Matthew 16:28, commentary and pictures

Some standing with Jesus would remain alive until they saw the Son of man coming in His kingdom, seeing the kingdom of God come with power. The words were spoken to the first disciples as special instruction to prepare them for the trial of faith they must endure in His rejection and crucifixion by the Jews. The promise was given together with the warning that the Son of man would be betrayed into the hands of men, killed, and raised the third day. It was given together with the call to deny self and take up the cross and follow Him, and with the teaching that whoever saves his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for His sake will find it. It was given together with the warning that gaining the whole world profits nothing if a man loses his soul.

The coming in His kingdom will be in the glory of God His Father with angels and heaven's hosts to reward every person according to works, not with the splendor of an earthly throne. The disciples struggled to reconcile this glory with His poverty, humiliation, suffering, and death, and wondered whether their hopes of His kingdom and David's throne had to be abandoned. The promise was fulfilled at the transfiguration, which was the representation of His kingdom in miniature soon presented before the disciples.

At the transfiguration His appearance was changed and shone with heavenly glory and majesty. There the Father declared Him to be the Son of God. At the transfiguration Moses represented those who will be raised from the dead at the second coming, while Elijah represented the living who will be changed from mortal to immortal and taken to heaven without dying.