Together We Lead
His coming to reward deeds is certain (Matthew 16:27). A disciple can follow Jesus and answer the call to die knowing that losing life for Jesus is the only way to find life, because a person’s soul is his or her most important possession. And since Jesus is the one who holds authority over that soul, he holds the right to make the final judgment and offers the ultimate reward. In order to answer the call, we can have certainty that whatever we lose physically will be gained spiritually.
The Certainty Is the Guarantee of the Realized Kingdom of Christ (v. 28) “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (v. 28). The precise interpretation of this verse is somewhat difficult to determine. Perhaps the most relevant aspect to consider as we attempt to establish our conclusion is whether any of those standing there saw Jesus coming in his kingdom before their deaths. If we take Jesus to mean his second coming by the designation “coming in His kingdom,” then answering this question and reconciling what Jesus said with what occurred is challenging if not impossible. Therefore, what did Jesus mean by this profound statement? The reasonable interpretation can be placed in two broad possibilities. First, he was referring to his parousia. However, he was doing so in a way that either took another event, such as the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70 as a representation of God’s judgment in Christ, or he intended his audience to be viewed in a wider sense, including all who would read the Gospels, us and those yet to come, until the future time of Jesus’s return.9 Second, he was simply referring to some other near event in his life 9
Lenski, Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel, 648–49.
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