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(Spoken in the Chudov Monastery, August 6th) Amen, I say unto you, that there are none of them that stand here, who have not tasted death, until they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom (Matthew 16:28). The Jews, from the days of their ancestor Abraham, expected a certain blessed kingdom, which was to be established through the promised seed, in which, according to the promise, all the nations of the earth would be blessed: but more than fourty generations of Abraham tasted death before the promised seed and the expected kingdom appeared. So, it was very important for them to learn that there are already people who will live to see the appearance of this kingdom. “There are none of those who stand here, who have not tasted death, until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Christians! With the Jews, we do not dreamily expect a blissful kingdom of the earthly, worldly, sensual, but by faith we expect a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, the kingdom of God itself. However, aren’t some of us like the Jews in that they place the limits of the expected kingdom of God beyond the tomb? Isn’t it therefore new for us, and so that we do not remain ignorant of the truth that has long been proclaimed, a very necessary teaching, that there are and should be people who encounter the kingdom of God closer to the grave? “There are none of those who stand here, who have not tasted death, until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” The kingdom of Jesus Christ the Son of God is the kingdom of all ages. The Psalmist wrote, the Apostle interpreted the Psalmist’s saying about the Son of God: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Heb. 1:8). And let no one think that this only means eternity in the future, or the endless kingdom of the Son of God: for the same Apostle, and in the same discussion about the Son of God, says that “In Him... the worlds were created, and... He brought forth all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:2-3); consequently, His royal power is eternal in the full signification of this word, as having neither a temporal beginning nor a temporal end; and He truly rules over creatures throughout the entire existence of creatures. Therefore, the kingdom of the Son of God in relation to the Son of God Himself will not only be, but also is and was; does not come, but abides; is not limited to any limits, but extends indefinitely. How do the disciples ask the Lord: “If in this year you will establish the kingdom of Israel” (Acts 1:6)? What does John preach: “the kingdom of heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 3:2)? One suggests that the kingdom of heaven was far away; others think that the kingdom of Israel, by which name, no doubt, is meant the kingdom of Jesus Christ the Son of God, has not yet been established. This is what is said about the kingdom of the Son of God in relation to people. The kingdom of heaven is far away if it is not known by people; it has not yet been established when people do not establish themselves as members and instruments of it. The Kingdom of Heaven draws near when it is known by men; is built when they are “built into a habitation of God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). Because for man, in its full order, the kingdom of heaven appears and is known in the heavens, God in God, and this can only be when “we see Him face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12), “as it is” (1 John 3:2); when “God will be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), and this can be not before, as with permission from the mortal body, which, in the words of the Apostle, “departs us from the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6); This is the basis for thinking, as they usually think, that every son of the kingdom must wait for the kingdom of heaven not before the death of his earthly body, and for everyone not before, just like the whole “earth... and even the works in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). But between the eternal kingdom of God, which must be revealed in people after temporary life and the transitory world, the Lord indicates a certain average view of His kingdom, not completely incomprehensible, and not completely open, part of the future, part of the present, for some sought and expected, for others found and real. “There are none of those who stand here, who have not tasted death, until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Who stood there around the Lord when He uttered this mysterious prediction? In their lives we must see how it was fulfilled and what it meant. Who were standing there? From the Gospel narrative it is clear that these were the twelve Apostles, and that Jesus spoke to “His disciples” (Matthew 16:24) about His imminent coming in His kingdom, or, as another Evangelist put it, “about the vision of the kingdom of God coming in power” (Mark 9:1). How did the Apostles see this before they tasted death, and which of them especially saw this? Jesus Christ appeared in the world, “receiving the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), hiding the power of His kingdom, or revealing only the beginnings of it in powerful words and miracles. This was, without a doubt, until His death on the cross. But even after His resurrection, He solemnly announced Himself to His disciples that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him” (Matthew 28:18): consequently, from His very resurrection they began to “see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.” When He then ascended into heaven, sat down at the right hand of God the Father, and again appeared to those coming to earth, sending down the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and other believers, when, through this Spirit, He really began to build out of the believers one well-established society of His followers, His church, His kingdom, when this kingdom from Judea spread to all countries of the world with such speed that during the lifetime of the Apostles it extended already from India to Spain, from Scythia to Ethiopia, with such force that the persecution of the Caesars was defeated by the blood of martyrdom: then, without hesitation, the Apostles could tell the Lord in response to His prediction that truly, “not yet... taste in death, ... they saw the kingdom of God come in power.” But it is not difficult to notice that in this meaning, the vision of the Son of Man coming in His kingdom, and the Kingdom of God coming in power, with little inequality, belonged to all the Apostles, except for Judas the traitor: the Lord assimilates the promised vision only to some of them: “the essence is not of them that stand here.” Therefore, the question involuntarily resumes: who are these some? To answer this, simple, but nonetheless true, let’s not speculate, but read the Gospel narrative as it is. “There are none of those who stand here,” says the Lord, “who have not tasted death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. And after six days,” continues the Evangelist, “Jesus gave water to Peter and James and his brother John, and brought them up to a high mountain alone, and was transfigured before them” (Matthew 16:28, 17:1–2). Why would the Evangelist mean with such precision the interval of time between the prediction of the imminent coming of the Son of Man in His kingdom and between the miraculous effect of the Transfiguration of the Lord, if He did not believe there was a close connection between these cases, if, that is, what happened exactly a week after the prediction was not an event of the prediction? So, none of those standing around Jesus, namely Peter, James and John, saw him coming in His kingdom, saw the kingdom of God come with power, when they saw His glorious transfiguration. The divinity of Jesus shone through His humanity; Moses the lawgiver, like a slave, appeared before the Lord of the Law; Elijah, a zealot of the one true God, came to worship the God-man; the voice of God the Father announced the beloved Son and invited him to obey Him as a king: “Listen to him” (Matthew 17:5); the blessed power of the kingdom of heaven penetrated and delighted the Apostles, and heavenly life almost swallowed up earthly life in them; so that the return from heavenly vision to earthly sensations seemed to them like an awakening from sleep, or perhaps it would not be decent to call this a immersion from the alert life of heaven into the half-asleep life of earth. A wonderful vision, some may think: but what does that matter to us, when the Lord promised it to a chosen few, and now the event has already passed? And I think that in the entire earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ there is hardly anything that does not concern us. Wasn't He born on earth for us, lived, died, and rose again? Was it not for our salvation that he spoke and did everything? And just as it is true that He did everything necessary for us, it is also true that He did nothing unnecessary. It was necessary for Him, after His appearance in the form of a servant, but before His last glorious coming, to first and secretly come in His kingdom; It was necessary that His disciples, having not yet tasted death, although for the blink of an eye, saw the kingdom of God coming in power; this was required by the universal law of gradualism, observed in the actions and revelations of God; This particular manifestation of the kingdom of heaven was necessary to prepare for the difficult and slow full revelation of it. And this serves as an indication for us, and even in our present life, “beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, we will be transformed into the same image” (2 Cor. 3:18). It is necessary that we, first struggling in repentance, in keeping the commandments, like slaves, then through faith, prayer, love, become sons of God from slaves, be transformed internally from earthly people into heavenly ones, so that we can finally be resurrected and ascend into a glorious life and the kingdom of heaven. In whom the kingdom of God has not come in power before death, after death he will not come into the kingdom of God, which abides in glory. Amen. You might be interested in: