Apologetics · FaithLogic
"Some Standing Here Will Not Taste Death" — Did Jesus Predict an End That Never Came?
The objection is old and blunt: Jesus told his own hearers that some of them would still be alive when the Son of Man came in his kingdom — and (the argument goes) that never happened, so Jesus made a failed prophecy and fails the Deuteronomy 18 test for a true prophet. This is a favourite of both sceptics and Islamic apologists. It rests on one assumption: that “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” must mean the visible end of the world. Once that assumption is examined, the objection collapses — and the saying turns out to have a fulfilment the Gospel writers point to in the very next paragraph.
1 · The Saying, in All Three Gospels
Matthew 16:28
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (BSB)
Mark 9:1
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God arrive with power.” (BSB)
Luke 9:27
“But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.” (BSB)
Read the Three Together
The three versions are not identical, and the differences matter:
• Matthew: “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” — an enthronement image.
• Mark: “the kingdom of God arrive with power” — a demonstration of the kingdom’s power.
• Luke: simply “see the kingdom of God”.
None of the three says “see the Son of Man descend from heaven,” or “the end of the age,” or “the final judgment.” The objection reads all of that into the words. What the words actually promise is that some of the hearers will witness the kingdom breaking in with power, and the Son of Man entering his reign.
• Matthew: “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” — an enthronement image.
• Mark: “the kingdom of God arrive with power” — a demonstration of the kingdom’s power.
• Luke: simply “see the kingdom of God”.
None of the three says “see the Son of Man descend from heaven,” or “the end of the age,” or “the final judgment.” The objection reads all of that into the words. What the words actually promise is that some of the hearers will witness the kingdom breaking in with power, and the Son of Man entering his reign.
2 · The Context the Objection Ignores: The Very Next Event
All Three Gospels Follow the Saying With the Transfiguration
Matthew 17:1 — “After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John… and was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”
Mark 9:2 — “After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them.”
Luke 9:28 — “About eight days after Jesus had said these things… He went up on a mountain to pray.”
In every one of the three Gospels, the saying about “some standing here” is immediately followed — with an explicit time-stamp of “six days” (Luke rounds to “about eight”) — by the Transfiguration, in which three of the men standing there (Peter, James, and John) see the Son of Man in the glory of his kingdom, flanked by Moses and Elijah, with the Father’s voice from the cloud. The Gospel writers have joined these two paragraphs on purpose. “Some standing here” → Peter, James, John. “Will see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” → the mountain, six days later.
Mark 9:2 — “After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them.”
Luke 9:28 — “About eight days after Jesus had said these things… He went up on a mountain to pray.”
In every one of the three Gospels, the saying about “some standing here” is immediately followed — with an explicit time-stamp of “six days” (Luke rounds to “about eight”) — by the Transfiguration, in which three of the men standing there (Peter, James, and John) see the Son of Man in the glory of his kingdom, flanked by Moses and Elijah, with the Father’s voice from the cloud. The Gospel writers have joined these two paragraphs on purpose. “Some standing here” → Peter, James, John. “Will see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” → the mountain, six days later.
2 Peter 1:16–18 — An Eyewitness Tells Us What It Was
“For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And we ourselves heard this voice from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” (BSB)
Peter Calls the Transfiguration a Preview of the “Coming”
Peter — one of the three who were on the mountain — writes that the Transfiguration was the moment they saw “the power and coming” of Christ. The Greek word he uses for “coming” is parousia, the same word the New Testament uses for the Second Coming. Peter is telling us that on the mountain the apostles were given a genuine, advance sight of the glory in which the Son of Man reigns and will one day be revealed to all. That is exactly what Matthew 16:28 promised, delivered to exactly the people it named.
3 · What “Coming in His Kingdom” Means — Daniel 7
The Son of Man’s “Coming” Is Toward the Throne, Not Toward Earth
Jesus’ title “the Son of Man” and the language of “coming” and “kingdom” are drawn from Daniel 7:13–14:
“I saw One like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. And He was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom… His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away.” (BSB)
In Daniel, the Son of Man’s “coming” is a movement upward — He comes to God to be enthroned. It is a coronation scene, not a landing. So “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew) most naturally means the Son of Man entering his reign — which the New Testament dates to the resurrection and ascension:
Matthew 28:18 — “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”
Acts 2:32–36 — God “has made this Jesus… both Lord and Christ,” seated at His right hand (Psalm 110:1), and the Spirit is poured out “with power” at Pentecost — the kingdom of God “arriving with power” (Mark’s wording, 9:1).
Colossians 1:13 — believers have already been “transferred… into the kingdom of His beloved Son.”
“I saw One like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. And He was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom… His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away.” (BSB)
In Daniel, the Son of Man’s “coming” is a movement upward — He comes to God to be enthroned. It is a coronation scene, not a landing. So “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew) most naturally means the Son of Man entering his reign — which the New Testament dates to the resurrection and ascension:
Matthew 28:18 — “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”
Acts 2:32–36 — God “has made this Jesus… both Lord and Christ,” seated at His right hand (Psalm 110:1), and the Spirit is poured out “with power” at Pentecost — the kingdom of God “arriving with power” (Mark’s wording, 9:1).
Colossians 1:13 — believers have already been “transferred… into the kingdom of His beloved Son.”
4 · The Mainstream Readings — Any One of Them Answers the Objection
Four Fulfilments Christians Have Pointed To
(a) The Transfiguration (within a week) — the literary placement in all three Gospels, the “six days,” and 2 Peter 1:16–18. This is the reading most tightly tied to the text.
(b) The resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost (within weeks) — the Son of Man enthroned (Daniel 7), the kingdom coming “with power” when the Spirit is poured out (Acts 2). Most of “those standing here” lived to see this.
(c) The fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 (within about 40 years) — the Son of Man vindicated, the temple and the old covenant order judged and ended, exactly as Jesus predicted in detail (Luke 19:41–44; 21:20–24). Some of his hearers were still alive. This is the primary sense of the related saying, Matthew 24:34.
(d) The kingdom present in Jesus’ own ministry — “If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). The kingdom was already breaking in; the disciples were watching it happen.
The objection needs the saying to mean only the visible end of the world. It doesn’t — and on every mainstream reading, the thing promised was seen by people who were standing there.
(b) The resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost (within weeks) — the Son of Man enthroned (Daniel 7), the kingdom coming “with power” when the Spirit is poured out (Acts 2). Most of “those standing here” lived to see this.
(c) The fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 (within about 40 years) — the Son of Man vindicated, the temple and the old covenant order judged and ended, exactly as Jesus predicted in detail (Luke 19:41–44; 21:20–24). Some of his hearers were still alive. This is the primary sense of the related saying, Matthew 24:34.
(d) The kingdom present in Jesus’ own ministry — “If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). The kingdom was already breaking in; the disciples were watching it happen.
The objection needs the saying to mean only the visible end of the world. It doesn’t — and on every mainstream reading, the thing promised was seen by people who were standing there.
The Core Answer
“See the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” is enthronement language from Daniel 7, not a date for the end of the world. The Gospel writers answer the question themselves by placing the Transfiguration in the next paragraph, six days later, where three named disciples see the Son of Man in his kingdom’s glory — and Peter, who was there, calls it a preview of Christ’s “power and coming.” The resurrection, the ascension, Pentecost, and the fall of Jerusalem all followed within the hearers’ lifetimes. Nothing failed.
5 · The Related Saying: “This Generation Will Not Pass Away” (Matthew 24:34)
A Different Saying, Often Merged With This One
Matthew 24:34 — “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.”
What triggered the discourse. The disciples had just been told the temple would be levelled (24:2). They ask two things (24:3): when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? Much of Matthew 24 answers the first question — the signs leading to the temple’s destruction.
“All these things” in 24:34 most naturally refers to the things Jesus has just described — wars, famines, the abomination in the holy place, the flight from Judea, the tribulation on Jerusalem (24:4–28) — all of which happened in the Jewish war of AD 66–70, within that generation. Jesus predicted the temple’s fall roughly 40 years early, in specific terms; it is one of the best-attested prophecies in history.
The Second Coming proper is explicitly undated. Two verses later Jesus says: “Concerning that day and hour no one knows… but the Father only” (24:36). He does not put the visible, world-ending return within that generation — he says its timing is unknown. (See also the section on that verse: “The Son Was Only Given Authority?”)
“This generation” (Greek genea) can also carry the sense “this kind of people” or “the Jewish people” — a further reading some take — but the AD 70 reading is the simplest and fits the question the disciples actually asked.
What triggered the discourse. The disciples had just been told the temple would be levelled (24:2). They ask two things (24:3): when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? Much of Matthew 24 answers the first question — the signs leading to the temple’s destruction.
“All these things” in 24:34 most naturally refers to the things Jesus has just described — wars, famines, the abomination in the holy place, the flight from Judea, the tribulation on Jerusalem (24:4–28) — all of which happened in the Jewish war of AD 66–70, within that generation. Jesus predicted the temple’s fall roughly 40 years early, in specific terms; it is one of the best-attested prophecies in history.
The Second Coming proper is explicitly undated. Two verses later Jesus says: “Concerning that day and hour no one knows… but the Father only” (24:36). He does not put the visible, world-ending return within that generation — he says its timing is unknown. (See also the section on that verse: “The Son Was Only Given Authority?”)
“This generation” (Greek genea) can also carry the sense “this kind of people” or “the Jewish people” — a further reading some take — but the AD 70 reading is the simplest and fits the question the disciples actually asked.
6 · The Deuteronomy 18 Test — Applied Honestly
The Test Cuts the Other Way
Deuteronomy 18:22 — “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken.”
Apply it fairly:
• The saying was fulfilled — on the Transfiguration reading within a week, on the enthronement reading within weeks, on the Jerusalem reading within 40 years. There is no failed prediction to point to.
• Jesus’ prophetic record is the opposite of a false prophet’s. He predicted his own death — betrayal, condemnation by the chief priests, handover to Gentiles, mockery, scourging, crucifixion, and resurrection on the third day — in advance and in detail (Mark 10:33–34), and it happened. He predicted the destruction of the temple, stone by stone (Mark 13:1–2), and it happened in AD 70. He predicted Peter’s denial before the rooster crowed twice (Mark 14:30), and it happened that night.
• A genuine false prophet does not have that track record. The one prophecy sceptics claim “failed” is the one whose fulfilment the Gospel writers themselves point to in the next paragraph.
Apply it fairly:
• The saying was fulfilled — on the Transfiguration reading within a week, on the enthronement reading within weeks, on the Jerusalem reading within 40 years. There is no failed prediction to point to.
• Jesus’ prophetic record is the opposite of a false prophet’s. He predicted his own death — betrayal, condemnation by the chief priests, handover to Gentiles, mockery, scourging, crucifixion, and resurrection on the third day — in advance and in detail (Mark 10:33–34), and it happened. He predicted the destruction of the temple, stone by stone (Mark 13:1–2), and it happened in AD 70. He predicted Peter’s denial before the rooster crowed twice (Mark 14:30), and it happened that night.
• A genuine false prophet does not have that track record. The one prophecy sceptics claim “failed” is the one whose fulfilment the Gospel writers themselves point to in the next paragraph.
How the Church Has Read It
The link between Matthew 16:28 and the Transfiguration is not a modern rescue — it is built into the structure of all three Synoptic Gospels, and early Christian writers already read the mountain vision as the disciples’ sight of the kingdom’s glory. 2 Peter 1:16–19 is the earliest and most authoritative statement of that reading, from an eyewitness.
Modern New Testament scholarship converges here as well. Detailed studies of Mark and Matthew (for example R. T. France’s commentaries) argue that “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” and Matthew 24:34 refer to the enthronement of Christ and the vindicating judgment on Jerusalem in AD 70, not to a mistaken belief in an immediate end. N. T. Wright’s work (Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996) makes the same case at length: the “coming of the Son of Man” language is Daniel’s throne-room imagery for vindication and reign, and Jesus’ kingdom sayings were being fulfilled in his ministry, death, resurrection, and the events of that generation.
Modern New Testament scholarship converges here as well. Detailed studies of Mark and Matthew (for example R. T. France’s commentaries) argue that “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” and Matthew 24:34 refer to the enthronement of Christ and the vindicating judgment on Jerusalem in AD 70, not to a mistaken belief in an immediate end. N. T. Wright’s work (Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996) makes the same case at length: the “coming of the Son of Man” language is Daniel’s throne-room imagery for vindication and reign, and Jesus’ kingdom sayings were being fulfilled in his ministry, death, resurrection, and the events of that generation.
One-Line Answers to Keep
• “Jesus said the end would come in their lifetime.” — He said some would see “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” / “the kingdom come with power” — enthronement language from Daniel 7, not the end of the world.
• “It never happened.” — All three Gospels put the Transfiguration six days later, where three of those men see it; Peter (who was there) calls it a preview of Christ’s “power and coming” (2 Peter 1:16–18). The resurrection, Pentecost and AD 70 followed within their lifetimes.
• “Deuteronomy 18 says he’s a false prophet.” — Deuteronomy 18 condemns a prophecy that fails. This one was fulfilled; and Jesus also predicted his death and resurrection in detail and the temple’s fall 40 years early — both fulfilled.
• “It never happened.” — All three Gospels put the Transfiguration six days later, where three of those men see it; Peter (who was there) calls it a preview of Christ’s “power and coming” (2 Peter 1:16–18). The resurrection, Pentecost and AD 70 followed within their lifetimes.
• “Deuteronomy 18 says he’s a false prophet.” — Deuteronomy 18 condemns a prophecy that fails. This one was fulfilled; and Jesus also predicted his death and resurrection in detail and the temple’s fall 40 years early — both fulfilled.
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