Parousia & Kingdom Pt 1

Matthew 16:24 

Who is ready for the Parousia of King and Kingdom?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, 

V24 “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and 

• • • take up their cross
    • and follow me.   
      • Whose Kingdom are you Building?

25For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  26What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 

The King is Coming 

27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. 

What will this day look like for faithful servants of the King? 

28“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Apologetic Defense Question: Didn’t they all die before Jesus returned? 

1. Who were the ones standing there that would not taste death until they saw the Son of Man coming in His kingdom? 
2. The following passage is commonly misunderstood because it was given a separate chapter (chp.17). This does not change or replace the subject matter or context.  
3. The story remains eschatological and still about the Son of Man returning in His Kingdom. 

Conclusion: The Son of Man, Coming in his Kingdom is revealed on Mt Transfiguration. 

Apologetic Defense Question: Why use the title Son of Man? If Jesus is God, why didn’t he say so? 

• Jesus never calls Himself “The Son of God” 
  • “Before Abraham was, I AM”, – Jesus 
  • “My Father” (Equal with the Father) – Jesus 
  • Jesus did not self-proclaim with the title “Son of God”, He allowed Someone very important to proclaim this TITLE of Him, on purpose.  Who Calls Jesus,  “Son of God”?
• Jesus’ Baptism: The Father in a voice from heaven declares, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”. 
• The Transfiguration: During the Transfiguration, a voice from a bright cloud proclaims, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”. 

• How does Jesus Self Proclaim?

• •  In Matthew 9:6, Jesus states, “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,”
    • Divine authority over SIN
  • In Mark 2:28, Jesus says, “For The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath,”
    • • Divine authority over the LAW 
    • “THE” is a definite article – It’s a very important title!
    • In the Gospels, Jesus frequently used “the Son of Man,” over 82 times. 
    • This raises the question: what did Jesus mean by calling Himself “The Son of Man”?
      • Jesus is not referring to his humanity but is claiming divine authority. 
      • It is a mistake to think Son of God is a higher claim. 
        • The phrases are not interchangeable. 
      • The title “Son of Man” is the title Daniel gives for the Messiah, who would come to establish God’s kingdom. 
    • Significance of the Title: By calling himself “Son of Man,” Jesus is not just claiming to be a human being, but also asserting his divine nature and authority as King over His Kingdom on Earth, A planet that was given dominion by the Father to a man named Adam,
      • Adam means man 
      • Ben Adam means Son of Adam
      • Ha Ben Adama means THE SON of MAN – A Title Given for Dominion vested by the Father. 
• It’s a mistake to assume that the title,  “The Son of Man” is a reference to Jesus’ humanity, contrasting with “Son of God,” which emphasizes His divinity. 

• • It isn’t that one speaks of His divinity and the other speaks of his humanity. 
  • But both “The Son of Man” and “Son of God” speak of His divinity. 
  • But the Son of Man carries more weight and has more story to the glory.

To put it in the apostle John’s language, the Word became flesh (John 1:14). 

1. His humanity isn’t a costume. 
2. The eternal divine Son didn’t simply make a cameo in the created world. 
3. He forever joined our humanity to his divinity and for all eternity will be fully God and fully man.

We get a glimpse of this at Jesus’ ascension in Acts 1:11.

• This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” 

He went up with a human body. 

• He sits now in God’s presence in his humanity. 
• And he will return “in the same way as you saw him go into heaven”—in his humanity.
• In Philippians 3:20–21, Paul writes, Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. 

Jesus didn’t shed his human skin. 

• He still has a body—a “glorious body,” a perfected human body, a body like we haven’t yet experienced but one day will experience when he transforms us.
• Paul also refers to Jesus’ continuing humanity in 1 Timothy 2:5. There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 
• Here Paul is writing after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, and he is not afraid to refer to Jesus in the present as “the man Christ Jesus.”

Do you know what happens when someone from your family becomes king? 

• You become royalty and because he is one of us, we will rule and reign with him! 

He will forever have a neck to hug

• He will forever have hands to hold
• He will forever have a shoulder to place your head
• And feet to lay your crowns at
• He is the son of god who became the Son of Man and he is one of us! 

Just as forever he will be like us

• We forever will be like him! 
• Not just justified
• And sanctified 
• But we will all be glorified bodies and shine like stars with our king
  • Philippians 3:21, which states, “He will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself”. 

The TITLE ” The Son of Man” is the PAROUSIA STORY: The Gospel is the story of Jesus coming down! 

1. Speaks of the Son of God taking on flesh to become the Son of Man. 
2. A GOD-MAN returning to the Earth to Rule and Establish an Eternal Kingdom. 

• Unlike the prophet Ezekiel, who was called “a son of man” to highlight his humanity, 
• Jesus always used the definite article—  “The Son of Man.”
•  This distinction indicates that Jesus was referring to a specific figure described in Daniel 7.

600 years before Jesus…Daniel 7:13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven (Only divinity in ANE did this) there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. (Daniel sees a man who has divinity, in the clouds, that is coming from meeting with the ancient of Days, Father God.) 14 And to him was given dominion (Radah – Rule, Judgement) and glory (Chabad – Weight, Worth) and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

The Father and the Son worked this out before creation even began, the Son of God would become the Son of Man. 

• Revelation 13:8 Jesus Christ slain from the foundations of the world.
• But you were also chosen in Him before creation. 
• Ephesians 1:4: “For he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.” 
  • He knew your name and that you would say yes before the world and creation began. 
  • He knew that the Father would reveal to you that the Son of God is Jesus and that you would confess this
  • And that you would rule with the Son of Man in all of his glory. 

His Return and Kingdom was set up and being prepared before creation as well! 

• Matthew 25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

So it is important how Jesus is addressed by himself as The Son of Man and by only a few, The Son of God. 

Who are these few, and how do they know to address him this way? 

• Simon Peter’s declaration: In Matthew 16:16, Simon Peter, after Jesus asks his disciples who they believe him to be, answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Blessed are you, Peter, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my FATHER in heaven. 

Matthew 17 – The Transfiguration 1After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

• After six days…
  • Earth was created in 6 days, and restoration and redemption in 6,000
    • 2 Peter 3:8  But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
    • Parable of the Good Samaritan – bound up the wounds and paid the innkeeper saying I will return in 2 days, (2,000 years). 
    • Resurrection of Lazarus: Did Jesus foreshadow his “two day” (2,000-year) delay from the time of his resurrection to the time of our resurrection in the story of Lazarus? Indeed, he did!
      1. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, (2,000 years) and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea” (John 11:5-7).

• Then the Lazarus or the dead, was raised 
  • After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence (Hosea 6:2).
  • The Seven Feasts hint at the timeline for the Second Coming:
  • The Seven feasts of the Bible, outlined in Leviticus 23, are:
    • Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of First Fruits, Pentecost (Shavuot),  Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).
• Then right on time….What does Peter say?
  • • Matthew 17:4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
    • The transfiguration happened during the Feast of Tabernacles

• After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, the brother of James, 
  • Peter – Rock – the Law 
  • James or Jacob – Replace or Supplants
  • John or Yahannon – Grace 
    • The Law Replaced or Supplanted by Grace
    • The Church! 
    • Jesus had just professed the Church down at the Bottom of the Mt. Hermon in Cesseria Phillipi 
    • When the Father led Peter to call Jesus the Son of God
    • The background of the place…..

• 1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James, and led them up
• Led them up – When? After 6 days – a picture of the RAPTURE AND THE SECOND COMING 
  1. Man was created on the 6th day 
  2. 6 is the number of man 
  3. 6 days the Earth is created, the 7th day God rested with Man 
  4. 6 days it is restored and the Kingdom Comes on the 7th Day
  5. On the 8th day is the resurrection or the First day of New Creation!
     1. 2 Peter 3:8  But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
     2. The Millennium will be the 7th day
     3. The New Heavens and New Earth will be the 8th
• Mark places the Transfiguration six days after Peter’s confession and Matthew follows suit. Mark and Matthew want to associate the coming of the kingdom with the crucifixion on Good Friday. Amen.
  • The glory of the kingdom does indeed come through the cross. 
    • Yet Luke does something different. When Luke writes his Gospel sometime after Mark and Matthew, he is aware that his predecessors say, “six days later,” thus connecting the glory of the kingdom with the crucifixion. Luke knows this is true, but he wants to add an additional theological move, so he says about “eight days,” as in the eighth day — the day of resurrection and new creation. Brilliant!
• What do they see as soon as they get to the top? 
  • Jesus in bodily form and a glorified state.
  • And two other guys right? 
    • Matthew 17:2 tells us – Moses and Elijah
    • Moses died, Elijah was taken to heaven
• Luke 24:44 Everything in the law and the prophets must be fulfilled concerning me…
  • One represents the dead in Faith and the other Raptured to heaven. 
  • What comes after the Rapture?
    1. The time of Jacob’s trouble – 7 year tribulation period. 
    2. Prophesied by Daniel and John in the Book of Revelation. 
    3. And who will represent the kingdom? 
    4. Moses and Elijah – Two Witnesses

1. • In Luke 9:30, it says, “Behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure.” 
     • The Greek word there is Exodus, exodon. 
       • What Exodus is he doing? The Cross
       • He is about to lead what the Exodus accomplished. 
       • It led all of the Israelites out of the land of death and bondage into a new beginning, and 
       • Jesus is a far greater Moses. 
       • He’s not leading people out of physical slavery, he’s leading them out of spiritual slavery. 
     • Compare to Moses at Sinai – Dark Cloud 
     • Compare to Elijah at Horeb (Sinai) Earthquake, Fire, Still small voice (Dark Cloud) 

• Here a bright cloud! 

• Next thing they see? v8 When they looked up, they saw Jesus was now alone.
  • Moses and Elijah will die again and be resurrected and raptured to heaven. 
  • Jesus alone will return to destroy the Devil, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. 

Jesus alone defeated Death, Hell, and Sin on the cross!

Conclusion: The Transfiguration is like a “photo negative” of the Cross. 

Allow me to illustrate this with several examples:

• Location: Jesus goes to a mountain to pray during the Transfiguration, while he goes to the Mt Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane before the crucifixion.
  
• Companions: His inner circle (Peter, James, and John) are present but sleepy at both events. 
  • During the Transfiguration, they eventually wake up and want to stay. 
  • In Gethsemane, they can’t stay awake and ultimately flee.
• Figures Flanking Jesus: At the Transfiguration, 
  • Jesus is flanked by the two greatest prophets (likely Moses and Elijah). 
  • At the cross, he’s flanked by two thieves.
    
• Peter’s Reaction:
  • Peter desires to build three tabernacles to remain and worship. 
  • In the Garden of Gethsemane, he draws a sword but eventually denies Jesus three times and runs.
• Friends’ Actions: At the Transfiguration, Jesus’s closest friends draw near to honor him. 
  • At the cross, they abandon him
• Appearance: Jesus is radiant with righteousness at the Transfiguration 
  • but drenched in shame on the cross.
• Reception: Jesus receives praise at the Transfiguration 
  • but is mocked at the cross.
• Light: Jesus’s face shines like the sun at the Transfiguration. 
  • Darkness covers the sun at noon during the crucifixion.