Matthew 16:27

“For the Son of man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then will he render to every man according to his deeds.”

The last part of this verse is cited from Psalms 62:12 where it is God Who does this. For in the end all must be judged in the light of the final day. One day Jesus will come as the Son of Man, coming in the full glory of His Father, the glory that He had with Him before the world was (John 17:5), accompanied by His angels, those angels who had remained faithful to God from the beginning, and they will then render to every man in accordance with what he has done. None will escape the searching eye of God. For all things are open to Him with Whom we have to do. The only thing that will not have to be accounted for is forgiven sin.

‘The glory of the Father' does not just indicate glorious light. It indicates all the resources of the Father. For in the Old Testament a king's or nation's ‘glory' was often its armies and its wealth (e.g. Isaiah 8:7; Isaiah 10:3; Isaiah 16:14; Isaiah 17:3; etc.).

For those who are truly His this will be a glorious day. The dead in Christ will rise first, and then those who are alive and remain will be taken up to be for ever with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13). The elect will be gathered in (Matthew 24:31). The wheat will be gathered into the barn (Matthew 3:12; Matthew 13:30; Matthew 13:43). And then in that day they will receive according to what they have done, as the Lord rewards His own (Romans 14:10; 1 Corinthians 3:13; 1 Corinthians 4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:10). But for those who are not His, who have not heard His words and done them, there will only be ‘outer darkness' and the weeping and gnashing of teeth as they see that they have lost everything by their folly (Matthew 8:11; Matthew 13:42; Matthew 13:50; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 24:51; Matthew 25:30). For them there will be no glory and no light, only everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

The fact that the Son of Man comes in the glory of the Father is an indication that He has previously come to God in the clouds to receive His Kingship and glory (Daniel 7:14), for that is why He can return in that glory to deliver His people and judge the world. So when the next verse speaks of Him ‘coming in His Kingly Rule' (but not in His glory) it may be seen as suggesting a distinction between the coming in Kingly Rule and the coming in glory (compare His distinction in Luke 4:19 between ‘the acceptable year of the Lord' and ‘the day of vengeance of our God', the latter of which He omits because it was not coming at the same time. In the same way in Matthew 16:28 he omits the glory).