Matt. 16:28.-I am of opinion that the application of these words to the destruction of Jerusalem is entirely unfounded, and that their true connection is with the scene of the transfiguration. They are consecutive in all three of the first evangelists; and 2 Peter 1 treats that scene, it appears to me, as a manifestation of Christ's power and coming,-a sample of His future glory. James and Peter did taste of death, the one long, and the other shortly before Jerusalem was destroyed.
Dean Alford is not correct in making ἠ γενεὰ αὕτη = " this race," because the race of Israel is not to pass away when all these things are fulfilled; but, on the contrary, Israel is then to reach its full blessing and glory as a people here below. The true force is, " this" (Christ-rejecting, unbelieving) " generation of Israel," not the mere existing generation, but such as bore the same moral fruits as those who then refused the Messiah. So they have continued, and will, till after the last delusions and judgment of Antichrist, when " there shall come out of Sion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." " So all Israel shall be saved," when every threat of God has been accomplished, and grace has converted a new generation" the generation to come." The moral bearing Of the phrase, permit me to add, simply and satisfactorily accounts for God's righteous judgment, in consequence of the blood shed from Abel downwards. Dean A.'s remark is sound against the application of it to the mere existing generation; but it almost equally disproves his own sense. Those who stood in the place of witness for God, as did Israel, not only suffered the consequences of despising His last testimony to them in Christ, but had required of them all the righteous blood shed from the beginning downwards. The same principle applies to Babylon in the Revelation: " In her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." In consequence of the position assumed, God will hold her responsible even for evil done before her existence. It is the principle of God's corporate judgments. Individually, each bears his own judgment.