Episode Transcript
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Hi everyone, Welcome back again to Daily Gospel X of Jesus.
This is the Catholic podcast that's all about looking at the
literal sense of scripture. What does the text mean?
What is it saying on the original textual level?
So what? What is Jesus trying to
communicate to his audience and what did?
What do the words mean? And we should always start there
before we jump into any spiritual applications.
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We want to start with what does it mean in its original context?
And that's what we help you do in this daily podcast.
We're going to jump straight into it today.
Matthew Chapter 16 versus 24 to 28.
A really interesting reading, Jesus said to his disciples, if
anyone wants to be a follower ofmine, let him renounce himself
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and take up his cross and followme.
For anyone who wants to save hislife will lose it, but anyone
who loses his life for my sake will find it.
What then will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins
his life? Or what has a man to offer in
exchange for his life? For the Son of Man is going to
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come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and when he
does, he will reward each one according to his behavior.
I tell you solemnly, there are some of these standing here who
will not taste death before theysee the Son of Man coming with
his Kingdom. OK, so what's the context here?
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Just before this, Jesus had began to begun to tell his
disciples that he will go to Jerusalem to suffer.
So he's just started to predict his own death from resurrection.
Now, Peter reacted strongly against this idea.
If you remember the passage, he said that will never happen to
you, Lord, such a thing cannot happen.
And Jesus rebuked him and said, get behind me, Satan.
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So that was Peter's response to this idea that Jesus is going to
suffer. That was not the idea of the
Messiah that Peter had. So what we're about to hear
apparently comes straight after that.
Jesus is going to now explain that not only will he suffer
himself, his followers will share in that suffering.
And indeed the point he's going to make is that it's actually a
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necessary part of being a disciple.
One must follow him in his suffering.
Verse 24, Jesus said to his disciples.
Now, Mark's version says there'scrowds listening to him as well,
but given that he generally speaks to the crowd in parables,
his primary audience that he's sort of speaking to mostly here
is probably his disciples. If anyone wants to be a follower
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of mine, let him renounce himself.
So in that culture, it was common for rabbis to have
followers. A Jew could listen to a rabbi
and then choose to follow them if they wanted to, and they
could actually follow them around the land.
So Jesus here is giving the prerequisites for if anyone
wants to be a follower of mine. Now notice that this implies a
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choice. If anyone wants to be a follower
of mine, they must make a decision.
That's kind of what's going on here.
It's not an automatic thing to follow.
Christ, there has to be a decision involved at some point.
Let him renounce himself. Now the word therefore renounce,
that's a legal term in that culture which signified complete
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disornment, not partial disornment, complete disornment.
So Jesus here means not just to let go of selfishness and
attachment, although that's probably in here.
But as he's going to explain, Jesus is actually asking for a
radical abandonment to God, evenbeing willing to give up one's
own life. That's what Jesus is trying to
communicate to his listeners. He's saying, look, if you want
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to be a follower of mine, it's not going to be easy.
Perhaps they thought it was going to be easy up till this
point. He's now telling them there's
going to be suffering and even death for some of you.
And of course, we know that manyof their disciples did die for
the faith. He says let him renounce himself
and take up his cross and followme.
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So take up his cross. I mean, those words might wash
over us a bit because we're, youknow, when we hear the word
cross, we think, of course Jesuscross, but Jesus hasn't been
crucified yet. The Jewish people would have
been quite familiar with this image of a crucifix of a cross
because the Romans crucified Jews pretty commonly.
It was very common, particularlyin Jerusalem, to see Jews being
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killed by crucifixion. But here's the thing to mention
cross or crucifixion in that culture, that Roman crucifixions
were so brutal, so to even mention the word would bring to
mind images of horrific suffering.
So when Jesus here says takes uptake up your cross, he doesn't
just mean deal with your burdensin life.
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He's actually talking about a very extreme type of suffering
that would that's what it would have been conjured up in the
minds of the original audience. In fact, crucifixion was so bad
that apparently even the Romans who invented crucifixion, or who
perfected crucifixion, even theythought it was inappropriate to
mention it in conversation. They even they didn't want to
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talk about it. That's how bad it is.
So what does it mean here? When Jesus says take up his
cross, he probably doesn't mean that he expects all Christian
disciples to be crucified literally.
He's probably using it as a metaphor, which means something
like you need to make big sacrifices and bear heavy
burdens. Now, Simon of Sirene, of course
he literally did do this. Chapter 23, verse 26, he takes
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up Jesus literal cross. But here Jesus means it in a
metaphorical way. You are going to need to bear
heavy burdens and suffer if you want to be my disciple.
This is something that we don't like to hear as 21st century
Christians, particularly prosperity gospel kind of stuff.
They don't like passages like this, but it's probably even
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more extreme than we think. Take up your cross implies
extreme suffering in its original context, he says, And
then follow me. So Jesus says that his followers
must be willing to experience suffering just as he's about to
experience suffering. So he's telling them the radical
demands of discipleship. They need to be completely set
apart to God if they want to follow him and truly be his
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disciples. Jesus is now going to extend his
thought here a bit, and he's going to use some words that
he's actually already used before in Matthew's Gospel.
He's going to talk about if you want to save your life, you'll
lose it, et cetera. Jesus has already said this in
Matthew chapter 10, verse 38 to 39.
If you remember, he said that aspart of the disciples, the
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discourse to the disciples, the fact that Matthew records Jesus
saying it on two separate occasions.
That confirms that Jesus often taught the same phrase on
multiple occasions, in multiple contexts.
We sometimes think that Jesus, whenever he uses words, he uses
it in exactly the same way all the time.
It has to mean the same thing. Not necessarily.
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It was quite common in Jewish circles at the time,
particularly amongst rabbis. That would have a couple of key
phrases that they would continually keep using, but in
different contexts. And they did that as part of
memorization. Because it was a primarily an
oral culture, a rubber would repeat things over and over
again so that his audience wouldremember that phrase.
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And this is apparently one of those phrases.
When Jesus here says anyone who wants to save his life will lose
it, anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.
That was echoing in the minds ofmany Christians, apparently,
because Jesus said it a lot. So for anyone who wants to save
his life will lose it. The word here for life is psyche
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and that can mean soul, but of course it can also mean physical
life. So there's two possible meanings
here, possibly both. When Jesus says for anyone who
wants to save his life will loseit, he could mean he's telling
them not to deny him at the point of death.
As in one must be willing to give up his literal earthly
life. Don't try and save your life if
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you're in a life and death situation.
Do not deny me or the gospel at the point of death.
That could be one meaning or it could be a warning against sort
of spiritual life. Here is, and it's a warning
against worldliness and self protection.
He's telling them that they needto be detached from those
things, otherwise that will losetheir spiritual life.
They won't get to heaven. It will result in eternal death.
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Maybe he's talking about both. So then he flips it around and
says, but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.
What does that mean? Anyone who loses his life for my
sake will find it. It could either refer to being
martyred, as in if you die for the faith, then you'll inherit
eternal life. That would fit.
It could also mean giving up one's old life and possessions,
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and then therefore they'll find their true life, their true
spiritual life. So it's not clear which of those
Jesus means, but certainly it's something like this.
The only way to truly preserve oneself and to inherit one's
true life is to give oneself away fully to Jesus.
And that's what it means to findlife.
It means to find eternal life toenter the Kingdom of heaven.
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Scholars here have pointed out that Jesus demands a more
radical even than a military general.
Because Jesus says anyone who wants to save his life will lose
it. But anyone who loses his life
for my sake will find it. So he's asking for allegiance to
himself, not just to an army or to A cause.
He says You need to be willing to lose your life for my sake.
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Very, very strong claim here from Jesus.
Jesus is now going to use terms here that are drawn from
commerce. So he's going to use words like
profit, gain, forfeit, exchange.These are all kind of monetary
terms. He starts by saying in verse 26,
What then will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins
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his life or forfeits his life? That's a rhetorical question.
The answer is obviously none. The audience, when they heard
that question, they would have said, Oh well, the the answer is
nothing. A man will gain nothing if he
wins the whole world and ruins his life.
So Jesus is trying to get the crowds to focus on eternal
things rather than earthly things.
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He wants them to realize that yes, you know, there's things
you probably want to pursue in this life, but in the end, what
good is that going to be? If you gain the entire physical
world but you lose, you ruin your spiritual life.
What good is that going to be? He wants them to recognize that
our spiritual life is more important than anything else.
Forfeiting that should never be done for a lesser good, and that
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applies still today. We can pursue material things,
but never at the expense of forfeiting our spiritual life
and our relationship with God. Jesus says what has a man to
offer in exchange for his life. Now we probably miss this, but
Jesus here is probably alluding to Psalm 49 versus 7 to 9 which
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says this truly No man can ransom himself or give to God
the price of his life. For the ransom of his life is
costly and yet can never sufficethat he should live on forever
and never see the pit. So that's a clear teaching in
the Psalms that even if someone were to give up his own life,
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that is not a sufficient ransom to inherit eternal life.
That seems to be what that phrase is saying.
So when Jesus, he says what can a man what what has a man to
offer in exchange for his life? He's basically saying there is
really nothing you can give in order to nothing physical you
can give to inherit your spiritual life.
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So you need to pay more attention to your spiritual life
than physical things. That's the overall thrust of
this. Jesus is now going to use some
really interesting language herethat scholars have discussed for
centuries and they're quite divided.
Even if you look at a Bible commentary today, you will see
all sorts of interpretations here.
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So I'll read out the entire phrase or the entire 2 verses,
and then we'll dive into it. See what your mind thinks of,
See what you think is the is thefulfillment of this passage.
What is Jesus thinking of? Have a think about it and we'll
see if that fits. For the Son of Man is going to
come in the glory of his father with his angels, and when he
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does, he will reward each one according to his behavior.
I tell you solemnly, there are some of these standing here who
will not taste death before theysee the Son of Man coming with
his Kingdom. First thing to notice about this
is verse 27, the first where there is 4.
So there's a connection there from the previous passage.
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What he's about to say about thecoming of the Son of Man and
judgment is directly related to what he has just said about he's
warning people not to lose spiritual life.
So Jesus is about to explain whyhe just said what he said.
He's about to explain the incentive for telling people
they have to have a radical commitment to Jesus.
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Why is it they have to have a radical commitment to Jesus?
It's because of what he's about to say here about the Last
Judgment Day. Now, Mark's version adds in some
more information at this point. So Mark's version here adds the
phrases about anyone who is ashamed of me etcetera, etcetera
and anyone who is not ashamed ofme.
And so that fits in here as well.
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But Matthew has cut that out. Instead Matthew starts this part
by saying this. The Son of Man is going to come
in the glory of his father with his angels.
So firstly, who's the son of Man?
That's the term for the Messiah.Jesus disciples expected the
Messiah to bring in the Kingdom in a dramatic apocalyptic way.
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They saw the coming of the Kingdom of God as being a one
time radical event where God sets up his Kingdom on heaven
completely straight away. Jesus here is telling them that
this is going to happen. It's going to happen at the
final judgment. He that's what he says here.
He says the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his
father with his angels. So he's telling his disciples
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here that that is indeed going to happen.
But he doesn't tell them exactlywhen that will happen.
They were expecting it straight away.
Jesus is not going to comment onwhen it's going to happen at
this point and he says he will reward each one according to his
behavior. What it actually says there is
he'll reward each one for what he has done.
If you know the Book of Revelation, well that should
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echo for you because remember one of the last things Jesus
says is in the Book of Revelation is behold, I am
coming soon to bring my reward to give to each one for what he
has done. So this is something Jesus says
even in the Book of Revelation. Jesus is going to come back and
reward or punish people based ontheir deeds, notice what they're
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being rewarded or punished on. It's for what he has done.
It's not for believing that he exists.
It's not for believing that he'sthe Messiah.
Even the criteria of judgment inthe New Testament is always for
what he has done. Let's keep that in mind.
Jesus main point here is something like this.
If anyone wants to get into the Messianic Kingdom, he needs to
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renounce himself and follow me. Anyone who focuses selfishly on
his own life and does not lay himself down will not inherit
eternal life when the Son of Mancomes in glory to set up his
Kingdom. So that's how we sort of fit the
first half of this reading. In the second-half together,
they do connect well. Jesus wants the crowds to put
things in perspective. One day there will be a judgment
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day. Even if they don't know what it
is, they need to be prepared forthat judgment day and everyone
will be rewarded according to their works.
What kind of works would Jesus judge people on?
Well, in the context of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus has
actually already said quite a few times the kinds of things
that are going to be focused on,on judgment Day.
So we see that God will judge people based on their words.
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That's mentioned in Chapter 12 on their thoughts.
That's mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount and their actions
as well. That's mentioned in chapter
seven of the Sermon on the Mount.
He also says in earlier in chapter 6, just after the Our
Father, Jesus says God will judge people based on their
willingness to forgive others. And then later in chapter 25 of
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the Gospel, Jesus says we'll be judged based on our commitment
to doing the works of mercy for those in need.
So all of those will be involvedon Judgment Day.
The picture we get here when we read the entire Gospel of
Matthew is that God and the Son will both be involved in
judgment on the last day, and they will take a big picture,
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look at a person's life and see how committed they were to the
Kingdom and doing the will of the Father.
All of that comes together. Verse 28.
Here's where it starts to get complicated.
I tell you solemnly or truly, truly, I say to you, there are
some of these standing here. So that would be some of the
disciples listening to Jesus speak at the time.
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Note here that it's some not all.
There are some of these standinghere who will not taste death
before they see the Son of Man coming with his Kingdom.
So the teaching here in verse 28is that some of Jesus audience
would still be alive when the Son of Man comes in his Kingdom.
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What does this all mean? Scholars are really divided on
this. Even as I was doing research for
this episode, doing a Google search of different views on
this passage, scholars are splitpretty equally about three
different ways. Even Catholic scholars,
Protestant scholars, they're notsure what to make of this verse,
and there's sort of three main views about it.
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Once again, I just want to read out the passage.
You'll notice how basically withverse 27, verse 27, you probably
have an image of a certain eventcoming.
But then verse 28, whatever you think of the verse 28 is talking
about, they seem to be talking about two different things and
it's hard to put them together. So he's verse 27, for the Son of
Man is going to come in the glory of his father with his
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angels, and when he does, he will reward each one according
to his behavior. So that's verse 27.
It makes you think of the Last Judgment.
But then we have this verse 28. I tell you solemnly, there are
some of these standing here who will not taste death before they
see the Son of Man coming with his Kingdom.
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So that makes it sound like Jesus is talking about an event
that's happening very soon afterhe says this in the lifetime of
his listeners. It's actually hard to put the
two verses together in a coherent way.
Scholars really struggle with it.
There's no explanation which is entirely satisfactory.
And so there's Catholics can have different views about what
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the right way of thinking about it is.
One view, that's not an option. If we're serious Catholics and
we take the church is teaching seriously, we can't say that
Jesus thought he was coming backsoon but was mistaken.
That is not compatible with Catholic beliefs.
We can't say that Jesus held false beliefs.
That's that's not an option for us.
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So there has to be something else going on here.
I'm going to talk to you through4 main options.
I think this is one of these verses or passages of Scripture
that's really worth thinking about, particularly in terms of
prophecy, and to illustrate to you that sometimes there's lots
of good options and we're not sure what the right one is, so
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you choose which one you think makes more sense.
So there's four main views aboutwhat event Jesus is talking
about. So the primary view, the one
that most scholars tend to hold,although certainly not a vast
majority but a lot of people would say that Jesus here is
referring to 70AD. He's talking about his middle
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coming when he returns and destroys the temple and the new
covenant is inaugurated and the old covenant is wiped out.
Certainly some of Jesus audience, though not all of them
would still be alive at this point.
And so it fits that part of the prophecy and lots has been
written about this. The significance of the
destruction of the temple in 70AD.
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This is a very popular. Thing that was discussed amongst
theologians in the 19th and 20thcenturies, the old covenant
system was opposing the growth of Jesus Kingdom and so when
Jesus well when the temple was wiped out in 70 AD, it basically
meant the church was no longer opposed.
God's Kingdom was free to grow further and if you look at the
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Book of Revelation in particularin that light, it appears that
that's what most of the Book of Revelation is describing.
It's the destruction of the temple and the events leading up
to it in 70AD and what that means in terms of the new
covenant being inaugurated. If you're interested in prophecy
and this idea that a lot of it revolves around 70AD and Jesus
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middle coming, then a really good book I recommend for this
is a book called Rapture End Times Error that leaves the
Bible behind and that's by DavidCurry.
So Rapture by David Curry. It's an excellent book on the
most, I think the most logical way of viewing these prophecies,
particularly in the Book of Revelation.
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Now this view, this first view appears to make the best sense
of Jesus prophecy. However, there is a problem with
this view. They've all got problems.
And here's the problem with thisview.
IF70AD is the coming of the Son of Man with his angels, which is
how Jesus describes it here withhis angels, then that means all
of the parables in which Jesus describes the final judgment
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with his angels. So that will be parable of the
wheat among the weeds, parable of the sheep and the goats.
That means they're all primarilyfulfilled in 70AD.
And that might mean that there'snot much prophecy left to be
fulfilled. In fact, very little prophecy
that's yet to be fulfilled and basically what Jesus describes
as the final judgment happened in 70AD.
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That's a big theological step and that's probably not correct.
That's a leap we don't want to make.
We need to leave room for the fact that there's still going to
be a future judgment, So that's possibly a problem with the
first view. The second view is that when
Jesus says some of you will see the Son of Man coming with his
Kingdom, Jesus is referring to the Transfiguration.
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Now that makes sense in a way because the very next thing that
happens in the gospel is the transfiguration.
If you turn the page of your Bible, the very next thing that
happens is that. And that happens only a week
later after Jesus says this. So this view would say that
Jesus is basically saying there is going to be a final judgment.
And by the way, some of you willsee a preview of God's glory in
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the Transfiguration. The first problem with this is
that it would require us to say that Jesus is thinking of two
different events, as in the actual coming of the Son of Man
and then the preview of the coming of the Son of Man in the
Transfiguration. But I don't think that deals
well with the language, that thesame sort of consistent language
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is used all the way through. And a lot of scholars have
pointed this out that it just doesn't seem to do Jesus
prophecy justice. Secondly, it doesn't seem to
take account of the fact that Jesus says some of you will not
taste death before then. The view that he's talking about
the Transfiguration would require us to say that Jesus is
thinking here when he says some,He's thinking of three people.
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Only Peter, James, and John, andnone of his other disciples will
get to see the Son of Man comingin his Kingdom.
Now that doesn't rule this view out.
Actually that doesn't cancel it out, but it does sort of tell us
that there might not be the transfiguration, might not be.
The best way to see the entire passage as being fulfilled. 3rd
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view is, and this is one that has gained popularity in recent
times, is that when Jesus is talking about the coming of the
Son of Man in this passage, he'stalking about the general events
of resurrection, ascension, and expansion of the church, which
would take place in the coming years.
And I'll read out a quote to youfrom the Benson commentary on
Scripture here. Here's what they think Jesus
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means here. So it's a general progression of
the Kingdom of God that the disciples will see, and that you
may not doubt that there shall be a day of judgment when I
shall come, clothed with divine majesty, to render unto men
according to their actions in this life.
Let me assure you that there aresome here present that shall not
die till they shall see. A faint representation of this
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in events which will soon take place, especially in my coming
to set up my mediatorial Kingdomwith great power and glory in
the increase of my church and the destruction of mine enemies.
Accordingly, the disciples saw their great saw their master
coming in His Kingdom when they were witnesses of His
transfiguration, resurrection and ascension, and the
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miraculous gifts of His spirit conferred upon them, and lived
to see Jerusalem with the Jewishstate destroyed and the gospel
propagated through the greatest parts of the then known world.
So that's the Benson commentary's view and you can
see that it combines both of thetwo first views we looked at.
It says that encompasses both the transfiguration, the
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destruction of the temple, and everything in between.
All of that comes under the coming of the Kingdom of God
according to this view, and Jesus is saying some of you will
get to see the unfolding of these events.
That seems to be a pretty good view.
There is one major problem that I think all these three views
have to deal with that I've listed so far.
None of them seem to take account of a key phrase in here,
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which is you will receive your reward.
Jesus here is clearly talking about people receiving rewards
from God whenever this event happens.
Well, people didn't receive rewards at the transfiguration,
not in any obvious way. And it's not clear that people
received rewards in 70 a day either because the temple was
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destroyed. But then sort of life continued
to go on as normal, the church expanded.
You could potentially say that the rewards people experienced
here at this point was their enemies were destroyed and the
people of God were vindicated and God poured out his spiritual
gifts for the beginning of a newage in the church, and perhaps
that will count as rewards. I think a fourth view is better,
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and this is a view that I came across as I was researching.
Not many scholars hold to this one, but I think it's
interesting and worth exploring.So this 4th view would say that
there are two separate events inview here, verse 27.
If you read verse 27, the language that verse uses is the
Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his
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angels, and he'll reward each one to what he's done.
So it's the coming of the Father's Kingdom basically,
which is in the view which is inverse 27.
Now that would happen right at the end of time, at the end of
the process of building the Kingdom of God.
So this view says that whenever Jesus talks about the coming of
the Father's Kingdom, he's basically referring to the final
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judgment at the end of time. Whereas if you read verse 28, it
doesn't mention the Father at all.
It says there are some people who, standing here who will not
taste death before they see the Son of Man coming with his
Kingdom. So it's like the Son of Man's
Kingdom, not the Father's Kingdom.
And perhaps verse 28, the comingof the Son of Man, refers to the
general gradual process of the coming of the Kingdom of God
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which began with Jesus and whichwill take many centuries to
accomplish. And the final event of that
would be the coming fully, whichinvolves the coming of the
Father's Kingdom. So this view would say there's a
distinction between the coming of the Father's Kingdom and the
general coming of the Kingdom ofthe Son of Man.
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So that would make sense of the rewarding everyone passage
because it says that yeah, thereis going to be a reward, but
it's not till the end of time. And it would also make sense of
the second part where he says some of you will see this
because the some of you will seethis is attached to the general
progression of the coming Kingdom of the Son of Man in the
coming years. So that actually solves most of
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the problems. There might be some additional
support for this one as well, because if you look at Mark's
version of this same speech which spans over Chapter 8 and
Chapter 9, Mark's version interestingly starts an entirely
new chapter, so mark Chapter 9, verse one with this final phrase
about the coming of the Kingdom of God.
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So it has the passage about the coming of the Father's Kingdom
is at the end of Mark chapter 8,and then it starts Mark Chapter
9, and at which point Jesus sayssome of you will see the coming
of the Kingdom in the coming years.
Now although the chapter divisions weren't in the
original, it seems that those who made the chapter divisions
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later in history, they saw a transition here between what
what we have is verse 27 about the Father's Kingdom and verse
28 about the Son's Kingdom. So very early in church history
this, they did see some sort of distinction here, as though
Jesus had started talking about a different topic and that's why
they started a new chapter in Mark at least.
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So that's interesting. You can see that each view has
its pros and cons. I would like to see this 4th
view discussed more by scholars because that might help us get
to an answer on this. There's a lot of really good
church documents as well, which talk about the science of
exegesis and how there's some questions that we might never
get answers to about what it means on the literal level.
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But it does have a positive view.
It says most things we probably will resolve in time through
more research, and I suspect that this passage in March,
chapter 16 versus 27 and 28, will be resolved in the future.
So we've had an extended discussion here about this
passage, but I hope you've benefited from hearing these
different views, particularly because it's a passage about
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prophecy and everyone's interested in prophecy.
So this is the end of chapter 16.
The start of chapter 17 is rightat different times in the
liturgical year. So the start of chapter 17, the
first thing that happens verse 1to 9 is the Transfiguration.
That's not read on a weekday, but it is read on the feast of
the Transfiguration in year A, that's on August 6th every year.
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So and that's actually around the time that this today's
episode is airing. So if you're listening in year
A, you'll probably hear the start of Matthew chapter 17 in
one of the days close to this. It's also read on the 2nd Sunday
of Lent in year A and then the next part of Matthew 17 verses
10 to 13. That's about the relationship
between Elijah and John the Baptist.
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That's read on Saturday of week 2IN Advent.
So the next weekday episode is going to begin at verse 14 of
Matthew chapter 17. If we turn to the Catechism,
we'll just go through a couple of key verses here which are
worth looking at. So paragraph 736 of the
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Catechism says that we live by the Spirit.
The more we renounce ourselves, the more we walk by the Spirit.
This is in the section of the Catechism about the Holy Spirit.
So basically the Church's teaching is to get more in touch
with the Spirit. We need to renounce ourselves
more. And that comes, of course, from
this passage, paragraph 226. This is early in the Catechism
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about what it means to believe in one God.
It says it means that we should make good use of created things.
faith in God, the only one, leads us to use everything that
is not God only insofar as it brings us closer to Him, and to
detach ourselves from it, insofar as it turns us away from
Him. And then it goes on to give this
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beautiful prayer. And you can clearly hear the
link there to what Jesus says about detachment.
Paragraph 618 talks about how Jesus calls his disciples to
take up their cross and follow Him, and it goes on to talk
about how Jesus left us. An example that we should
follow. Paragraph 2029 is about
salvation and how we achieve salvation.
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And it purely just quotes this If any man would come after me,
let him deny himself and take uphis cross and follow me.
That's the entire paragraph. Paragraph 2029.
So the Church sees in here an important teaching about
salvation. If you want to be saved, if you
want to be justified, then you have to come after Jesus.
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There's a discussion about the soul in paragraph 363.
I'll include that in the show notes.
And then also paragraph 1021 is a discussion about the judgment
day and how Jesus is going to beinvolved in the judgment.
And also the second coming is mentioned in that paragraph as
well. So we're running out of time
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here. It's a bit of a longer episode.
I'll include all of those paragraphs in the show notes.
Thank you for listening today. I hope you've appreciated diving
into this text in a bit of detail, one which scholars are
not entirely sure what to make of it, But there's a lot of
richness in here. As always, whenever we do an
exegesis of the text, there's always new things to discover.
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Thank you. We'll continue in the Gospel of
Matthew in the coming days.