Who Is the Son of Man? What Jesus Revealed About His Death, Identity, and Kingdom
To watch the sermon: Why Did Jesus Predict His Own Death 3 Times? (Matthew 20:17-19 Explained)
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In Matthew chapter 20, Jesus pulls His disciples aside privately and tells them, for the third time, what is about to happen to Him. No fanfare. No big announcement. Just a direct, intimate conversation about betrayal, suffering, death, and resurrection. What He says in these verses is far bigger than a prediction. It is a declaration of who He is and what His kingdom means for all of humanity.
Why Did Jesus Keep Predicting His Own Death?
This is not the first time Jesus told His disciples what was coming. He had already predicted His death twice before. Yet He returns to it again, pulling them aside privately to say it plainly: "We are going up to Jerusalem where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of the religious law, and they will sentence him to die." (Matthew 20:18)
If something is worth saying once, it is worth saying again. Jesus was not repeating Himself out of habit. He was preparing His disciples for something they could not yet fully understand.
What Does "Son of Man" Actually Mean?
Jesus refers to Himself as "the Son of Man" over 80 times in the Gospel of Matthew. That is not a casual title. That is a deliberate, repeated declaration rooted in Old Testament prophecy.
The phrase comes directly from Daniel chapter 7. Daniel writes: "As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven." (Daniel 7:13)
In Judaism, only one being was ever assigned the power to come on the clouds of heaven. That was Yahweh. God the Father. So when Jesus uses this title, He is not being modest. He is pointing His audience directly back to a prophecy they already knew, and He is placing Himself at the center of it.
What Authority Was Given to the Son of Man?
Daniel's vision does not stop at the clouds. It continues with a description of what the Son of Man receives when He approaches the Ancient One:
"He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race, nation, and language would obey him. His rule is eternal and it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed." (Daniel 7:14)
This is not a kingdom limited to one people group or one era. It is not a temporary reign with a term limit. It is an eternal, indestructible dominion over every nation, every language, and every people. And Jesus, by calling Himself the Son of Man, is claiming that this prophecy belongs to Him.
Did Jesus Actually Claim to Be God?
This is one of the most common questions people wrestle with. The answer is woven throughout the language He used.
When Jesus said He was the Son of Man coming on the clouds, He was using language that first-century Jewish listeners would have immediately recognized as belonging to Yahweh alone. The demons recognized it too. When they came face to face with Jesus, they did not argue about His identity. They said, "What do you want with us, Son of God?" (Matthew 8:29)
The spiritual realm had no confusion about who He was. It is often those of us who follow Him who wrestle most with what He plainly declared.
How Does Jesus Fulfill the Torah and the Prophets?
Jesus said clearly that He did not come to abolish the Torah and the prophets but to fulfill them. That is not just a theological statement. It is a testable claim. Consider how many specific prophecies point directly to what happened to Him:
Isaiah 53: The suffering servant
Zechariah 12: "They will look on me, the one they have pierced"
Zechariah 11: Betrayal for 30 pieces of silver
Zechariah 13: The shepherd struck and the sheep scattered
Psalm 22:16-18: Pierced hands and feet, garments divided by lot
Psalm 22:1: The cry of abandonment from the cross
Exodus 12 and Psalm 34: No bones broken
Psalm 69: Given vinegar to drink
Every detail of His death, burial, and resurrection was written long before it happened. Jesus was not improvising. He was fulfilling what had already been declared.
What Is the Significance of the Third Day?
Jesus says in verse 19: "Then they will hand Him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead." (Matthew 20:19)
The third day is not a random detail. Throughout Scripture, the third day carries a consistent meaning. It is a literary signal that God is about to reveal Himself and rescue His people.
Genesis 1: The third day brings the creation of life out of chaos
Genesis 22: God provides a ram for Abraham on the third day
Exodus 19: God descends on Mount Sinai on the third day
Hosea 6: "On the third day He will restore us"
Joshua 3: Israel crosses the Jordan to the promised land on the third day
Days one and two in Scripture often represent darkness, wandering, and separation. The third day brings breakthrough and transformation. When Jesus says He will rise on the third day, He is speaking a language the Torah and prophets had already established. He is the fulfillment of every one of those patterns.
Why Does the Birth of Jesus Matter When Talking About His Death?
You cannot have the prediction of His death without first having His birth. The king who walked toward Jerusalem, who pulled His disciples aside and told them what was coming, was the same king who left a throne room of unceasing worship to enter the world through a stone feeding trough.
Heaven and earth came together to announce His arrival. The Spirit descended at His baptism. He overcame the temptations of the enemy in the wilderness alone. And then He began a ministry that would lead Him directly to the cross.
None of it was accidental. All of it was intentional. The birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection are one complete story of a king who chose to lay everything down in order to conquer something far greater than any earthly empire. He came to conquer sin and death itself.
What Does This Mean for How We Live Today?
It is easy to get distracted. Every season brings its own controversies, debates, and cultural noise. But Jesus walked toward Jerusalem with full knowledge of what was waiting for Him, and He did not waver. He was not distracted by Rome. He was not sidetracked by religious politics. He was focused on what He came to do.
His kingdom is eternal. His rule will never end. No argument, no cultural shift, and no amount of human debate changes what is already written and already fulfilled in Him.
The question is not whether His kingdom stands. It does. The question is whether we are intentional about living inside of it.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6
Life Application
This week, take an honest look at where your attention is going. It is easy to spend energy reacting to what others are doing, debating secondary issues, or filling every hour with things that feel urgent but are not eternal. Jesus was intentional about every step He took toward Jerusalem. He knew the cost and He walked toward it anyway, because the mission was bigger than the discomfort.
Your challenge this week is to be as intentional about Jesus as you are about anything else in your schedule. That might mean carving out time to read one of the prophecies listed above and sitting with what it means that Jesus fulfilled it. It might mean choosing to talk about Him rather than about what everyone else is doing wrong. It might simply mean asking yourself each morning: what am I actually focused on today?
Ask yourself these questions:
When I think about my faith, am I more focused on what others are doing or on who Jesus actually is?
Do I know enough about the Torah and the prophets to recognize why Jesus fulfilling them matters?
What is one distraction in my life right now that is pulling my attention away from Jesus, and what would it look like to set it aside this week?
If His kingdom is truly eternal and indestructible, how does that change the way I approach the things I am anxious about today?
