizes His humanity?

The more I thought about it, the more I started wondering whether there was a deeper connection between who Jesus is and who God created us to be.

Genesis tells us that we were created in God’s image and likeness. And then, thousands of years later, God Himself enters the world as a man. He experiences life as we do. He loves, suffers, serves, forgives, and ultimately gives His life for us.

Jesus didn’t just tell us how to live. He showed us.

And maybe that’s part of what makes the title “Son of Man” so beautiful.

Of course, as I started digging into Scripture, I learned that the title goes much deeper than simply identifying Jesus with humanity. It connects all the way back to the prophet Daniel, who describes someone “like a son of man” receiving an everlasting kingdom from God. Jesus was identifying Himself as that promised heavenly figure, not simply as another human being.

But here’s where it really got interesting to me.

In Romans 8:29, Paul tells us that we are called to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. In John 15, Jesus talks about abiding in Him and Him abiding in us. And in 2 Peter 1:4, we’re told that through God’s promises, we may become partakers of the divine nature.

In other words, God didn’t just become man to save us from our sins. He came to bring us into a relationship with Him and transform us into who we were always meant to be.

Now, I want to be clear about something. I’m certainly not suggesting that we’re all God or that we’re equal to Jesus. Christ is divine by nature. We are His creation, invited to share in His life through grace.

And as it turns out, this whole idea is far from original.

The more research I’ve done, the more I’ve realized that Christians have been reflecting on this very connection for nearly two thousand years. Saints and theologians have written extensively about it.

St. Irenaeus, one of the early Church Fathers, spoke about how the Son of God became the Son of Man so that we might become children of God. The Catholic Church even has a term for our participation in God’s divine life: divinization.

So apparently, I’m a little late to the conversation!

But that’s okay. Sometimes I think the most meaningful discoveries in our faith aren’t necessarily new ideas. They’re truths that have been sitting right in front of us the whole time, just waiting for us to see them a little differently.

And I figure, if this thought crossed my mind for the first time today, maybe there’s someone else out there who hasn’t really thought about it either.

I don’t know that Jesus intended the title “Son of Man” specifically as a message telling us to become like Him. Scripture gives that title a much deeper meaning. But I do believe His life reveals something extraordinary about our own calling.

We’re not simply here to live, work, grow old, and die. We’re here to know God, to love Him, to serve Him, and to become more like Christ every day.

And the beautiful thing is that He doesn’t ask us to do that on our own. He invites us to walk with Him.

So I figured I’d share this little thought from church. Not because I’ve uncovered some great theological mystery that nobody’s ever considered, but because maybe it’ll get somebody else thinking, opening their Bible, or even taking a step closer to Jesus.

And if it does, then I’m glad I wrote it down.

Maybe Jesus didn’t just come to show us who God is. Maybe He also came to show us who we were always meant to be.