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He always calls Himself the Son of Man.... There is a reason He calls Himself the Son of Man. He is telling them, and us, that he is here to serve man, to rescue man, that man is his purpose for being here. He is saying, “I am not here for Me. I am here for You!”

Oh so very true, dear Mind-numbed Robot! And as you point out, He never refers to Himself as Son of God.

But Jesus does tell us, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," adding "No one goes to the Father except through me." [John 14:6]. Here Jesus Christ completely affirms that He is, indeed, the Son of God the Father — His Logos Alpha to Omega — to those who have "ears to hear." And that the Father cannot be "approached" save only through the Son. In short, there is no salvation outside of Christ.

I think it's important to keep this "dimension" of Jesus alive in our minds when we read Holy Scripture. He is (obviously) more than His "personal history" on Earth.

I think of it this way: His "personal history" is along the same timeline that you and I exist along, past, present to future. I think of this as a "horizontal line." All mortal creatures walk it.

But there is a "vertical line," too: The vertical line that Jesus shows us is the "way of ascent" to the Father. It is the line of salvation, of transcendence to Eternal Life with the Father in a New Heaven and Earth, which God will bring about, upon the sanctification of the World and its Final Judgment. The risen Christ demonstrates this line of ascent. We realize He is telling us that, by virtue of His unfathomably agonizing Sacrifice — for us humans! — this line of ascent is available to us (or reopened, I should say), through Him.

I hope it doesn't sound too strange to say that I see in the Cross on which our Lord suffered and died the very symbol of these two "lines."

And then I am reminded of the words of the great poet, T.S. Eliot: "Man lives at the intersection of time and timelessness."

In closing, dear Mind-numbed Robot, I don't think our views are mutually exclusive at all. Rather, I think they are entirely complementary.

Thank you ever so much for sharing your insights, your wonderfully thoughtful testimony with us!