Understanding Matthew 16:28

 

Question: How do we understand the Lord Jesus' statement in Matthew 16:28 "Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom"?

 

Answer:

To understand the statement of the Lord Jesus related to the Lord's Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Heaven, we need to keep in mind some other statements as well. It is a general tendency that as soon as we come across the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" or "Kingdom of God", we start thinking of and understanding it as referring to the future Kingdom of God that will be established at the end of the world and after its final judgement. There is nothing wrong with this, it is okay to think along these lines, but here this is not the only understanding of what the Lord has said. Because if this seen as the only possible explanation, then this joins it to the second coming of the Lord, which is an event of an uncertain date, and people have been waiting for it for nearly 2000 years. Therefore, the understanding the Lord’s statement of Matthew 16:28 in that context seems impractical, and difficult to accept, leading to the confusion related to the acceptance of this statement of the Lord. But if we look at Matthew 21:31, where the Lord Jesus while responding to His opponents and critics says, “… Jesus said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.” We see here that the Lord Jesus is referring to the entry of tax-collectors and harlots into the Kingdom of Heaven/God in the present continuous tense, and not the future tense (‘they will enter’), nor of any uncertainty (‘will be able to enter’). The evident implication is that at the very time when the Lord Jesus was saying this, the entry into the Kingdom of Heaven/God was happening, it was underway. Therefore, to understand that the only interpretation of the statement ‘entry into the Kingdom of Heaven/God’ was to see it as a future event would not be a factual interpretation, or the only applicable meaning.

To understand this statement of the Lord given in Matthew 16:28, consider some things the Lord Jesus had said regarding the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven, during His time of Ministry on earth:

“Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel'" (Mark1:14-15). The Lord began His ministry with the call to repentance, since “Kingdom of God is at hand” – pay attention to the words of the Lord, the kingdom is not in the distant future, but is at hand – it’s time has come; He did not say that the kingdom is going to come, rather, that the time is fulfilled and it is at hand.

The Lord Himself says in Luke 11:20 "But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you"; implying that the presence of the Lord and His working shows that the Kingdom of God is present. Sometime later, "Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."" (Luke 17:20-21 – the ‘within you’ here can also be translated ‘amongst you’ or ‘in your midst’ – as is done in HCSB, ESV2011, NASB, EBR, LEB, NET, TS2009 translations). At the beginning of His ministry the Lord says that the Kingdom if God is at hand; during the ministry, He teaches the learned Pharisees, the scholars of God's Word, that the Kingdom of God does not come like a thing or an event, but was already present amongst them right at that very moment, implying it was amongst them because of the presence of the Lord amongst them. If they believed in the Lord, if they accepted the Lord, then they would enter the Kingdom of God.

Look at Mark 12:28-34; the Scribes want to trap the Lord regarding the commandments of God; at the end of this conversation the Lord says to that one Scribe who had asked Him the question and then had unquestioningly accepted the Lord's answers as correct, “Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." But after that no one dared question Him” (Mark 12:34). The Lord Jesus was saying to that Scribe that by virtue of having accepted the correct understanding of God's commandments, you are quite near to the Kingdom of God, now take the next step and turn this theoretical knowledge into a practical experience, apply your knowledge in your life practically, obey the commandments of the Lord, and you will enter the Kingdom of God.

From the above we can understand that the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven, that the Lord Jesus talked and taught about, it was accepting the Lord as Savior, coming into His obedience, becoming submissive to Him, which is in accordance with John 1:12-13 – becoming a child of God by coming into faith in Him, and thereby becoming entitled to be with Him in His Kingdom.

A short while before His being betrayed and caught for crucifixion, the Lord Jesus in John 14:18-20 also said to His disciples: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. "A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” In other words, the Lord promises His disciples to always be with them after His sacrifice and resurrection. Although unseen, yet since then He always has been with His disciples.

Through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the Cross, and His resurrection from the dead, the way to salvation, to entering heaven got opened and became available for all of mankind, and anyone can now enter through faith in Him and repentance from their sins; i.e. the Kingdom of heaven or the Kingdom of God was now available to everyone.

Keeping these things in mind, when you see what the Lord Jesus said to Peter in Matthew16:19 and in the preceding verses in context of the formation of the Church, i.e. the body of Christian Believers, then that which the Lord Jesus said to Peter can be paraphrased and understood as follows: “I will give to you the keys to get people into heaven, i.e. the way to salvation, and whosoever accepts that key, i.e. the gospel of salvation, the door to enter heaven will open for that person; but the one who rejects that key, i.e. rejects the gospel of salvation, the door to enter heaven will be closed for that person” – and we see in Acts 2 that at the first using the key of the gospel i.e. preaching of the gospel done by Peter, three thousand people repented and accepted the Lord, and became His disciples (Acts 2:41), i.e. by accepting the key of the gospel, the door to enter heaven was opened for them.

The same context also applies to Matthew 16:28. At the time when the Lord Jesus had said this thing, many of those who were then present there would also have been present at the time of Peter's first preaching, and would have been living till the establishing of the first Church, and it is quite possible that many of them would have been witnesses of this incidence of Acts 2. These witnesses then would have seen the arrival of the Kingdom of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the lives of those coming into faith in the Lord Jesus, and these witnesses would have seen the transformation it brought in the lives of those who came to faith in the Lord Jesus – all this before the witnesses themselves got to taste death. Moreover, as the Lord Jesus had promised, He was with His disciples then and is with them even now. In this manner all aspects of Matthew 16:28 are fulfilled in the establishment of the Church through the first preaching of Peter in Acts 2; and there is no necessity to see this in context of the second coming of the Lord – which is the greatest obstacle in accepting this statement, as the only valid fulfilment if this statement.

This again goes to show that to avoid falling into errors in understanding God's Word, it must always be seen and studied in its context and in light of other related verses or passages of the Bible.