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 as concealed in the lowliness of the Son of man: the Son of man who walks on the earth in the form of a man is the Son of God. So also in the answer which Jesus gave to the high priest, when he solemnly adjured Him to say “whether He were the Christ, the Son of God” (Mat 26:63), pointing distinctly to Dan 7:13, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” In like manner in all the other passages in the Gospels in which Jesus designates Himself the Son of man, He points either to His present lowliness or to His future glory, as is abundantly proved by Fr. A. Philippi (Kirch. Glaubenslehre, iv. 1, p. 415, der 2 Auf.) by a lucid comparison of all the passages in the Gospel of Matthew. From the use of the expression “the Son of man” by Jesus (not only where He refers to His supernatural greatness or His divine pre-existence, but also where He places His human lowliness in contrast with His divine nature), it follows that even in those passages which treat of His coming to judgment, connected with the description, borrowed from Dan 7:13, of His coming in the clouds of heaven, He seeks to prove not so much His appearance for judgment, as rather only the divine power and glory which the Father gave Him, or to indicate from the Scriptures that the Father gave Him dominion over all people, and that He will come to reveal this dominion by the judgment of the world and the completion of His kingdom. The power to execute judgment over the living and the dead, the Father, i.e., God as the Lord of the world, has given to His Son, to Christ, because He is the Son of man (Joh 5:27), i.e., because He as man is at the same time of a divine nature, by virtue of which He is of one essence with the Father. This truth is manifested in the vision, Dan 7:13-14, in this, that the Ancient of days gives glory and the kingdom to Him who appears before Him in the form of a man coming in the clouds of heaven, that all people and nations might honour Him. Therewith He gave Him also implicite the power to execute judgment over all peoples; for the judgment is only a disclosure of the sovereignty given to Him.

The Little Horn and the Apocalyptic Beast
The giving of the kingdom to the Son of man goes before the appearance of the great adversary of the people of God represented