PRE-VISIONS OF UNFAILED PROMISES

PRE-VISIONS OF UNFAILED PROMISES

Saying what you mean even though people don’t believe you.

DEATH DOES NOT MEAN THE END. Today they not only deny His FIRST COMING but they absolutely deny any SECOND COMING. Satan has them as he always has even though they might deny him as they act just like him with their words and actions.

Christ reassures the disciples that His impending death will not mean any abandonment of the Kingdom; and now indicates explicitly that its establishment will be connected with a second coming of the King.
  The Basileia cannot be supposed to come without the Basilems.                             -H, A. W. Meyer

                Following the open revelation of the necessity of His death, our Lord immediately promises that He will come again, this time in the full glory they had expected on the basis of Old Testament prophecy: "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels" (Matt. 16:27). Here we have for the first time in the gospel narrative an explicit reference to the SECOND ADVENT.  And the SECOND ADVENT is associated with the coming of the Kingdom: for the Son of man will come "in his kingdom" (Matt. 16:28). Furthermore, the promise in Matt. 16:27, that "then He shall reward every man according to his works," confirms the identification of the coming of the Kingdom in time with the SECOND COMING of Messiah. For this judicial work of Messiah clearly appears in Old Testament prophecy of the Kingdom, and it certainly was not accomplished at His FIRST COMING to earth. The testimony of the New Testament writers as to this synchronism is both clear and consistent: The judging work of Christ will begin at His SECOND COMING (Matt. 25:31 ff.; 1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Tim. 4:1).

                Actually, of course, the rejection and death of Messiah introduced nothing new into the concept of the Kingdom, except to clarify the puzzling element of time. The Old Testament prophets had already pictured Messiah as both a glorious and a suffering person. But the idea of TWO SEPARATE COMINGS of the Messiah could not be clearly revealed until His FIRST arrival on earth and His rejection had become historically certain in the movement of events. Only then could the certainty of a SECOND COMING be fully unveiled; and this future coming is now made the focal point for the hopes of men regarding the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth. Nothing is clearer, according to Old Testament prophecy, than that the great goal of the Lord's people was centered in the arrival of Gods kingdom on earth. But if that Kingdom was established at the FIRST coming of our Lord, as some affirm, it becomes impossible to explain why following His rejection by Israel all New Testament Scripture agrees in setting the goal, not in the present world order, but in the future at His SECOND coming. The interpretative dilemma is very simple: either the Kingdom has not yet been established in the Old Testament prophetic sense, or the reality of Christ's SECOND Advent must somehow be explained away.

                In order to indicate certain aspects of its nature, Christ gives to three of His disciples a pre-vision, in miniature, of His coming in the Kingdom, His SECOND COMING. Following the promise of a SECOND COMING in glory, He had made the following prediction: "Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom" (Matt. 16:28). To identify the coming event to which our Lord referred in these words, at least half a dozen different views have been proposed. The most natural reference is to the Transfiguration that occurred a few days later. The connection between the prediction and its fulfillment has been obscured in Matthew by an unfortunate chapter division. But the conjunction with which chap. 17 begins clearly establishes the unbroken continuity of thought between Matt. 16:28 and Matt. 17:1, as also in the accounts of Mark and Luke where no chapter division occurs. This is the view of Andrews who says, "The promise that some then standing before Him should not taste death till they had seen 'the Son of man coming (SECOND) in his kingdom' . . . . . was fulfilled when, after six days, He took Peter, James, and John into a high mountain and was transfigured before them . . . . . These apostles now saw Him as He should appear when, risen from the dead, and glorified, He, should come again from heaven to take His great power and to reign. They saw in the ineffable glory of His Person and in the brightness around them, a foreshadowing of the Kingdom of God as it should come with power, and were for a moment 'eyewitnesses of his majesty' (2 Pet. 1:16)."

                Any doubts regarding the correctness of this interpretation should be settled by the word of the Apostle Peter himself who, writing by divine inspiration, has explained the significance of our Lord's Transfiguration (2 Pet. 1:16-18). In this passage, Peter first speaks of "the power and coming" of Christ, a reference certainly to His SECOND COMING in power. Then, in support of the reality and glory of this event, Peter cites the personal experience of himself with James and John, when they were on "the holy mount" (2 Pet. 1:18). There, he insists, they "were eyewitnesses of His majesty," and they "heard" the heavenly voice saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (2 Pet. 1:16-17).

                If the reader will observe carefully the order of events recorded in Matt. 16:21-17:8, it will become increasingly clear that against the dark background of our Lord's open announcement of His rejection and death, there was need for some reassurance as to the reality and nature of the Kingdom which the apostles had been preaching to the nation of Israel. And this reassurance was given to them on the Mount of Transfiguration. In this prevision of "the Son of man coming in His kingdom," certain things were made crystal clear. First, when the Kingdom comes at the SECOND ADVENT of Christ, it will be tangibly evident to sense experience: men will see the "majesty" of the King and "hear" His voice. Second, the arrival of the Kingdom will be attended by great supernatural events, as suggested by the details of the Transfiguration scene. Third, the presence of Moses, under whose Mediatorial rule the ancient Theocratic Kingdom was established at Sinai, speaks strongly of the reality of its future re-establishment. Fourth, the appearance of Elijah, whose coming was promised prior to the establishment of the Kingdom, witnesses to the literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies concerning the Kingdom. Fifth, the Transfiguration experience suggests that at the coming of Christ in His Kingdom, His presence will supersede all other authority: the heavenly voice commands, "Hear ye Him," and even Moses and Elijah are no longer seen. In their place there will be One who is both Mediatorial Ruler and Prophet.