What Does Matthew 16:28 Mean?

(28) **There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death** **. . .**—The immediate sequence of the vision of the Son of Man transfigured from the low estate in which He then lived and moved, into the “excellent glory” which met the gaze of the three disciples, has led not a few interpreters to see in that vision the fulfilment of this prediction. A closer scrutiny of the words must, however, lead us to set aside that interpretation, except so far as the Transfiguration bore witness to what had till then been the latent possibilities of His greatness. To speak of something that was to take place within six days as to occur before *some* of those who heard the words should taste of death (comp. John 8:52, Hebrews 2:9, for the form of the expression) would hardly have been natural; nor does the vision, as such, satisfy the meaning of the words “coming in His kingdom.” The solution of the problem is to be found in the great prophecy of Matthew 24. In a sense which was real, though partial, the judgment which fell upon the Jewish Church, the destruction of the Holy City and the Temple, the onward march of the Church of Christ, was as the coming of the Son of Man in His kingdom. His people felt that He was not far off from every one of them. He had come to them in “spirit and in power,” and that advent was at once the earnest and the foreshadowing of the “great far-off event,” the day and hour of which were hidden from the angels of God, and even from the Son of Man Himself (Mark 13:32). The words find their parallel in those that declared that “This generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 24:34). That such words should have been recorded and published by the Evangelists is a proof either that they accepted that interpretation, if *they* wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, or, if we assume that they were led by them to look for the “end of all things” as near at hand, that they wrote before the generation of those who then stood by had passed away; and so the very difficulty that has perplexed men becomes a proof of the early date of the three Gospels that contain the record. **Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission. **Bible Hub