An Awful Premonition

     A few days ago I was reading a book titled "When Christ Returns" by Charles Spurgeon, and the very first portion which I read dealt on a verse that I have never really understood before -

     "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." - Matthew 16:28


     May God give us understanding to the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ.

                                     An Awful Premonition
     "I confess that I have frequently read this verse with only a vague sense of its poignancy and have passed over it rapidly because I have not understood it clearly. Although I am well acquainted with the usual interpretations, none of them has ever really satisfied me. This text seems to arouse the reader's surprise without suggesting a simple, obvious meaning. Bible commentators have thus invented explanations and offered suggestions that are widely divergent, but all are equally obscure and improbable.
     Lately, however, in reading a volume of sermons by Bishop Horsley, I have met with an altogether new view of the passage, which I firmly believe to be the correct one. Though I do not suppose I will be able to convince all of you of this interpretation, yet I will do my best to elicit from our text the terrible charge that I believe the Saviour has left here on record.
     With His own cross in mind, Jesus had just admonished His disciples to steadfastness and appealed to them to take up their crosses and follow Him at any sacrifice, which He followed with a portrayal of the inestimable value of the soul and the horror of a soul being lost. (See Matthew 16:24-26.) The full force of that doom was (and is) impossible to comprehend until He 'shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels' (Matthew 16:27). Then He stopped, looked on some off the company, and said something like this: 'Certain people are standing here who will never taste of death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.'
     Now, what did He mean by this? Obviously, it is either a marvelous promise to some who were His disciples indeed, or else it is a portent of woe to others who would die in their sins. How do the popular interpretations of our learned commentators view this statement of our Lord?
     Some say it refers to the Transfiguration. It certainly is remarkable that the account of the Transfiguration immediately follows this verse both in Mark and in Luke, as well as in this record of Matthew. However, can you for a moment convince yourself to believe that Christ was describing His Transfiguration when He spoke of 'the Son of man coming in his kingdom'?  Can you see any connection between the Transfiguration and the preceding verse that says,

                 'For the Son of man shall come in the
                 glory of his Father with his angels; and 
                 then shall he reward every man according
                 to his works.'                     (Matthew 16:27)

     I grant you that Christ was in His glory on Mount Tabor, but He did not 'reward everyman according to his works' there. Neither is it at all fair to call that a 'coming of the Son of man.' He did not 'come' on Mount Tabor because He was already on earth. It is a misuse of language to construe that into an advent.
     Besides, what would be the reason for such a solemn introduction 'Verily I say unto you'? Does it not raise expectations merely to cause disappointment, if He intended to say no more than this: " 'There will be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see' Me transfigured"? That scene took place only six days later. The next verse tell you so.

                 'And after six days Jesus taketh Peter,
                 James, and John his brother, and bringeth
                 them up unto an high mountain apart.'
                                                                (Matthew 17:1)

     You see, the majesty of the prediction, which carry our thoughts forward to the last days of the world's history, makes us shrink from accepting an immediate fulfillment of it. Thus, I cannot imagine that the Transfiguration is in the slightest degree referred to here. Further, I do not think that anyone would have thought such a thing unless he had been confused and utterly perplexed in searching for an explanation.
     Although it seems almost incredible, some learned scholars endorse this view. Moreover, they say that it also refers to the descent of the Holy Spirit. I am staggered at this thought. I cannot think how any man could find an analogy with Pentecost in the context here. Pentecost took place six months after this event. I really cannot comprehend why Jesus Christ would say, 'Truly I say unto you, there are some standing here who will live six months.' It seems to me that my Master did not waste people's time speaking such inanities.
     Who, reading this passage, can think it has any reference to the descent of the Holy Spirit?

                 'For the Son of man shall return in the
                 glory of his Father with his angels; and 
                 then shall he reward every man according
                 to his works.'                      (Matthew 16:27)

Did Christ come at Pentecost in the glory of His Father? Were there any angels accompanying Him at that time? Did He 'reward every man according to his own works' then? Scarcely can the descent of the Holy Spirit or the appearance of 'cloven tongues like as fire' (Acts 2:3) be called 'the Son of man [coming] in the glory of his Father with his angels [to] reward every man according to his works' without a gross misuse of our language or a strange violation of symbolic imagery.
     Both of these theories that I have mentioned are now rejected as unsatisfactory by those modern students who have most carefully studied the subject. However, a third explanation still holds its ground and is currently received, though I believe it to be quite as far from the truth as the others.
     Carefully read through the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, and you will find nothing about the siege of Jerusalem there. Yet, this is the interpretation that finds favor at the present. According to those who hold this view, Christ was referring to the time when Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans. But, why would Jesus have said that some who were standing there would be alive then? Nothing could be more foreign to the entire scope of Christ's narrative or the gospel accounts. There is not the slightest shadow of reference to the siege of Jerusalem. The coming of the Son of Man is spoken of here: 'in the glory of his Father with his angels; [when] he shall reward every man according to his works.'
     Whenever Jesus spoke of the coming siege of Jerusalem, He was accustomed to saying, 'Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled ' (Matthew 24:34). Never, however, did He single out a select few and say to them, " 'Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death,' until the city of Jerusalem is besieged and destroyed."
     If a child were to read this passage, I know what he would think it meant: He would suppose Jesus Christ is to come again to the earth, and there would be some standing there who would not taste of death until really and literally He did so. This, I believe, is the plain meaning.
     'Well,' I hear someone saying, 'I am surprised. Do you think, then, that this refers to the apostle John?' No, by no means. The fable that John was to live until Christ came again was current in early New Testament times, you know. However, John himself repudiated it, for at the end of his gospel, he said,

                 'Then went this saying abroad among the
                 brethren, that that disciple should not die:
                 yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not 
                 die; but, if I will that he tarry till I come,
                 what is that to thee?'
                                          (John 21:23, Emphasis added)

This, you see, was setting forth a hypothetical case, and in no sense was it the language of prediction.
     Now, beloved, if you are so far convinced of the unreasonableness of each of these theories to resolve the difficulty of interpretation, I I hope that you are in readiness for the explanation that appears to me to harmonize with every aspect of the text. I believe the 'coming' referred to in our text is the coming of the Sin of God to judge at the last great and terrible Day, when He will judge all and separate the wicked from among the righteous.
     The next question is, Of whom were the words spoken? Are we warranted in supposing that our Lord intended this sentence as a gracious promise or a kindly expectation that He wanted to kindle in the hearts of His disciples? I trust not. To me it appears to have absolutely no reference to any man who ever had any grace in his soul. Such language is far more applicable to the ungodly than to the wicked. The sentence may well have been aimed at those followers who would defect from the faith, grasp at the world, endeavor to save their lives but really lose them, and barter their souls.

                                      A True Taste of Death


     At the glorious appearing of Christ, there will be some who will taste death, but will they be the righteous? Surely, my dear friends, when Christ comes, the righteous will not die. They will be caught up with the Lord in the air. His coming will be the signal for the resurrection of all His saints.
     But, at the time of His return, the men who have been without God, without Christ, will begin for the first time to 'taste of death.' They will have passed the first stage of dissolution when their souls abandon their bodies, but they will have never known the 'taste of death.' Until Christ's return, they will not have truly known its tremendous bitterness and its awful horror. They will never drink the wormwood and the gall, to really 'taste of death,' until that time. This tasting if death may be explained, and I believe it is to be explained, as a reference to the second death of which men will not taste until the Lord comes again.
     What a dreadful sentence that was when He said (perhaps singling out Judas as He spoke), 'Truly I say unto you, there are some who are standing here who will never know what that dreadful word death really means until the Lord comes again. You think that if you save your lives, you escape from death. Alas, you do not know what death means! The demise of the body is but a mere prelude to the perdition of the soul. The grave is but the porch of death. You will never understand the full meaning of that terrible word until the Lord comes.'
     This can have no reference to the saints, because in the gospel of John, you find this passage:

                     'Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man
                  keep my saying, he shall never see death.
                     Then said the Jews unto him, Now we
                  know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is 
                  dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If 
                  a man keep my saying, he shall never taste
                  of death.'                              (John 8:51-52)

     No righteous man, therefore, can ever 'taste of death.' Yes, he will fall into that deep, oblivious sleep during which the body sees corruption, but that is another experience, very different from the bitter cup referred to as a 'taste of death.' When the Holy Spirit wanted to use an expression to set forth the equivalent for divine wrath, what wording was used? 'Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for suffering death...by the grace of God should taste death for every man' (Hebrews 2:9).
     The expression 'to taste of death' means the reception of the true, essential death that kills the body and the soul in hell forever. The Saviour said, '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.'If this is the meaning (and I hold that it is in keeping with the context), it explains the verse, sets forth the reason why Christ invoked breathless attention with the word verily, answers grammar and the rhetoric, and will not be moved by any argument that I have ever heard. And if so, what amazing indictments are contained in this text! May the Holy Spirit deeply affect our heats and cause our souls to thrill with its solemnity.
     What thoughts this idea stirs up! Compared with the doom that will be inflicted upon the ungodly at Christ's return, the death of the physical body is nothing. Further, compared with the doom of the wicked at His return, even the torment of souls in a separate state is scarcely anything. The startling question then arises: Are there any reading this who will have to taste of death when the Lord comes?

                 Comparing Physical Death and Final Doom
     The sinner's death is only a faint foreshadowing of the sinner's doom at the coming of the Son of Man in His glory. Let me endeavor to show the contrast."

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