Integrating John’s Gospel with the Old Testament & Greco-Roman World

The “Son of Man” isn’t just an apocalyptic title—it’s a cipher. A paradox. A key to how divine presence works in human history. In this excerpt from the upcoming book, we dig into what Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) thought about divine images, illuminating Jesus’ personal preference for the title as “the Son of Man”—not as a second divine identity, but as the full human image of God. Not as a metaphysical puzzle, but as a fully human vessel of divine life and agency. The point isn’t to split hairs about essence. It’s to remember that the promise of restoration and participation still unfolds—and that it includes us.

This excerpt comes from Section II: Reorienting Our Narrative – Toward & Through Scripture (Bible pt. 1), of The Son of Man and Its Mystic Awakening, where we trace how the figure of the “Son of Man” evolves from Hebrew prophetic tradition into the Gospels. By this point in the book, we’ve already deconstructed Gospel language and established that even God uses “son of man” as a title for humanity, not for divinity (c.f., Ezekiel). We’ve also repositioned the “apocalypse” as a personal and collective awakening, rather than a cosmic disaster. This isn’t a theological detour—it’s central to reclaiming what “Christ in you, the hope of glory” was always meant to mean.

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The apocalyptic and transformative dimensions of Daniel’s vision are further underscored by portraying the “one like a son of man” not merely as an archetypal human figure but as a cosmic mediator endowed with everlasting dominion. In this vision, the Son of Man transcends mortal limitations to become the embodiment of a transformative promise—a promise that reconciles humanity’s fallen condition with the prospect of redemptive renewal (Daniel 7:13–14; Revelation 1:7, 12).

Divine Images & Fruit

In the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) imagination, a person or object could bear the image of a god—hosting the deity’s presence and power—without literally being that deity. Daniel McClellan highlights this paradox: cultic statues and divine agents were treated “as if they both were and were not the deities they represented,” explained through a theory of divine agency. In practice, worshippers believed the god’s presence could dwell in an idol or cult object (as in the Ark of the Covenant) or indwell a chosen human, so that the image represents the deity. McClellan notes that ancient people viewed identity as “a difference of degrees, not of kind” – human bodies and divine bodies were not sharply separated.

So, a king, priest, or even a stone statue could be said to stand in for the god: empowered with divine authority and action, though remaining ontologically human or crafted matter. ANE thought permitted images or emissaries to be both identified with and distinguished from deities at the same time. In other words, a god could act through an icon without being numerically identical to that icon. This insight reshapes how we read Jesus’ self‐understanding. In John’s Gospel, Jesus consistently describes himself not as an independent deity but as God’s agent. He repeatedly says, for example, “the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing,” and “the Father who dwells in Me does His works.”

“On this reading, the imago Dei designates the royal office or calling of human beings as God’s representatives and agents in the world, given authorized power to share in God’s rule over the earth’s resources and creatures.”

J. Richard Middleton – The Liberating Image (2005)

These statements sound like an idealized Israelite role: Jesus is the divine emissary, the perfectly faithful “image of the invisible God” empowered to enact the Father’s will (cf. Col 1:15). Seen through the ANE lens, Jesus is God’s consummate icon – one in whom the Father abides fully, enabling him to speak and act with divine authority, yet without ceasing to be a human agent. This corresponds to John’s other imagery: Jesus is “in the Father and the Father in [him]” (John 14:10) and “he who has seen [Jesus] has seen the Father” (14:9), language of representation and indwelling rather than metaphysical identity.

In this view, Jesus’ title Son of Man likewise echoes Ezekiel and Daniel (“one like a son of man”) as the God‐sent figure, not a statement about his ontological substance. In short, the NT portrait of Christ emphasizes divine commission and presence – the functional unity of Son and Father – over philosophical co‐being. As one scholar observes, moving beyond rigid dichotomies of “deity versus humanity” makes it possible to see Jesus’ extraordinary life as God operating in a variety of “bodies” while remaining eminently a man.

This dynamic of divine image-bearing flows into the Psalter and Prophets, and nowhere more poetically than in Psalm 80. There, Israel’s history itself is a vineyard tenderly planted by Yahweh: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it” (Ps 80:8). The vine imagery recalls other Hebrew images of Israel as God’s vine or vineyard (Isa 5:7; Ezek 17:5‑6; etc.) and highlights God’s past favor in making Israel flourish in the Promised Land. It also reveals how the Promised Land was never about geographic relocation.

But, now, the hedges protecting the vine are down, and wild beasts – enemies of God – ravage it (v. 12), symbolizing Israel’s desolation. In the final strophe, the cry is raised for divine intervention: “Restore us, O God… that we may be saved” (v. 7; 19). Intriguingly the psalm also prays for a “man of your right hand… the son of man whom you have raised up for yourself” (v. 17). The “son of man” here likely denotes a human champion, perhaps the Davidic king or prophetic hero, whom God will empower to protect and renew His vine. In other words, Israel begs for a new representative of Yahweh – a new image‐bearer – to restore the nation. Indeed, later rabbis and Christians have seen in v. 17 a messianic hope.

Psalm 80, thus, unites the motifs of divine image and fruitfulness: Israel (as vine) suffers, and only God’s chosen son‐of‐man can revive it. Jesus’ teaching on the vine in John 15 clearly alludes to this psalmic tradition. He recasts the national vine imagery in personal terms. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser,” Jesus declares – echoing Israel’s history, yet identifying himself as the vine rather than merely tending it. His disciples are the branches that derive life from him (v. 5), and fruitfulness comes by abiding in his word. Psalm 80’s cry for a ‘son of man’ to save the vine finds its answer in the Messiah, who becomes the vine himself—redefining fruitfulness as communion, not conquest.

This image, also, would’ve resonated beyond Jewish ears. In the Greco-Roman world, vines symbolized abundance, festivity, and divine favor. Grapevines were sacred to Dionysus and often crowned emperors and deities in ritual processions—a symbol of vitality, status, and godlike association. Civic and military honors such as the corona obsidionalis or corona graminea—wreaths made of grass or vines—were awarded to those who had saved lives or cities, binding botanical imagery with valor and sacred duty. Jesus’ use of the vine, then, not only reclaims Israel’s legacy—it subverts imperial and pagan symbols. He claims the vine not to rule, but to restore; not to intoxicate, but to indwell

Thus, the “son of man” deliverer becomes embodied in Jesus himself: he is the root of restoration. The “fruit” he speaks of is not militant success but the evident life of God – love, peace, spiritual harvest–produced in the covenant community. Jesus’ notion of pruning and abiding turns the sword of judgment into a call for communion with God. In this reimagined symbol, the collective Israel of Psalm 80 is transformed: God’s beloved vine is now the resurrected Christ, whose branches (believers) are renewed and kept by the Father’s care. As in Psalm 80, God’s hand is still at work, but the paradigm shifts from a political deliverance to a mystical, participatory restoration of divine image‐bearing.

“Human actions are fully our own but also are the work of God, though perfectly hidden.”

Austin Farrer

Theologically, these connections suggest a richer model of divine agency than later Trinitarian jargon. The Bible’s own imagery portrays God and His king/servant in a relation of perfect unity of purpose – even mutual indwelling – without sliding into numerical identity. The “Son of Man” and “true vine” titles emphasize divine commission and representation: God’s word and Spirit empower a human agent to act with heavenly authority.

This stresses continuity with Israel’s monotheistic tradition (one God acting through one man) and leaves room for a high Christology without requiring a separate co-equal hypostasis in the ancient sense. In practical terms, Jesus can rightly claim, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) as unity in mission and glory, in the way that visionaries envisioned the one God fully present in the chosen vessel. In turn, this biblical understanding reframes our view of Christian community: believers, too, are called to be God’s image on earth, branches of the true Vine, bearing spiritual fruit. The movement from divine representation to communal fruitfulness is thus an unfolding metaphor.

Jesus doesn’t claim the vine to rule, but to restore; not to intoxicate, but to indwell.

Israel, as God’s vine, looked to a Son of Man to restore it; Jesus as the divine Image Himself, becomes the vine that restores. This pattern – God empowering his people’s leader as His icon and then grafting all faithful into that vine – will reappear in prophetic visions (as we will see in Ezekiel’s own symbolic visions of Israel). Above all, it reminds us that questions of ontology (who/what is God?) may take a back seat to questions of agency (how does God behave?). As McClellan suggests, a cognitive‐historical approach avoids Platonic dichotomies and sees instead that divine presence could be “manifested” in an object or person while still “maintaining some degree of autonomy.”

Such a framework – emphasizing presence over metaphysics – may indeed anticipate the alternative Trinitarian vision argued in Appendix VIII, where the co-working of Father and Son is read more in terms of shared agency and mission than shared substance. In sum, ancient Israel’s idea of the imago Dei helps us read Jesus not as asserting a second divine being, but as claiming to be the fulfilled image of Israel’s God – “the man of [God’s] right hand” raised up in whom the nation finds life.

By carrying the Father’s word and life as his own, Jesus embodies the theme of divine image and fruitfulness in a radically new way – a way that quietly upends later assumptions about the God‐man relationship, focusing us back on God’s singular work through His anointed image. The Son of Man restores not by grasping divinity, but by trusting it, embodying it, and offering it back to the world in love.

“As the imago Dei, then, humanity in Genesis 1 is called to be representative and intermediary of God’s power and blessing on earth.”

J. Richard Middleton – Further Thoughts on the Imago Dei (2014)

The Son of Man restores not by grasping divinity, but by trusting it, embodying it, and offering it back to the world in love. That’s the pattern: the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone; the pruned branch bears the fruit; the faithful servant becomes the icon through whom God is seen and known. And then, he grafts us into the story.

This excerpt is just one thread from The Son of Man & Its Mystic Awakening. If this stirred something—good. From here, the book dives into Section III and beyond: tracing how the early church began reshaping eschatology around transformation instead of escape, how mystics reclaimed presence over power, and how our most controversial doctrines—from the Trinity to the End Times—may have always been trying to say something more human, more cosmic, and more intimate than we realized. We wrap up with an integrated Atonement Theory, and then 12 appendices.

It’s weird. It’s wild. And it’s being finished.

The most recent full draft is available now over on Patreon. You can read the entire manuscript-in-progress, support the project, and join the conversation.

If Jesus is the Image—what does it mean for us to bear it now?