A Failed “Harmonization”
A FAILED “HARMONIZATION”
Just in the last few days (11-1-2024) a FB poster appealed to Matthew 16:27-28 as supportive of the full preterist paradigm. In response, former preterist Sam Frost said that what was missing in the original post was a proper harmonization, which Frost suggested, is what he would offer. Here is the entirety of Frost’s comment:
//Sam Frost
We would first seek a “harmonization” with the Gospels, and we find that he is speaking to “a multitude” (Mark 8:34). Second, we would note the time of his ministry. I agree, the transformation on the mount (most likely Hermon) is not what he is specifically targeting, but is a “clue in” on the subject matter. After all, we see that the imagery “alludes” to Daniel 7 (this is readily attested for in many top tier commentaries). If the target were the “ascension” (again, Daniel 7 – which depicts of “coming” – same word in the LXX – of the “son of man” with angels TO the Ancient of Days, in “glory” to receive a “kingdom” – all in Daniel 7:13-14), then we can safely say that many would have died in that multitude (people die every day).
Upon this, the coming of the son of man on the clouds of heaven to be made present by the myriads of angels in glory is essentially what Peter states: “who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him” (1 Peter 3:22). The fact that Peter also links this “presence” (parousia) with the transfiguration, brings us to see that event as a “preview” of his ascension (1 Peter 1:16-ff.– sic– it is 2 Peter 1:16f, DKP).
Mark 8:31 sets the stage, “that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” This “rising again” is ascension, or “after three days, then enter his glory.” Equally, in Mark, the Enthronement Psalm (110) and Daniel 7:13-14 are conflated (Mark 14:62). That is, these two references point to ascension/exaltation. (https://www.facebook.com/fred.kohn.3/posts/pfbid025q2k9qzbdVM6NCxKWGRDgU19odNtFhaK7Z1shm6b9m61kmvEEihAUuYVz1u16MbGl?comment_id=940764717901705¬if_id=1730598073942243¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif).
Frost’s post can best be summarized in a few points:
☛ In Matthew 16:28 Jesus was all but directly citing Daniel 7:13-14 which foretold the coming of the Son of Man, on the clouds of heaven.
☛ That was the time when the Son of Man received the kingdom.
☛ Since Matthew 16:28 is referent to the Son of Man coming in the kingdom, this must mean that it was fulfilled in Acts 1 at Jesus’ ascension.
Don– Matthew 16:28 is Jesus coming “IN his kingdom” not coming INTO his kingdom.
Frost also conflated the Transfiguration vision with all of this to try and buttress his claim that Matthew 16:28 was fulfilled at the Ascension.
It should be noted that Frost’s association of Matthew 16:28 with the Ascension is not new. Numerous scholars through the ages have made that suggestion. However, there are a host of reasons why Frost’s suggested “harmonization” fails. I will list only some of those reasons here. A few quick points will suffice.
Frost rightly points out that according to the parallel account of the Transfiguration Mark 8-9, there was a great multitude present when Jesus uttered the words of Matthew 16:28 / Mark 9:1. This is problematic for Frost’s suggestion that the Ascension was the fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction of the coming of the Son of Man.
Notice carefully Jesus’ words “There are SOME standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” That word “SOME” is highly important, but Frost tries to mitigate the force of the word. Why is that “some” important? Frost attempts to have Jesus say: “then we can safely say that many would have died in that multitude (people die every day). But Jesus said that ONLY SOME of that multitude would live to see he parousia. While SOME of that large crowd would live to see the parousia, the majority would not! Many scholars have taken note of this difficulty.
So, how long was it from the time when Jesus made his prediction to the ascension? According to some sources it was no more than six months. That means that if Jesus was speaking of his ascension in v. 28, that the majority of that large crowd was going to die in the following six months! Frost’s attempt at harmonizing the “some standing here” with the fact that “people die every day” stretches credulity beyond the breaking point. Of course people die every day. That is not the point. The focus of Jesus’ discussion was that particular “multitude” and whether most of them would die within six months.
Consider 1 Corinthians 15 and Paul’s discussion of Jesus’ resurrection. He lists a series of eyewitnesses to the Lord’s resurrection and says, “He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.”
Paul was writing circa AD 55-57 or so. That was two decades + after Jesus’ resurrection. Notice that he says Jesus was seen by over 500 people at one time. And when Paul wrote “the greater part remain to the present but some have fallen asleep.” The majority of the 500 witnesses were still alive two decades after they saw the risen Lord! When we compare this with what Jesus said in Matthew 16:8 there is a sharp contrast. A great multitude was present at that time. And Jesus was supposedly saying that only some would live for another six months. That is, to say the least, incongruous.
A Glaring Omission
Frost seems to be doing one of two things: 1.) Divorcing Matthew 16:27 from v. 28, or, 2.) Assuming that like v. 28, verse 27 was also fulfilled in visionary form at the Transfiguration or the Ascension. Yet, Frost indicates that he believes the Transfiguration was a vision of Christ’s final parousia: “The fact that Peter also links this “presence” (parousia) with the transfiguration, brings us to see that event as a “preview” of his ascension.” (1 Peter 1:16-ff.– sic– it is 2 Peter 1:16f, DKP).
This is untenable. First of all, Peter is very clear that the Transfiguration was NOT a vision of Christ’s ascension. It was a vision of Christ’s parousia. Thus, the Transfiguration was a vision of Christ’s parousia; it was not a vision of Jesus’ ascension. Those are two temporally distinct events. If he does believe this, then, in light of the grammatical linkage between the two verses, it is wrong to link v. 27 or 28 to the ascension.
The fact is that in the grammar of the text, verse 27 cannot be divorced from verse 28. This is a fact that Frost totally ignored. But it is critical, and here is why.
In verse 27 we find Jesus’ prediction of his coming with the angels in judgment.
In verse 28 he introduces what he is about to say by using the Greek term amen lego humin.
Some might suggest that verse 28 breaks the subject from verse 27 by Jesus’ use of the formula, “Verily I say unto you.” In other words he (supposedly) speaks about the end of time in verse 27, but then changes the subject with some kind of an idiomatic formula well known to his listeners but lost on a modern audience. This is an untenable claim.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance reveals that the phrase, “verily I say unto you” (Greek, amen lego humin), is used 95 times in the New Testament. In every occurrence, this little phrase “verily I say to you,” emphasizes a topic already under consideration, by giving additional information. Unless amen lego humin is being used in a totally unprecedented way in Matthew 16:28/Mark 9:1, there is not one place in the New Testament where the phrase introduces a new discussion. The phrase is always used to emphasize a statement about a subject that is already under consideration. The term calls attention to what is about to be said that will emphasize what has just been said. Think of what that means here.
Jesus, in verse 27 said he would come with his angels, in glory and judge every man. Then, to emphasize that statement, he emphatically stated when it would happen. Grammatically, therefore, there is no justification for dividing verse 27 from verse 28. So, unless Frost can prove absolutely that, “Verily I say unto you” does not have its normal usage of calling attention to something that is about to be said that will emphasize what has just been said, its usage in Matthew 16:28 is conclusive evidence that Jesus was indeed predicting his return– in judgment – in that generation. These verses cannot be divided. Since Frost does not connect Christ’s coming in judgment with the ascension, but the text does link his coming in judgment with his coming in the kingdom, then Frost’s “harmonization” fails. Frost is dichotomizing scripture, not harmonizing it.
For Frost’s “harmonization” to work, he needs verse 27 to not be linked to v. 28. After all, if he posits v. 28 at Jesus’ ascension– that was not his coming in judgment to reward every man! But if verse 28 is a continuation of v. 27 then Frost’s entire post is invalidated.
The reader must ask themselves the question, was the ascension in any shape, form or fashion the time of the coming of the Son of Man in judgment of all men? Frost ignores the the grammar of v. 27-28 which demands that they both speak of Jesus’ coming in judgment at his coming in the kingdom.* That is what Matthew 16:27 unambiguously foretold.
* In passage after passage, the coming of Christ in judgment is connected to his coming in the kingdom (Matthew 25:31f / 2 Timothy 4:1-2 / Revelation 11:15ff). Christ’s ascension is never linked with his coming in judgment.
Frost is correct to link Matthew 16:28 with Daniel 7, but his fundamental error is his refusal to see the Daniel 7:13-14 is a depiction of the coming of the Son of Man in the judgment of the persecuting “Little Horn.” As Elton Hollon, with whom Frost has collaborated recently, has noted, there is strong support for this and for rejecting the idea that the coming of the Son of Man refers to Jesus ascending to the Father to fulfill Daniel 7. While Hollon takes note that it is common for commentators to posit Daniel 7:13f as Christ’s ascension he says:
There are significant problems with this view. The first problem is the assumption that the Son of Man ascends to the Ancient One simply because the passage mentions a throne room. In fact, the direction of travel is not specified in the text. Hence, the deduction is invalid because there are a number of Old Testament (OT) texts also depicting God’s throne room of judgment on earth (Jer 49:38; Joel 3 [4]:1-2, 12; Zech 14:1-5; Ps 50: 96:10-13; 1 En 25:3; 90:20-27). Dan 7:9 38 and I will set my throne in Jeremiah 49:38- As I watched, thrones were set in place, Elam, and destroy their king and the Ancient One took his throne, … and officials, says the Lord. his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire. Rowley identifies an antitypical parallel between the beasts rising out of the sea and the descent of the Son of Man, contrasting their origin. 40 Dalman and Goldingay further point out that the grammar of the passage between Dan 7:8-9 supports the setting on earth.41 (Gustaf Dalman The Words of Jesus Translated by D.M. Kay (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902), 241, cf. 2. John Goldingay Daniel. Revised Edition , WBC 30 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 1996, 2019), 361).” (https://www.academia.edu/31820415/THE_JEWISH_APOCALYPTIC_BACKGROUND_OF_THE_SON_OF_MAN_AND_THE_NEW_TESTAMENT, pages 8f).
Consistent with this is the following from Andreas Stutz, who takes note of Jesus’ use of the term Son of Man:
Jesus adapted the term (‘the son of man’) in a very balanced way: sixteen times relating to his earthly life, twenty-seven times referring to his suffering, and twenty -six times to his glorification. …“While Jesus applied the term ‘Son of Man’ from Daniel 7:13-14 to the various states of his ministry, he applied the vision reported in Daniel 7:13-14 (along with Zechariah 12:10) exclusively and unambiguously to his return (Matthew 24:30; 26:64; Luke 21:26-27). This observation confirms Jesus understood himself as the Danielic ‘Son of Man.’”(Andreas Stutz, A Handbook on The Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, Edited by Craig Evans and David Mishkin, (Peabody, Mass; Hendrickson, 2019), 157, 158).
So, Stutz, as many scholars do, see Jesus’ referent to his coming as the Son of Man in judgment as a direct referent to Daniel 7– not to the ascension.
Craig Keener adds some additional helpful information:
Early Christians also found in Jesus’ ascension, fulfillment of Psalms 110:1 (Explicit in Luke 20:42 / Mark 12:36 / Matthew 22:44 / Hebrews 1:13), exemplified also in this context (Acts 2:33-34 / Cf. 7:55-56). They also cite the authority of Jesus for the use of this text (Mark 12:36 / 14:62), and in Luke’s story Jesus is also the source for the early Christian’s biblical theology surrounding his exaltation (Luke 20:42 / 22:69).” In Footnote #645, page 720– Keener says: “Most NT writers who refer to the ascension do so only by way of Psalms 110:1.”
The indisputable fact is that in every occurrence of Jesus’ predictions of the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven, he was predicting his coming in judgment. Notice just one major example, Matthew 25:31-32:
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
We have here every element of Matthew 16:27-28:
★ We have the coming of the Son of Man in glory.
★ We have the coming of the Son of Man with the angels.
★ We have the coming of the Son of Man with the angels- to sit on his throne.
★ We have the coming of the Son of Man with the angels in judgment.
★ We have the coming of the Son of Man with the angels- to sit on his throne in the kingdom.
This is patently directly parallel with Matthew 16:17-28 and it is unequivocally not a reference to Jesus’ ascension. Make no mistake, Frost does not link this text to Acts 1 and Jesus’ ascension. He understands that this is the “final judgment” at some imaginary end of human history. So, just how would one delineate between Matthew 16:27-28 and this text. Frost does not mention this text in his comments.
Since neither Jesus’ ascension nor his enthronement in Acts 2 was his coming in judgment of all men it is safe to say that Frost is taking Jesus’ comments in Matthew 16:27-28 completely out of their context.* That is not harmonization, that is eisegesis.
*N. T. Wright correctly observes that the context of Matthew 16:27-28 is Jesus’ promise to come in vindicative judgment on the Jews for persecuting him and his followers:
The whole of the story, of judgement for those who had not followed Jesus and the vindication for those who had, is summed up in the cryptic but frequently repeated saying “the first shall be last, the last first. In other words, when the great tribulation came on Israel, those who had followed Jesus would be delivered; and that would be the sign that Jesus had been in the right, and that in consequence they had been in the right in following him. The destruction of Jerusalem on the one hand, and the rescue of the disciples on the other, would be the vindication of what Jesus had been saying throughout his ministry (N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, Fortress, 1996), 338).
So, consider the following:
✦ Daniel 7:13-14 is set in a context of persecution and judgment of the persecutor. In a quick, admittedly not comprehensive, survey of several commentaries on Daniel 7, I found that everyone of them posited Daniel 7:13-14 in the context of judgment. Most of them posited the judgment in view as the final, end time judgment, but the point is that they all noted the judgment context. And to be clear, Frost does not see Daniel 7 as predictive of the “final judgment.”
✦ The interpretation of Daniel 7, beginning in v. 15, has the Son of Man coming as the Ancient of Days in judgment of the persecuting Little Horn. There is nothing in the interpretation of the vision that speaks of the ascension of Christ. It is about the judgment of the persecutor of God’s people.
Frost says that since the interpretation of the vision does not mention the coming of the Son of Man, this somehow means that Daniel 7:13-14 is not part of the interpretation. However, as noted scholars such as N. T. Wright have observed, “In the LXX version of Daniel 7.13 the translator has interpreted ‘he came to the ancient of Days’ as ‘he came as the Ancient of Days.’” (N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, Fortress, 1996), 625). Wright quotes Rowland: “The Son of Man is in fact the embodiment of the person of the Ancient of Days. In other words the original scene in Daniel 7, where two figures exist alongside each other in heaven, is changed so that the vice-regent, the Son of Man, takes upon himself the form and character of God himself.” In this view, then, verses 13-14 were not omitted at all! They were included by identifying the Son of Man as Deity, acting in vindicative judgment against the Little Horn.
✦ As we have seen, in the NT, every time Jesus’ spoke of his coming as the Son of Man on the clouds, citing Daniel 7:13-14, he was speaking of his coming in judgment. He was not speaking of his ascension. Frost knows that the ascension was not the parousia of Christ in judgment.
✦ In the NT, Jesus’ coming as the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven also includes his coming in the kingdom. Kingdom and judgment were synchronous events (cf. 2 Timothy 4:1-2).
✦ The grammar of Matthew 16:27-28 ties the two verses together. This means that verse 28 is adding emphasis to verse 27 and tells us when Jesus’ coming as the Son of Man in judgment was to be: “Verily I say unto you, there are some standing here who shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his king.” And the indisputable fact is that Jesus did not come in judgment at his ascension or at his enthronement of Acts 2.
However, we know that Jesus predicted this:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, 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 His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 32 “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! 34 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place (Matthew 24:29-34).
Frost cannot apply this to the ascension without being guilty in the extreme of anachronism. This is the coming of the Son of Man, in judgment. (And don’t forget that in Luke 21:28-32, that coming is also the coming of the kingdom). It is the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds. It is the coming of the Son of Man with the angels. And make no mistake, the vast majority of scholars admit that in this text Jesus was drawing directly on Daniel 7:13-14. That powerfully falsifies the claim that the ascension was the fulfillment of Daniel, since what is being described would take place a good while after the ascension and to reiterate, Matthew 24:29ff is in the context of judgment.
I could say much, much more, but this is more than enough to show that Frost has totally failed in his claim to be harmonizing the Scriptures. In fact, he distorts and abuses both the context of Daniel 7, and Jesus’ own application of Daniel to his coming in judgment. He came in judgment of the great persecutor, Israel and Jerusalem, the great harlot city Babylon, in AD 70.