The Right Hand Man
When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he. John 8:28
Across the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus told some 24 parables. Some were fairly clear in their meaning, while others left his listeners scratching their heads, not least his own closest friends. There are parables that speak of the Kingdom of God and how it operates – like yeast, like a net, like a mustard seed. Others give advice on how to live well before God – the unforgiving servant, the two sons, the talents, the dishonest manager, the good Samaritan. There are a handful of parables, though, that are more complex – they touch on the future, painting a picture of events still to come, and they carry some implications about the identity of the Son of Man that are hard, in the moment, to decode. One such is the parable of the wheat and weeds, recorded in Matthew 13:
Here is another story Jesus told: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night, as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’
‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.
‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’ (Matthew 13:24-30 NLT).
This enigmatic story confused the disciples so that they later asked Jesus to explain it. He replies
The Son of Man is the farmer who plants the good seed. The field is the world, and the good seed represents the people of the Kingdom. The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one. The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels.
‘Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand (Matthew 13:36-43 NLT).
The explanation is an opportunity for Jesus to expand on his calling as the Son of Man. In doing so, he highlights his future role as judge and his status as one who commands angels. These are activities proper to the one God, Yahweh. Jesus doesn’t say explicitly ‘I am God’, but he leaves his disciples no option but to acknowledge the claim he is making: at some point in the future he, Jesus, will exercise divine authority. The same is true in Matthew 16, where he says,
‘For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds. And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.” (Matthew 16:27-28 NLT).
At the more speculative end of biblical scholarship, the suggestion has been made that Jesus might be talking here about someone other than himself – ‘the Son of Man’ as a third party whose arrival he is predicting. It’s difficult to square such a claim with the other very frequent uses of the title, where Jesus is evidently appropriating it for his own ministry. The suggestion is illuminating, though, in that it highlights the strength of ‘the Son of Man’ as an apocalyptic reference – if Jesus is using it of himself, he is pointing to a role that extends beyond his earthly lifetime and context. These sayings associate the Son of Man title not only with the humanity of Jesus but also with his supernatural role and divine status. They highlight a question that has preoccupied biblical scholars for generations and is an important aspect of the Son of Man story. If Jesus made such an effort to emphasise his humanity, why did his followers come to believe that he was God at all? How did we move so seamlessly from Jesus cooking a fish breakfast for his friends on the shores of Galilee, to those same friends insisting with profound conviction that he is exalted to the right hand of the Father? How did Jesus of Nazareth become God?
