NOT TASTE DEATH UNTIL JESUS COMES IN HIS KINGDOM?May 28, 2019
READ TIME: 2-3 MINUTES
“Dave, what does Jesus mean in Matthew 16:28 when He spoke about not tasting death until three of the disciples see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom?”
Since Jesus’s glorified manifestation of Himself in the next chapter (Matthew 17) was a temporary appearance during His First Advent, His Transfiguration was a foretaste or a token of what the Son of Man coming in His glory and the splendor of His kingdom, as depicted in Matthew 16:28, would be like. Thus, contextually, in Matthew 16:28, Christ predicted that the Transfiguration would take place before some of His immediate audience had died. Christ’s prediction in this regard was literally fulfilled six days later when the aforementioned Transfiguration took place as recorded in the very next chapter. Unfortunately, the chapter division causes many to separate Christ’s prediction at the end of Matthew 16 from the events at the beginning of Matthew 17. In 2 Peter 1:16-18, Peter (who was part of Christ’s inner circle), mentioned that he was an eyewitness to this preview of the coming kingdom when he saw the transfigured Christ.
The transfiguration fits all aspects of the various emphases found in each of the three precise predictions in Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-13 and Luke 9:28-36. Matthew’s stress upon the actual, physical presence of the Son of Man is met in the transfiguration because Jesus was personally and visibly present. . . Mark’s emphasis upon a display of the kingdom with “power” was certainly fulfilled by the transfiguration. No one could doubt that the transfiguration certainly fits the definition of a “power encounter” for the disciples. That Jesus appears dressed in the Shekinah glory of God upon the Mount (Mark 9:3) is further evidence to the disciples that He was God and acted with His power. Luke’s simple statement about some who will “see the kingdom of God” is vindicated also by his account (17:28-36). Twice Luke records our Lord describing the transfiguration with the term “glory” (17:31, 32).
Thus, far from teaching that a spiritual form of the kingdom was established in the first-century ministry of Christ, all Matthew 16:27-28 predicts is that a token of the kingdom would be manifested in just a few days and this momentary manifestation has already been accomplished on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13).
Source Used
Woods, Andrew M. The Coming Kingdom: What Is the Kingdom and How Is Kingdom Now Theology Changing the Focus of the Church? Grace Gospel Press, chapter 16.
