Comments on Luke 9:27
Comments on Luke 9:27
A friend of mine from California was reading Luke and ran
across this:
Luke 9:27 NIV
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste
death before they see the kingdom of God.”
This statement from Jesus seemed curious to him. His first
thought was that Jesus was talking about the so-called Rapture. He wrote to me,
"This implies to me that there would be a Rapture in the very early days
of the church. Obviously, that didn't happen, so I guess the statement was
directed to the church of the future? Who was He talking about when He was
referring to the people who were ‘standing here’?”
It seemed good to respond to his question fully, and I
thought that a complete treatment of the question would make a good
Sunday-morning study for us. I’ll be reading from the New International Version
this morning because that’s the version my friend was using.
Before we look at the passage directly I want to give a
little primer on Bible study. When we study the Bible it’s important that we
not bring our own preconceived ideas to the text. That can be surprisingly
difficult, but it’s also very important. The difficulty stems from two primary
causes; how we interpret what we read, and what we’ve been taught over the years.
First, we’re reading the things of God, so often the idea
being communicated is something different from what we’ve come to expect in our
daily lives. As a consequence, we may base our ideas about the meaning of the
text on a cursory understanding of the language used without giving deeper
thought to what the passage is actually telling us. In addition, due to the
time and culture in which the inspired authors originally wrote, nuances of
meaning may be present that aren’t immediately obvious to us. If we draw our
conclusions too quickly, or don’t think deeply about the passage, we risk
concluding things that are not well supported by the text itself.
Second, and possibly most common, we may fail to truly
consider the passage in context and in light of the rest of Scripture because
we have previously been taught a particular view of its meaning. This is a
particular risk for a passage we find unclear. When we encounter a text that we
do not immediately grasp, we may gloss over it or even dismiss it as one of
those things we just don’t understand, and simply fall back on what we’ve been
told.
There are several ways to ensure that we do not read our own
thoughts into a passage. Primary among them is prayer. Asking the Lord to reveal
His meaning to you is both effective, and rewarding. Time after time I have
found Him faithful in this.
It’s also important to search the Scriptures to find what
else is written on the topic. The Bereans in Acts 17 validated the teachings of
the Apostle Paul in exactly this way. This helps us escape the common trap of
using a certain text as proof of a dearly-held idea. This trap is often called
proof-texting.
Closely related is the use of context. There is a saying
among Bible teachers; “A text without a context is a pretext.”
With that in mind, let’s read the passage in context.
Luke 9:18-36 (NIV)
18 Once when Jesus
was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them,
"Who do the crowds say I am?"
19 They replied,
"Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one
of the prophets of long ago has come back to life."
20 "But what
about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered,
"The Christ of God."
21 Jesus strictly
warned them not to tell this to anyone.
22 And he said,
"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders,
chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third
day be raised to life."
23 Then he said to
them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up
his cross daily and follow me.
24 For whoever wants
to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.
25 What good is it
for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
26 If anyone is
ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes
in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
Luke 9:27 NIV
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste
death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Luke 9:28-36 (NIV)
28 About eight days
after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto
a mountain to pray.
29 As he was praying,
the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash
of lightning.
30 Two men, Moses and
Elijah,
31 appeared in
glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he
was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.
32 Peter and his
companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his
glory and the two men standing with him.
33 As the men were
leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here.
Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for
Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.)
34 While he was
speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they
entered the cloud.
35 A voice came from
the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to
him."
36 When the voice had
spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves,
and told no one at that time what they had seen.
The first thing we can see from reading verse 27 in context
is that the statement was made during a discussion Jesus had with His disciples
about who the people were saying He is. The discussion includes Jesus telling
the disciples that He would be killed and then rise on the third day, and culminates
in Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.
The next thing the passage tells us is that six or eight
days later a notable event takes place during which Jesus’ face changed and His
clothing became as bright as a flash of lightning. We refer to this event as
the transfiguration.
Now that we’ve made a couple of initial assessments based on
context, let’s search the other Gospel books. This series of discussions and
events is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and as
we’ve just read, Luke.
In each of the other two accounts, the statement is made
during the discussion of who the people say Jesus is and is followed by the
transfiguration. This is strong confirmation that these components of the
context are important.
The verses in the other Gospel books that correspond to Luke
9:27 are:
Matthew 16:28 (NIV) I
tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they
see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
Mark 9:1 (NIV)
1 And he said to
them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste
death before they see the kingdom of God
come with power."
Luke 9:27 NIV
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste
death before they see the kingdom of God.”
According to the translators of the New English Translation,
several suggestions have been made about what the phrase “the Son of Man coming
in his kingdom” might refer to: “(1) the transfiguration itself, which
immediately follows in the narrative; (2) Jesus' resurrection and ascension;
(3) the coming of the Spirit; (4) Christ's role in the Church; (5) the
destruction of Jerusalem; (6) Jesus' second coming and the establishment of the
kingdom. The reference to six days later in Matthew 17:1 [and Mark 9:2, and,
“about eight days after Jesus said this” in Luke 9:28] seems to indicate that
Matthew[, Mark, and Luke, all] had the transfiguration in mind insofar as it
was a substantial prefiguring of the consummation of the kingdom (although this
interpretation is not without its problems). As such, the transfiguration would
be a tremendous confirmation to the disciples that even though Jesus had just
finished speaking of his death (in vv. 21-23), he was nonetheless the promised
Messiah and things were proceeding according to God's plan.” –NET Bible
Hard Sayings of the Bible by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter H.
Davids, F. F. Bruce and Manfred T. Brauch treats this statement at length. Here
is what they have to say about it.
BEGIN QUOTE
To say that some who are now present will not die before a
certain event takes place is the same thing as saying that the event will take
place within "this generation." What, then, is the event in
question—the coming of the kingdom of God "with power"?
The kingdom of God, the new order which Jesus came to
inaugurate, had drawn near when he began his public ministry in Galilee; this
was the burden of his preaching at that time (Mark 1:14-15). Its presence was
manifested by his works of mercy and power, especially by his healing of the
demon-possessed: "If it is by the finger of God that I cast out
demons," he said, "then the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Luke 11:20 RSV). But evidently it had not
yet come "with power" as it would come one day in the foreseeable
future. At present it was subject to limitations, but the time would come when
those limitations would be removed and it would advance unchecked.
What, we may ask, had Jesus in mind when he made this
prediction? And can we recognize its fulfillment in any event or development
recorded in the New Testament? We can; but before we try to do so, let us think
of a parallel set of sayings. Jesus sometimes spoke of the kingdom of God; he
sometimes spoke of the Son of Man. He rarely used the two expressions together,
but each implies the other. It is the Son of Man who introduces the kingdom of
God, the Son of Man being Jesus himself. There are two sets of sayings about
the Son of Man in the Gospels which stand in contrast to one another. In the
one set the Son of Man is exposed to humiliation and suffering; in the other he
is vindicated and glorified. His vindication is sometimes described pictorially
as his being enthroned at the right hand of God. This expression is derived
from Psalm 110:1, where the divine invitation is extended to a royal personage:
"Sit at my right hand"—the right hand of God being the position of
supreme honor and power. Thus, standing before his judges, on the point of
receiving the death sentence from them, Jesus assures them that "from now
on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God."
[Luke 22:69]
His death marked the end of his humiliation and suffering
and, with his resurrection, ushered in his vindication. As a later Christian
confession put it, he "was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the
Spirit" (1 Tim. 3:16 RSV). And this transition from the Son of Man's
humiliation to his vindication corresponds exactly to the transition from the
kingdom of God subject to temporary limitations to the kingdom of God now
present "with power." The same phrase "with power" (or
"in power") is used by Paul when he speaks of Jesus as
"descended from David according to the flesh" but "designated
Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection
from the dead" (Romans 1:4 RSV).
With the death and exaltation of Jesus and the coming of the
Spirit on the day of Pentecost following, some of those who were witnesses of
his mighty works in Galilee and elsewhere saw the power of the kingdom of God
manifested on a scale unmatched during his ministry. Within a few weeks, the
number of his followers multiplied tenfold; his kingdom was visibly on the
march.”
“The three Evangelists who record the saying (in varying
terms) go on immediately to describe Jesus' transfiguration, as though that
event bore some relation to the saying (Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke
9:28-36). It cannot be said that the transfiguration was the event which Jesus
said would come within the lifetime of some of his hearers; one does not
normally use such language to refer to something that is to take place in a
week's time. But the three disciples who witnessed the transfiguration had a
vision of the Son of Man vindicated and glorified; they saw in graphic
anticipation the fulfillment of his words about the powerful advent of the
kingdom of God. Matthew, strikingly, in his report of the words speaks of the
Son of Man instead of the kingdom of God: "there are some standing here
who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his
kingdom" (Matthew 16:28 RSV). This is an interpretation of the words, but
a true interpretation. And Matthew follows Mark in saying that when the
disciples had seen the vision, Jesus forbade them to speak about it to anyone
"until the Son of man should have risen from the dead" (Mark 9:9
RSV). His rising from the dead would inaugurate the reality which they had seen
in the vision on the mount of transfiguration, and would at the same time
herald the coming of the kingdom "with power."
One final point: the coming of the kingdom of God is
essentially the coming of God himself. In the Targum (the Arabic rendering of
the Hebrew Bible used in synagogue services) the wording at the end of Isaiah
40:9 is changed from "Behold your God!" to "The kingdom of your
God is revealed." The documentary evidence for this rendering is much
later than the New Testament period, but it reflects rabbinical usage when the
God of Israel overruled the course of events so as to bring his people home
from exile, it might be said that his sovereign power (his "kingdom")
was manifested, but what the prophet said was more direct: "Behold your
God!" In the course of events which led to Israel's return from exile, God
himself was to be seen. So again, when the new deliverance was fully
accomplished by the death and triumph of Jesus, the sovereign power of God was
manifested—God himself came with power.
END QUOTE
–Hard Sayings of the Bible.
This was a lengthy quote and full of detail, but it makes
the point that seeing the kingdom of God is not some oddly placed reference to
believers being caught up to meet Jesus in the air. The kingdom of God is much
more that that event we call The Rapture of the Church. It is also not simply a
city of gold in the great beyond. The kingdom of God is already established and
as believers we experience it here and now in many important ways. It is the
kingdom of God and the power of that kingdom that enables our becoming new
creations in Christ Jesus. If the kingdom were not already established, there
could be no salvation.
In Colossians 2:13 we find, “For He rescued us from the
domain of darkness, and transferred us
to the kingdom of His beloved Son,” I love this verse because it helps me see
the reality of Jesus work on my behalf. My senses perceive that I live under
the same ruler as everyone in the world, but the fact is that I live in the
kingdom of God.
This is what took place at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit
was poured out on the disciples. The old covenant had been replaced by the new
covenant in Jesus own blood, and there is great power in that.
In Luke 11:20, Jesus Himself said that the kingdom had come,
“But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has
come to you.” (NIV)
In John 3:3 (NIV) Jesus made the link between regeneration
(being born again) and seeing the kingdom of God.
3 In reply Jesus
declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless
he is born again." Two verses later He also equated seeing the kingdom
with entering the kingdom.
John 3:5 (NIV)
5 Jesus answered,
"I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is
born of water and the Spirit.
Paul tells us that the kingdom of God is a matter of,
“righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” in Romans 14:17 (NIV) and in 1
Corinthians 4:20 (NIV) 20 For the
kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
As I mentioned earlier, that power was in evidence at
Pentecost.
Luke 24:49 (NIV)
49 I am going to send
you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been
clothed with power from on high."
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