 You know, they tell about this young, enthusiastic, evangelical girl who was being challenged by somebody, asking her, how do you know what Jesus actually said? To which she responded very simply. It's in the red letters. And so, you know, it's important for us to understand that for Christians reading Daniel 7, after reading the Gospels, they have already a picture of who the Son of Man is. And that is because in the Gospels, the Son of Man is used over 80 times, and Jesus himself refers to himself as the Son of Man. So, for example, in Matthew chapter 16, verse 27, Jesus, here it's in the red letters, Jesus says, for the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his words. He continues in verse 28, assuredly I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Now, when we read this in the English Bibles, the Son of Man is capitalized. And so, what this tells the reader of the Gospels is that this is not just speaking about an ordinary person, this is speaking about the Son with a capital S and the man with a capital N. And so, they're coming to Daniel 7 with that belief well in place. And so, when reading Daniel 7, the Christian will just often assume that the one like the Son of Man that appears in Daniel chapter 7, verse 13, refers to Jesus, who they already believe is the Messiah and divine. However, this way of understanding Daniel 7 only works if you go from the Gospel into Daniel 7, but it doesn't work in the reverse. And so, what we're going to do is we're going to look at Daniel 7 and recognize it as a complete unit from Daniel 7, chapter 7, verse 1 until the end of the chapter. And so, what's interesting about this chapter is that it describes a vision, a very vivid dream that Daniel has in which he describes the emergence of four beasts and their ultimate destruction. And then he speaks about the appearance of one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven who is brought before God and then he's given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. That's what it describes in Daniel 7. Now, what's fascinating about this chapter and unique, in a sense, about this chapter different to all other chapters of the Bible is that virtually all other chapters of the Bible don't come with an interpretation. You have to read it and try and make sense of it. Daniel 7 actually comes with an interpretation. And what we read in Daniel 7 is Daniel describing how he was very perturbed by the vision. It was a very scary vision and he wasn't able to really make sense of it. And so, in chapter 7 itself, the Bible records how Daniel approaches the angel and asks him for a correct interpretation. And so, in verses 17, 18, 22 and 27 we find the angel explaining to Daniel who the Son of Man is. He first explains who the priests are but then he goes on to tell us who the Son of Man is. The angel tells Daniel that the Son of Man refers to the saints of the Holy One and it is they who will inherit the kingdom have dominion and will be served by the nations. And so what we ultimately get from Daniel 7 after 7 is that the Son of Man or the one like the Son of Man refers to a group of individuals who are considered to be pious, who are considered to be saints and they are called the saints of the Holy One. A bit like the chosen people of God. Who's that? It's the Jewish people. And the truth of the matter is that this interpretation itself should resolve the matter. Should just solve the matter. We shouldn't have to have a further discussion about it. However, if we were to stop here it'd be somewhat incomplete. You see, Rashi, who is one of the greatest biblical commentators seems to offer two interpretations about who the Son of Man is. In Daniel 7 verse 13 he identifies the Son of Man as the Messiah, as the king of Israel, the Messiah. And yet in verse 14 he describes it as the Jewish people and explains verse 14 as the Son of Man being the Jewish people. So which one is it? Is it Israel or is it the Messiah? And to resolve this apparent contradiction it'd be helpful to understand a little bit about the relationship between Israel and the Messiah. You see, the Messiah isn't some unique individual who is set apart from the nation and has his own program that is working through the ages and that is working either in opposition or at least in distinct from the works of the Jewish people. They actually are working together. The king and the nation are part of one whole. There's no king without a nation and there's no nation without a king. And so therefore the king and the nation partake in all that God wants together. It's a little bit like a Socrates that might have a captain, the captain of the team. And he may very well give good instructions to the rest of the team players. And his contribution is so much appreciated that when they win the World Cup it's the captain that is often sent up to receive the trophy on behalf of the entire team. And likewise here in Daniel 7 when it speaks about the Holy Ones being given dominion and being given a kingdom and that everybody comes to serve them ultimately how is it going to be best expressed by all the nations coming along and paying homage to the king of the Jews to the one who's considered the leader of the Jews and then in turn to the Jewish people themselves. And so therefore when we look at Daniel 7 verse 13 and 14 and the rest of the chapter it becomes very clear that the people who are going to be raised up very high and ultimately served by the rest of the nation in recognition of the vital role that they play in God's plan we find that it's the Jewish people led by the Messiah. So I think the choice of word is son of man. To refer to anybody who was when Christians say Jesus or when we say Messiah think of a son of man as a child. So it's interesting that ultimately when you look throughout the Jewish scriptures the term son of man appears over a hundred times and usually most often it's used to describe a human being, a human being and often for example you find in the book of Psalms where it says that one should not place their trust in the son of man a person who has no ability to save. The point over here is that often the Bible is contrasting God with a human being and so in Daniel 7 when it speaks of the son of man it's in contrast to the four beasts that preceded it. You see in the chapter 7 it talks about these beasts it speaks about a lion and a bear and these are really representing kingdoms that the Bible describes as animals and in contrast to that the one that appears that seems to be completely set apart completely different of a different breed is the human being the one that looks like a human being who's the one that looks like a human being it's the Messiah or it's the Jewish people who have been loyal to God and what's interesting is that when we speak about a human being and we speak about Ben Adam or Adam, rabbis tell us Adam also comes from etymologically from a phrase similar or comparable to the one above in other words those people who behave in a dignified manner who behave in a way like God behaves they are people who can be called those who resemble the image of God and so that's why the Bible uses the term Ben Adam the character in Daniel 7