Matthew 16:28

Matthew 16:28. Verily I say unto you. Solemn preface.

There be some of them that stand here. The Twelve and the people about (Mark 8:34).

Who shall in no wise taste of death. Death is represented under the figure of a bitter cup. Some of those present should be still alive when the event referred to in the next clause should take place, though they should afterwards die.

The Son of man coming in his kingdom. Not the ‘coming' in Matthew 16:27. (1.) That was ‘in the glory of His Father,' this ‘in His kingdom,' or a coming of the kingdom of God ‘with power' (Mark 9:1, comp. Luke 9:27); (2.) So definite a prediction of the final coming is inconsistent with chap. Matthew 24:36: ‘But of that day and hour knoweth no one,' etc. Nor is it the transfiguration, which was a temporary revelation, but the establishment of the new dispensation, which was the coming of the kingdom of God with power. The more precise reference may be (1.) to the coming of our Lord after the resurrection; but all of them except Judas lived to see that, and it is implied that some would die; (2.) to the day of Pentecost, but this is open to the same objection; (3.) to the destruction of Jerusalem, which ended the old dispensation. Chap. Matthew 10:23 refers to this, and chap. 25 supports the same view. That event was of awful significance. In view of the circumstances, the hostility of the Jews now manifest, the prediction that Jerusalem would be the place of His sufferings, the announcement of His Church as distinguished from the old economy to be abrogated fully in the ruin of that city, it seems clear that if one event be referred to, it is this, which was in so many respects ‘a type and earnest of the final coming of Christ' (Alford). (4.) A wider view refers it ‘to a gradual or progressive change, the institution of Christ's kingdom in the hearts of men and in society at large' (J. A. Alexander), extending from the day of Pentecost to the destruction of Jerusalem.