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John 6:62

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 15, 1874

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 44, No. 25.

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John 6:62.

By Uriah Smith

“WHAT and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before.”
Light is wanted on this text. Evidently it refers to the ascension of Jesus—his return to the Father in Heaven. The word “ascend” is not elsewhere used to describe a resurrection. The difficulty is in referring it to Jesus as the Son of man. In all the Scripture this title denotes a human being, one born of woman, one of the order or race of mankind. So then we are there taught that the “Son of man should return to Heaven, where he [the Son of man] was before,” i. e., before he came down from Heaven! Was the Son of man (Mary’s son) in Heaven before he was born? Was he a Son of man in his pre-existent state? Charles Beecher, in his “Redeemer and Redeemed,” says he was. I cannot believe it. Had it read the “Son of God,” &c., it would have been plain. But how can this be true of the Son of man?
C. P. WHITFORD.
Ans. We see no difficulty. Christ, after he appeared upon the earth in our nature, took the title of the Son of man in addition to the one he already had, of the Son of God. But he was the same being that he was before he came down from Heaven. And his using his latter title of Son of man, in connection with a reference to his position before he came down to earth, does not prove that he was the Son of man at that time.
To illustrate: If U. S. Grant was about to visit the spot where Lee surrendered, the announcement would doubtless, or at least might very properly, be put in some such form as this: “President Grant is about to visit the spot where he (President Grant) received the surrender of Lee.” But this would not imply that he was then president. He has since become so; and now this title is used fully and properly even in referring to scenes that transpired in his life before he became president.
U. S.