Everyone who has read the Bible knows that the Lord Jesus said many times that He was the Son of man. For instance, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matthew 16:13). “The Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins” (Luke 5:24). He also prophesied that when He returns in the last days, He will also come as the Son of man. For instance, “Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of man comes at an hour when you think not” (Luke 12:40). “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37). When we speak of the Son of man, that means being born from a human and having parents, but having the Spirit that originates from God. God wearing human flesh—that is the Son of man. What is being incarnate? First, it is to be born from a human, from parents. Second, God Himself comes into the flesh. Third, God wears human flesh to become man. This is the meaning of “the Son of man.” Now it’s more concrete, right? In simple terms, the Son of man is God wearing human flesh to become man.
The incarnate God looks like an ordinary and normal man. He has the same rules of life and participates in the same activities as any other normal human. He is possessed of emotions just like any other normal human. But He is substantively different from all created human beings. Because He is God’s Spirit clothed in flesh, that is, God’s Spirit is materialized in the flesh with normal humanity and normal human thinking. Created man has only humanity, he doesn’t have even the slightest trace of divine substance. the Son of man in the flesh, however, not only has normal humanity; more importantly, He has complete divinity. Complete divinity means all that God’s Spirit possesses—the inherent disposition of God, God’s holy and righteous substance, all that God has and is, God’s almightiness and wisdom, and God’s authority and power. So, though in outward appearance the incarnate Son of man seems ordinary, He is able to undertake the work of God. He can express all truths as God Himself, express God’s disposition and all that God has and is, and endow us with the truth, the way, and the life, to redeem and save mankind. No created man is capable of such feats. However, whatever the way in which the incarnate God works and speaks, expresses God’s disposition, and all that God has and is, He always does so in the flesh, within normal humanity. He has a normal flesh, there is nothing supernatural about Him. This proves that God has come into the flesh, He has already become an ordinary human, that is, the Son of man. Just as the Lord Jesus is God’s incarnation, from His outward appearance, He seems just the same as us, just an ordinary and normal person. Yet, the Lord Jesus can express the truth and provide man with the way of repentance. He has the authority to pardon man of his sins and be crucified to complete the work of the redemption of mankind. No man is capable of this. But no matter how the Lord Jesus expressed truths and performed redemption work, or displayed signs and wonders, everything was carried out within His normal humanity. He spoke and worked in the image of the Son of man. So the Lord Jesus in the flesh was called the Son of man.
God’s word says, “The ‘incarnation’ is God’s appearance in the flesh; God works among created mankind in the image of the flesh. So for God to be incarnated, He must first be flesh, flesh with normal humanity; this is the most basic prerequisite. In fact, the implication of God’s incarnation is that God lives and works in the flesh, that God in His very essence becomes flesh, becomes a man.” “Because He is a man with the essence of God, He is above all created humans, above any man who can perform God’s work. And so, among all those with a human shell like His, among all those who possess humanity, only He is the incarnate God Himself—all others are created humans. Though they all have humanity, created humans have nothing but humanity, while God incarnate is different: In His flesh He not only has humanity but, more importantly, divinity. His humanity can be seen in the outer appearance of His flesh and in His everyday life, but His divinity is difficult to perceive. … Since God becomes flesh, His essence is a combination of humanity and divinity. This combination is called God Himself, God Himself on earth.”
