Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 6:53 PM
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1. Matthew 16:28, "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
2. Matthew 10:23, "When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." 3. Matthew 24:34 "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." |
1. Jesus knows what lies ahead for him, so much so that, immediately after Peter has proclaimed that he is the Messiah, he bids all present to total silence, announces that his way will be, contrary to to common Messianic expectations (not Isaiah's prophecies of the Suffering "Servant of the LORD", though, see Isaiah 42:1-7; 49:1-13; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12 ...) the way of persecution, of the cross, of an ignominious death.
It is as some sort of compensation for the fact that the First Coming will not satisfy the Messianic expectations (or rather it will satisfy them in a paradoxical, totally unexpected way) that Jesus, as a support for the faith of the "Columns of the Church", Peter, James and John, takes them with himself and lets them partake of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13; cp. Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9:28-36)
The Transfiguration is a foretaste of the Second Coming.
2. This is before Peter's Messianic Confession at Caesarea Philippi. "Son of Man" is an expression which is used in the Gospel more than Messiah or Christ (84 times vs. 63 times). Besides, while Jesus often openly refers to himself as the "Son of man", he NEVER openly referrent to himself as the Messiah/Christ, other than on two occasions only: once in private, in front of the Samaritan woman (John 4:25-26); the second, and dramatically decisive one, in front of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26:63-64), when he identified himself as the Messiah/Christ and, at the same time proclaimed that the expression "Son of man" was not generic, but made reference precisely to the messianic figure of the "Son of man" of Daniel 7:13-14.
The Messiah/Christ and the "Son of man" are one and the same.
3. The original Greek translated with the English "this generation" is γενεα αυτη (genea autē), where autē does NOT mean "this one here, in front of me" BUT "this same one", [that will witness all the signs that I have spoke about] and in particular these signs:
| The Coming of the Son of Man 29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31) |
Hi Miguel.
ReplyDeleteThank you for another interesting post here
Obviously I need to be careful not to pin labels to you by your not claiming for yourself, nonetheless I do sense Perhaps some apologetics at work.It myself get suspicious when we seemed to be Bending over backwards to enable the text to continue to speak to us today.
My take on Matthew I think maybe a little different yours. It isn't room and that's my perspective on Matthew as the late first century Jewish Christian text Might also be accused of having to bend over backwards to accommodate the but is that you quote above. However, I can still see this working. We never lacked that Jewish religious movements exported themselves into the empire via pilgrimages trade and other means . If mark was the first gospel in 65 or even in 50, And Matthew is later than that , the N whenever we place it, I believe we have to see within Matthew A call to all Christian believers, Throughout the empire to remember the mission that began in Galilee and to finish the work there.Towards this time at the close of the first century, everyone knew that there was still some survivors of this generation. I believe Matthew was using that fact genuinely to press the missionary movement back to its origins.
By the way Miguel, Two apologies. Firstly, I can no longer find your triumphal entry post where I may still be owing to you a response. Could you consider adding a search box into your template for your blog? Actually, It to operate it might although I AM having to use dictate functional on windows which has added some peculiar punctuation and spelling I suspect, sorry .