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"For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels; and then
shall He 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" (Matt. 16: 27, 28).
"Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the
name of the Lord" (23: 39).
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be
fulfilled" (24: 34).
There is in each of these verses an untranslated particle, an, the effect of which is to
make the sentence contingent upon something expressed or implied. We can gather from
other scriptures, e.g., Acts 3: 19-21, that the second coming of the Lord would not take
place while Israel remained unrepentant.
In "The Prophecies of the Last Days", by William Ker, a suggestion is made which is
helpful when considering Matt. 24: 34. The author draws attention to the fact that
punctuation and accent are unknown in the earliest Greek manuscripts. Aute and haute
would be written exactly alike, the breathing or its absence being denoted by an accent
like our apostrophe. Aute would have the accent turned to the left ('); haute to the
right (`). With the recognition of these facts all difficulty vanishes from Matt. 24: 34.
"Verily I say unto you, THAT generation shall not pass away till all these things be
fulfilled."
"So speedy shall then be the succession of events, so shall the days be shortened
(verse 22), that the same generation which witnessed the beginning of these signs shall
witness also the end."
The Son of man.
This title occurs in Matt. 16: 27, 28; 24: 30, 39; 25: 31; and 26: 64. The last
reference is decisive in its character:--
"Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming
in the clouds of heaven."
Immediately these words are uttered by the Lord, the High Priest accuses Him of
blasphemy. This is understood when seen in the light of Dan. 7: 13, 14:--
"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, One like the SON OF MAN came with the
CLOUDS OF HEAVEN, and came unto the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near
before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all
people, nations and languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting
dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be
destroyed."
By no legitimate system of interpretation can this dominion be made to refer to
"The Church". On the contrary, the passage exactly fits into Matthew's theme, which is
pre-eminently the King and the kingdom.