John 12. We're going to read verse 20-36. John
12, verses 20-36. And it begins this way, and there
were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the
feast. And the same that came there
to Philip, which was Bethsaida, Galilee, and desired him, saying,
Sir, we would see Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying,
The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He that loveth his life shall
lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep
it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, says Christ,
let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also
my servant be. And if any man serve me, him
will my father honor. Now is my soul troubled. And
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.
But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy
name. Then came there a voice from
heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
The people, therefore, that stood by and heard it said that it
thundered. Others said an angel spake to
him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of
me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world.
Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And if I and
I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
me." This, Christ said, signified what death he should die. The
people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ
abided forever, and thou sayest now the Son of Man must be lifted
up. Who is this Son of Man? Then Jesus said unto them, Yet
a little while is the light with you. Walk while you have the
light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness
knoweth not whither he goeth. While you have light, believe
in the light, that you may be the children of light. These
things spake Jesus and departed, and did hide Himself from them."
This particular phrase, I want to dwell on a particular phrase
this morning, This is found in verse 34, the last phrase. Who is this Son of Man? Who is He? Who is this Son of
Man? Who is He that we should believe
on Him? Scripture says this. You're saying this. They didn't
understand the Scriptures. He kept on using the phrase,
Son of Man. This particular phrase is used
over 80 times over 80 times in the four Gospels. Just the four
Gospels. It's of vital importance. And
I didn't realize it until this week when Melinda was perusing
Google or whatever and found out that there's a controversy.
It's been going on for hundreds of years. The Son of Man. They can't, well why did Christ,
why was He termed that? And they doubt it and they were
throwing all sorts of shade on it and it's just a controversy.
And nobody came to any conclusion. I'm thinking, what does the Scripture
say? He's called, that's one of His
names, the Son of Man. What is so complicated? Well,
the natural man No matter how intellectual or how theologically
sound he thinks he is, the natural man receives not the things of
the Spirit of God. He can't. There's foolishness
done to him. So it's just a circle. It's like
a dog and its tail. It's going round and round and
round. Never able to rest. Never able to rest. Who is this
Son of Man? Why would or why did Christ take
this name upon Himself? What does it signify? Our Redeemer
chose such a name for Himself, and you know He very well could
have used the Son of God exclusively. He could have just said, every
time you see His word, when He refers to Himself, He could have
exclusively said, the Son of God, denoting His majesty, His
sovereignty, His supremacy, as in the mighty God, the everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace, which we see in the Old Testament.
But for some reason, the Son chose this name to represent
Himself along with other various names. But why? Learn these three things. Learn
these three things. Learn this of Christ, who thought
it not a shame to be called the Son of Man. First thing we must
learn is humility. learn the humility that Christ
sets forth by this title, the Son of Man. Christ himself never
coveted lofty or fancy titles for himself. He was quite at
home to be known as the friend of sinners, our near kinsman,
or to become a curse for the likes of us. So the Son of Man
is very suitable and appropriate Christ and His humility. So learn
that of Christ, His humbleness. Secondly, the love of Christ
had for this name and what it signified. He surely, says Jeremiah,
loved us with an everlasting love. He delighted to honor humanity
by becoming the Son of Man. He saw fit to unite with our
nature, to honor it against the law, He was made flesh. He was tempted in all points
like we, yet no sin, no sin. We in this broken, sinful condition,
we could never honor anything Godward, but that is not so with
our blessed Lord who took upon Himself, not the form or nature
of angels, but the seed of Abraham, the son of man. So that's in
Job. God, so to speak, Job says He
found a ransom. He became us, the Son of Man. He became like us. He became
for us. And in Him is no spot or blemish. So then, my brethren, we should
learn of Christ first to see the humility that Christ possessed
and the love that He possessed. Yet, there's a third thing. And
the reason why He's called the Son of Man is to identify His
union with His sheep. The union He had with His church. We may approach Him without fear. Why? Why? You children, if you're not disobedient,
if you're not crazy in the head or whatever, we parents would
think. But if everything is going as it should, you have no fear
to approach your mom and dad. There's no fear. There's no fear. Why? Because they love you and
you love them. Naturally, you don't think twice. Now, if you've
done something that you're going to get chewed out for, or swat,
or time out, or whatever that happened, you're like a little
apprehensive. But ours, the Son, the Son of
Man, united in our nature. We can approach Him, for He is
kinfolk. He has turned our elder brother.
He's our daisman, says Job. As man, we can take all our fears
and doubts and struggles, and as a man, the Son of Man, He
is able to succor and comfort us in all our firmities, no matter
what they are, physical, Spiritual. Because we are born sinners. But I can approach Him because
He is the Son of Man. He became our nature. He became
one with us. As a man, He is more than able
to perform all things needful to redeem my soul. And love me
and love you and call you and call me unto Himself. Because
He was a man. He was a man. All hail Jesus. the Son of Man. So as I was looking
at this, I thought, well, that's rather short, quick, ten-minute
message, but we're not quite done. What has the Son of Man done
as the Son of Man? What has He done? Do you remember
that question? They asked, they said, who is this Son of Man?
They'd seen everything He'd done. And still they didn't believe.
So we can learn of Christ's humility, his love, and the fact that he
became one with our nature, sin accepted, to honor God's law,
to give us a righteousness, the righteousness that only God would
accept, and to take away our sin. Because no man can approach
God. He's too holy to be approached.
But let's look in the Scriptures again. This controversy of Son
of Man, all these different things that Melinda was reading to me,
it was just so ridiculous, it was so ignorant, truly ignorant. These men were DDs, Doctor of
Divinities, four and five times over. It's just like, well, what
does the Scripture say? So I'm just going to look at,
if you want to look at them with me, I've got them written down
here. There's a bunch more. I'm just going to look at some of
these 80 plus verses that specifically say He's the Son of Man, that
He says He's the Son of Man. Let's see what He did. Let's
just see what He did. We'll start with Matthew, and
we'll go to John, and we'll go in those order. Matthew chapter
9. What did this humble, loving, one with us, servant of the Lord
God, as the Son of Man, what did He do? Matthew 9, verse 6,
But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth
to forgive sins, then saith He to the sick of the palsy, Arise,
take up thy bed, and go unto thy house. And he rose and departed
to his house. As the son of man, that didn't
diminish his other nature. If you want to phrase it, it
didn't diminish that he was the God-man as well. Okay? So what
did he do? As the son of man, he took away sin. He had the power
to forgive sins. We don't have the power to forgive
sins. That man that has a hat, that wears a dress that looks
like a woman, calls himself the Pope or whatever, he doesn't
have any authority. He has no authority to forgive sins. He's
just a sinner. He's just a man. Neither is Joseph
Smith, neither is Mohammed, neither is Buddha, neither is any. And
if you think, go to Acts chapter 4 verse 12, there's no name given
among men whereby we must be saved. Jesus the Nazarene. That's why this religion is so
exclusive. It's the truth and all others
are false. Now in this country we have freedom of religion,
so we don't make fun of other religions anyway. You just back
off. You just try to tell them the
truth. Because we were all there at one time. We were Lutherans,
Methodists, Baptists, whatever. We were a multitude of things.
But we're not born knowing and understanding the truth. So it
says right here that you may know that the Son of Man hath
power on earth to forgive sins. He can forgive sins. No one else
can. Matthew chapter 11. We're just going to keep turning
pages. Matthew 11 verse 19. The Son of Man came eating and
drinking, and they say, Behold, a man gluttonous, a wine-bibber,
a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom, says Christ, is justified
over children. This is Christ speaking. John
came, verse 18, neither eating nor drinking, and they say he's
a devil. Then I come, the Son of Man, he identifies himself
with. They say I'm a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber and a friend
of sinners and publicans. That's good to know. You need
a friend? There's no friend like this friend,
because he was the Son of Man. Matthew chapter 12, verse 8. The Son of Man is Lord even of
the Sabbath. He's Lord over everything. This
shows His sovereignty. We don't hold a day, this is
the Lord's Day, but they're all the Lord's Day. Melinda saw somebody
the other day and they said, oh, blessings to you, blessings
to you on Palm Sunday. I don't know if it's a Lutheran
thing, Catholic thing, I don't know. But again, didn't have
a little dot thing on her head, ashes or whatever. No, He is
Lord over that. We can worship Him in spirit
and truth, anywhere, anytime, all the time. We don't have to
go in front of the school, around a telephone pole, to be seen
of all the people. That person is religious. No. He's Lord of the Sabbath. Our Lord is Lord over all as
the Son of Man. Chapter 18 and verse 11. Chapter
18 and verse 11, For the Son of Man is come to save that which is lost.
Are you lost this morning? Only He can save. I can't save. I can tell you He can save. That's
what has been entrusted to each one of us, the preacher, but
everyone who believes, is to be a testimony, a light to the
gospel of Christ. To tell people there's salvation
in no other in Christ. Not what you do, not what you
think, not even your repentances, not even your faith, because
it's all a gift of God. The Son of Man has come to save
that which is lost. Chapter 20, verse 28, Matthew
20, verse 28. Verse 27, And whosoever will
be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son
of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to
give His life a ransom for many, not all, As most denominations
say, Christ died for everybody. No, He didn't. Then everybody
would be saved. There would be no such place
as hell. It's not true. He gave His life a ransom for
many. Matthew 20, verse 28. The Son
of Man. He's our mediator. He's our ransom. He's our servant. Matthew 26
and verse 2. Matthew 26 and verse 2. Know
ye that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the
Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified. The Son of Man was
murdered, but He is known as the Crucified One. He must needs
go to the cross. He had a baptism where He went
to be baptized with. He was always doing His Father's
will, and this was His Father's will, that He would go to Calvary
alone, suffer, bleed, and die for the sins of His people as
the Son of Man. God cannot be killed. The Son
of Man can, was, but death did not hold Him. He rose victorious
on the third day. John chapter 1. The next ones
will be in John 1. And verse 51, And Christ said unto him, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Hereafter you shall see the heaven opened,
and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
Man. That's Jacob's letter. Ascending
and descending. That means He only is the way
to glory. He's the only way to glory. It's
not said about any other person, any other prophet, any other
man, that the heavens are opened and the angels of God ascended
and descended upon the Son of Man. If you desire glory, if
you desire salvation, full and free, ask God to reveal Christ
to you. Find Him and stay there. John chapter 3. John chapter
3, verse 13 and 14. He is our resurrection. And no
man, he says in verse 13, hath ascended up to heaven, and he
that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. Christ is our resurrection. It's
no wonder He's our all. Because as the Son of Man, He
fulfilled and satisfied all. John 5, verse 27. Let's look at verse 26. For as the
Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to
have life in Himself, and hath given Him authority to execute
judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. All judgment
is given unto Him. And I think in Revelation it
says all the keys of heaven and earth, hell are given to Him.
Judgment. So if you don't worship Christ
now, by a willing submission to His
will, you will be made to bow before Him in judgment. There's only two ways to serve
Christ, in mercy or in wrath. And it's all in His hands. May
God have mercy on us today. May today be the day of salvation.
John 6, verse 53. John 6, verse 53. Then Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have
no life in you. Life is only in, upon Christ. That is it. Life is only in Him. And we could go on and on. This
phrase, the Son of Man. The Son of Man. We eat His flesh
and drink His blood. Literally, no. No, that means
you are partaking of everything that He's done. You say, that's
for me. That's for me. And when we gather
together, when we have the Lord's table or when we don't have the
Lord's table, we open this book, we break bread, and we speak
of Him. And our souls feed upon Him. He is life. He is life. So I say it's sufficient to declare,
who is this Son of Man? Well, to all who believe, He
is our all and in all, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me close by reading you something that someone said about this
passage. I see a marvelous proof of love
and wisdom in the union of two natures in Christ's person as
the Son of Man and as the Son of God. It was marvelous love
in our Savior to condescend to go through weakness and humiliation
for our sakes, ungodly rebels as we are. And it was also marvelous
wisdom to fit himself in this way to be the very friend of
friends who could not only save man but meet man on his own ground. I want, I need one able to perform
all things needful to redeem my soul. This Jesus can do for
he is the eternal Son of God and I want, need one able to
understand my weaknesses and infirmities to deal gently with
my soul while tied to the body of death. This again Jesus can
do for he was the Son of Man and had flesh and blood like
my own. Had my Savior been God only,
I might perhaps have trusted Him, but I never could have come
near to Him without fear. Had my Savior been man only,
I might have loved Him, but I never could have felt sure that He
was able to take away my sins. But, blessed be God, my Savior
is God as well as man. and man as well as God, and so
He is able to deliver me, the man, and so able to feel with
me. Almighty power and deepest sympathy
are met together in one glorious person, Jesus Christ my Lord. Surely, a believer in Christ
has a strong consolation, and he may well trust and not be
afraid. what man can do unto us. Nathan, would you close us please?