Jesus revealed next that some of the disciples whom He addressed would not die until they saw Him coming in His kingdom. This prediction may at first appear to be very similar to the one in 10:23. However, that verse refers to something else, namely Jesus' reunion with His disciples following their preaching tour in Galilee.
This verse (v. 28) cannot mean that Jesus returned to set up the messianic kingdom during the lifetime of these disciples since that did not happen. It does not mean that Jesus had already set up the kingdom when He spoke these words.659What Jesus predicted would happen in the future rules this out. Some interpreters have taken Jesus' words as a reference to His resurrection and ascension. However, Jesus spoke of those events elsewhere as His departure, not His coming (John 16:7). Moreover such a view interprets the kingdom in a heavenly sense rather than in the earthly sense in which the Old Testament writers consistently spoke of it.660Other interpreters believe that Jesus was speaking about the day of Pentecost.661However the Son of Man did not come then. The Holy Spirit did. Furthermore the kingdom did not begin then. The church did. Still others hold that the destruction of Jerusalem is in view.662The only link with that event is judgment.
Jesus appears to have been predicting the preview of His coming to establish His kingdom that He gave Peter, James, and John in the Transfiguration (17:1-8).663The Transfiguration follows this prediction immediately in all three of the Gospels that record it (cf. Mark 9:1-8; Luke 9:27-36). Moreover Matthew, Mark, and Luke all linked Jesus' prediction and the Transfiguration with connectives. Matthew and Mark used "and"(Gr. de) while Luke used "and . . . it came about"(Gr. egeneto de). Peter, one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration, interpreted it as a preview of the kingdom (2 Pet. 1:16-18). Finally Jesus' "truly I say to you"or "I tell you the truth"(v. 28) separates His prediction of the establishment of the kingdom (v. 27) from His prediction of the vision of the kingdom (v. 28). Jesus' reference to some not tasting death until they saw the kingdom may seem strange at first, but in the context Jesus had been speaking of dying (vv. 24-26).
