Preface: This was written for my Discussing the Undiscussable class when I was a student of Bible & Ministry and submitted June 11, 2001.
When did Jesus 'Come in Glory'?
“For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and them he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” (Matt. 16:27-28) This is when God will come in His glory, but when does this occur? Or has it not yet happened? In “Last Days Madness” by Cary DeMar there are a few viewpoints presented. In the following, I will present the authors view and my own to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the author is misinterpreting the Scripture.
The author, DeMar, believes that Matthew 16:27-28 is referring to and fulfilled through the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. He states, “If we maintain that the event Jesus is describing is still in our future, then how should we interpret His statement that some of those with whom He was speaking would still be alive when He did in fact ‘come in the glory of His Father with His angels?’…we must look for an event that was far enough in the future where most of Jesus’ hearers would be dead, but not so far in the future where they all would dead. Is there such an event? Yes! The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by the Romans” He correctly links it to a parallel passage in Luke 9:27, but still with the wrong application of the verse. He supports most of his view; it appears to me, through the commentaries of others such as S. Greijdanus:
“Then this coming of God’s dominion cannot refer to out Lord’s resurrection, not to the gift of the Holy Spirit which were to be realized within the year…Nor can it refer to our Lord’s coming in judgment which is even now in abeyance…Nor can the powerful spread of the gospel be meant, for this already came about within comparatively few years…We shall have to think of the destruction of Jerusalem…In it God revealed his kingly dominion in his judgment, a precursor of his judgment on the last day.”
The best argument (which is still not good) the author can seem to present with a verse reference is to that of the book of Revelation. DeMar states, “A similar pattern is found in Revelation 2:5: ‘Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you m and will remove your lamp stand out of its place—unless you repent.’ Similar ‘coming’ language is used in Revelation 2:16, neither of which refer to Christ’s second coming.”
In my opinion, I believe that this is clearly talking about the second coming. Which, at that time would have been 40 days and 7 years away from the time frame the verses were said by Jesus. So, to anyone who is not a dispensationalist, this verse would make no sense, but to those who can rightly divide the Word of God we can see how this is one of the prophecies not yet fulfilled in the Bible due to the insertion of the Dispensation of Grace. If you break up each verse into phrases it becomes easier to decipher and link to the second coming as a whole. Starting with Matthew 16:27, the first part, “For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels” coincides also with Matthew 25:31, which is talking about the second coming. Secondly, “and them he shall reward every man” can be supported by mark 9:41. The balance of the chapter of Matthew 25 (verses 31-46) describes how the people of Israel will be judged “according to his works”. Rewards are a ‘given’ to happen during the second coming along with judgment. Now, to verse 28, “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste death.” Jesus is talking to the 12 Apostles here, and one of them will not be there for much longer, Judas. Not to forget that there was 40 days until Calvary and then 7 years for the fulfillment of the 490-year prophecy of Daniel, without the interruption of the Grace dispensation. This timeframe and statement was not illogical at that time (nor is it now), and Jesus did know what he was talking about. The last part of the verse is “…till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” The word ‘till’ in the Greek is “an” and is a conditional form, meaning that “it was conditional on the repentance of the nation…their continuing to live was certain, but the fulfillment of the condition was uncertain.” Being that it was a conditional term supports even more the idea of a dispensation cutting in before it would or would not happen. To keep with my biblical support of my viewpoint, 1 Corinthians 15:24 shows “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father…”
In conclusion, this author says, “First we want to be accurate in our understanding of Scripture since it is God’s only Word to us, the expression of His will, To misinterpret Scripture is to misinterpret God’s will. Second, the integrity of the Bible is at stake.” How right one can be, but too bad he is the one putting the Bible at stake. DeMar fails to support how most of these two verses could be referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, with the exception of 2 words: some and coming. There are over 50 words between the two that are not mentioned. I wonder why? With the fact that I found a typographical error in the book, it clarifies how erred the actual content of the words are also. There is no ‘reward’, no ‘judgment’ and no ‘Son of Man coming in his kingdom’ during the destruction of Jerusalem. There is simply no biblical support for this view. Not only does that author twist the words of the verse to read from “some” to “most”, which is a topic in and of itself, but the lack of rightly dividing the Word is a sad thing for someone who could be great if he were in the right path of truth.
1 - Cary DeMar, Last Days Madness © Copyright 1999 by American Vision
2 - See Note 1, pg. 43, 44-45
3 - See note 1, pg. 45
4 - See note 1, pg. 49
5 - Companion Bible © Copyright by Kregel Publications
6 - See note 1, pg. 46
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© 2001 Shannon Yáñez
