Did Jesus wrongly predict the world would end in his hearers' lifetime (Matthew 16:28)?

The objection assumes "the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" must mean the visible end of the world. Read the saying in its three forms and its context, and that assumption fails.

Matthew 16:28: "some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." Mark 9:1: "before they see the kingdom of God arrive with power." Luke 9:27: "before they see the kingdom of God." None of the three says "the end of the age," "the final judgment," or "the Son of Man descending from heaven." The words promise that some hearers will witness the kingdom breaking in with power and the Son of Man entering his reign.

In all three Gospels the saying is immediately followed by the Transfiguration, with an explicit time-stamp: "After six days" (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2), "about eight days after" (Luke 9:28). Peter, James and John — three of the men standing there — see Jesus transfigured in divine glory with Moses and Elijah, and hear the Father's voice. The Gospel writers have joined the two paragraphs deliberately. And 2 Peter 1:16–18, written by one of the three, calls that mountain vision the moment they were "eyewitnesses of His majesty" and saw "the power and coming" (Greek parousia) of Christ.

The title "Son of Man" and the language of "coming" and "kingdom" come from Daniel 7:13–14, where the Son of Man "comes with the clouds," approaches the Ancient of Days, and is given "dominion, glory, and a kingdom." Daniel's "coming" is a movement toward the throne — an enthronement, not a landing. The New Testament dates that enthronement to the resurrection and ascension (Matthew 28:18, "all authority… has been given to Me"; Acts 2:32–36, seated at God's right hand, the Spirit poured out "with power" — Mark's exact phrase).

Christians have pointed to four fulfilments, and on every one the thing promised was seen by people standing there: (a) the Transfiguration, within a week; (b) the resurrection, ascension and Pentecost, within weeks; (c) the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, within about 40 years — the vindication of the Son of Man and the end of the temple order, which Jesus predicted in detail (Luke 19:41–44); (d) the kingdom already present in Jesus' ministry ("the kingdom of God has come upon you," Matthew 12:28).

This related saying is often merged with the first. The discourse was triggered by Jesus predicting the temple's destruction (24:2); "all these things" most naturally means the signs and tribulation on Judea he has just described (24:4–28), which occurred in the Jewish war of AD 66–70. Two verses later Jesus explicitly says the timing of "that day and hour" — the visible end — is known to no one but the Father (24:36). He does not place the world-ending return in that generation.

Deuteronomy 18:22 condemns a prophecy that fails. This one was fulfilled. And Jesus' prophetic record is the opposite of a false prophet's: he predicted his own betrayal, condemnation, handover to Gentiles, mockery, crucifixion and resurrection on the third day in advance and in detail (Mark 10:33–34); the destruction of the temple stone by stone (Mark 13:1–2), fulfilled in AD 70; and Peter's threefold denial before the rooster crowed (Mark 14:30), fulfilled that night. Detailed modern studies of Mark and Matthew (e.g. R. T. France's commentaries) and N. T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God (1996) read "the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" and Matthew 24:34 as Christ's enthronement and the AD 70 vindication — not a mistaken belief in an imminent end.