The term used often by Jesus to refer to himself in his purpose as a human sent by God, the Son of Man, is also used outside of the gospels, both in regular scriptures and in apocryphal ones, to refer to messengers in humanlike form. It is not always used of humans, sometimes it is either the spirit of preexistence of Christ or an archangel, sometimes called Son of Man and sometimes one in appearance as a man, although translation issues mean these might be interchangeable. In each case it is usually a messenger sent to speak with humans. There are several cases in Ezekiel where God calls Ezekiel ‘Son of Man’. Then there are cases in Daniel 10:5, Daniel 7:13-14, and some apocryphal books such as 2 Esdras 13:3-4 and also 1 Enoch 37-71 and many other places in 1 Enoch. In all of these latter examples it might be the spirit of the Christ, pre-existent. All of these are cases of messengers to humans sent from God, where the messenger is either humanlike or, in Ezekiel’s case, actually human. It all highlights how when God sends messages to humans, He often uses a humanlike messenger, even if it is actually an angel. It also highlights why Jesus used the term Son of Man. Jesus went further than highlighting the importance of humanlike appearance, by use the term Son of Man to underline the importance of the messenger bearing actual human nature, weak, sometimes suffering greatly, to maximise the efficacy God might use in communicating with humans. This is true of Jesus. It was also true of Ezekiel, given this Son of Man alias too by God. Evidence that aside from Ezekiel, many other references to Son of Man or ‘one like a man’ all refer to either the Christ in the flesh or the pre-existent spirit of the Christ, comes in Revelation 1:14-15 where John’s description of Jesus Christ is almost word for word a rendition of the description given of a man in Daniel 10:5-6.
