TOPIC: The coming of Jesus and the false prophecy given in Matt 16:27-28.
An example of a failed prophecy made by Jesus can be found in Matt 16:27-28, where Jesus proclaimed that some of his immediate associates would live long enough to see Jesus coming in his kingdom, complete with angels and judgments.
While Jesus didn't specify an exact hour and day for his glorious return trip to earth(Matt 24:36), he did set a time limit constraint for the event to occur.
Matt 16:27-28
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
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.
Considering that this sweeping promise was made over 1,900 years ago, the prophecy failed to materialize and can be classified as false.
However, Christian apologetics can rationalize anything and this issue of failed prophecy is certainly no exception.
Here is an example of a Christian rationalization of the problem:
Christian assertion:
This is not a failed prophecy because it was fulfilled through the Apostle John.
John wrote the Book of Revelation and in it John describes what he saw.
John saw Jesus as He came back to earth with angels and set up His kingdom.
So the prophecy was fulfilled. John did not taste death until he had seen Jesus coming in his kingdom.
The word "see" can also mean "to understand or know", so the prophecy was also fulfilled when the Apostles came to fully understand about Jesus and his kingdom when they received the Holy Spirit.
Receiving the Holy Spirit enabled them to fully come into the knowledge of the kingdom which Jesus rules.
Commentary:
The apologetic presented here takes two forms.
In the first form, the failed prophecy of Jesus is turned into a fulfilled prophecy by claiming that the apostle John saw a vision of Jesus coming in his kingdom and wrote about it in the Book of Revelation(Rev 19).
Therefore, someone was still alive when they saw Jesus coming in his kingdom during a dream.
In the second form, by claiming that the word "see" does not mean to physically see but means "to know", those apostles who received the Holy Spirit came into knowledge of the kingdom.
Since the apostles received the Holy Spirit before they died and thus understood or "knew" the kingdom, the
prophecy was fulfilled.
While these are certainly expedient rationalizations, they ignore the context of other scriptures that indicate a quick return of Jesus, the ending of the old world order, and the establishment of the benevolent dictatorship that would be set up in the kingdom ruled by Jesus.
There are no detailed descriptions of Jesus coming in his kingdom by any other believer except John.
However, the Book of Revelation does not depict actual events but rather a preview of future events as seen by John in a vision or dream.
The dreams/visions/nightmares of one believer do not represent history nor do they strictly satisfy the stipulations that Jesus placed on his own prophecy, if his alleged words are to be taken seriously.
This particular Christian apologetic involves creatively modifying the scripture to say the following:
Matt 16:28(as revised)
Verily I say unto you, There be one standing here, which shall not taste of death, till he sees a vision of the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Note that this revised version of Matt 16:28 relies on replacing the plural interpretation of the words "some" and "they" with the singular interpretation of "one" and "he".
More importantly and critical to the issue is that it also requires inserting the qualifying word "vision" into the text.
In other words, Jesus really meant to say that one apostle would see a vision of Jesus coming in his kingdom before that apostle died.
This particular case of using the dream of a believer to fulfill a prophecy that requires actual events is also laced with problems in that while trying to plug one hole it opens up another.
While John did see a vision of Jesus coming in his kingdom in Rev 19, all the dreamed events in the Book of Revelation were supposed to occur as actual history within a short period of time and not thousands of years after the dream was experienced.
Rev 1:1,3
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
The events in the dream were to happen "shortly" and Jesus was to come "quickly".
Rev 22:6-7
And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
Behold, I(Jesus) come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
There is not even a hint that there would be a 2,000 year time lapse between the time the dream was given and the actual events transpiring. The promised events failed to materialize at any time. Now the problem shifts to explaining why the prophecy given in the Book of Revelation should not be considered false.
In the second rationalization the scripture is revised to read:
Matt 16:28(as revised)
Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they come to know the kingdom of heaven through the Holy Spirit.
As noted, the original word "see" is replaced with the phrase "come to know".
However, other verses indicate that the word "see" in a physical sense is the appropriate meaning in Matt 16:28.
Jesus told the high priest that he would see Jesus coming in the clouds.
Jesus does not say that the high priest would come to know what the kingdom of Jesus was.
Matt 26:63-64
…And the high priest answered and said unto him(Jesus), I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
It's fairly safe to say that Jesus never made good on this promise to the high priest and that the word "see" does not mean to "know" or understand. It means to physically see.
The event described here is the coming of Jesus in his kingdom and correlates directly with Matt 16:28.
The coming of Jesus in his kingdom was an event the whole world would physically see.
Matt 24:27,30-31
For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
This also correlates directly with Matt 16:28 and the whole world would physically see the sign in heaven and Jesus coming in his kingdom descending from the clouds to earth.
The apologetic claim that in Matt 16:28 the word "see" really means to "know" isn't supported by other relevant verses regarding the physical event of the second coming.
This rationalization also ignores Matt 16:27, which stipulates that the coming of Jesus in his kingdom would also involve angels and a judgment.
Matt 16:27
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
For those apologists that want to divorce Matt 16:27 from Matt 16:28 and claim these verses are not directly tied together as conditions involved with the same event (i.e. the coming of Jesus to set up his kingdom), they must show from within the text that these events in Matt 16:27 and Matt 16:28 are meant to be separated by thousands of years.
Considering that there isn't even a hint of such an interpretation from within the text of Matt 16:27-28, more subjective qualifiers would have to be employed to make the scripture conform with the needs of the apologist.
Jesus also reiterated the promise that he would return while his current followers were still alive in other verses.
Jesus spoke directly to the disciples and addressed them specifically about upcoming world events.
Matt 24:3-4
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Note that Jesus did not say "take heed that no man deceive believers that will be born after you're dead".
Jesus never asked his disciples to write down these warnings for future generations because these warnings were applicable to the current generation of disciples. Word of mouth(preach not print) was all that would be needed when the time frame for the end of the world fulfillment was so relatively short.
Jesus told his disciples to pray about their actions, not the actions of believers thousands of years into the future.
Matt 24:20-22
But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
And again, Jesus speaks directly to his immediate associates.
Matt 24:33-34
So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Note that the scripture does not say "when a future generation" sees all these things, the coming of Jesus is near.
The generation that would not pass was the one that was living at the time Jesus gave these warnings.
The apostle Peter was convinced that Jesus meant what he said about coming in his kingdom within the lifetimes of his followers and asserted over 1,900 years ago that the end of all things was at hand.
1 Peter 4:7
But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
This represents more evidence that Jesus did literally mean what he said in Matt 16:27-28 and also indicates a failed prophecy, the sure sign of a false teacher according to God(Deut 18:20-22).
James also was convinced that the coming of the Lord Jesus was at hand in his lifetime and urged believers not to lose sight of the rapidly approaching kingdom.
James 5:8
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
Paul, while never having met the earthly Jesus, was another believer who advertised that at least some of the current generation of followers would experience the coming of the Lord and would be lifted up into the clouds to meet their Lord.
1 Thess 4:15-17
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
This fulfillment of this prophecy by Paul never materialized any more than those of the others, including Jesus himself.
The prophecy of Matt 16:27-28 puts forth the promise of Jesus coming to set up his kingdom, with angels, with rewards and judgments, and establishes that he would do so prior to the death of all his disciples.
If mentally rewriting scripture and asserting that it should be interpreted according to preferences of energetic apologists is deemed acceptable as the proper expression of "God's Word", then any rationalization will solve any problem.
Believers who engage in this type of strategy become God's editors, helping out a hapless deity that inspired an ambiguous and fuzzy set of writings that need clarifying in order to be properly understood.
In other words, the Bible God really meant to say this or that but couldn't quite manage to express it as clearly as the Christian apologists do.
Naturally, these fundamentalist apologists gain lifetime employment by clarifying what God really meant to say all along and they also garner bonus points in heaven by refuting any skeptics who question what the institutionalized church cult puts forth as "facts" about the Bible and God.
The fact that the alleged word of an all powerful and all knowing deity needs the help of professional apologists in order to be "properly" understood speaks volumes about this "God".
Fundamentalist Christians often deride unbelievers for not trusting that the Bible is the revealed word of God yet have no problem mentally altering verses to accommodate their apologetics.
Rationalizations are essential in order to maintain any illusion(religious or otherwise).
As long as a doctrine or dogma is deemed and advertised as "absolute truth" or superior to all others, any rationalization that facilitates the maintenance and expansion of the illusion is justified in the minds of believers.
Examples of zealous rationalizing can be found everywhere and are particularly evident in fundamentalist religions, mainstream politics, nationalism/patriotism, and corporate structures.
As far as Bible rationalizations are concerned, the individual reader must reach their own conclusions about the validity of the various claims and declarations put forth not only in the Bible, but by those who fancy themselves authorized representatives of an all powerful tribal deity that created the universe.
Originally Posted by brendomar
. When John sees Jesus in heaven he is enthroned, and seen in his glory revealed. Rev 1:16 “His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.
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