Jesus’ Transfiguration

Transcript

GR 703
3/10/1985
Jesus’ Transfiguration
Matthew 17:1-8
Gil Rugh

On various occasions throughout the Word of God, men have been given the opportunity of seeing something of the tremendous glory of God’s presence. The Old Testament says that Moses, hidden in the cleft of the rock, was privileged to see something of the glory of God as it passed by. Isaiah was allowed to see something of the Lord which was high and exalted, sitting on His throne as seraphim cried, “Holy, holy, holy.”
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul was privileged to be caught up into the third heaven, there to experience something of the glories of the presence of God. And the Apostle John revealed in the Book of the Revelation that he was given glimpses of the glory of God in heaven.
This same kind of experience is what is found in Matthew 17. A few chosen disciples are privileged to glimpse something of the unveiled glory of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
In order to understand what is happening, it is important to set this event in its context. The last part of Matthew 16 forms the basis for what happens in the first part of Matthew 17. Christ prophesied the building of His Church: “Upon this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). He spoke of the coming kingdom and the authority Peter will have in that kingdom. He told the disciples they are no longer to announce to the nation that He is the Messiah of Israel. He told them of His coming death and resurrection at Jerusalem. And as Matthew 16 drew to a close, He told them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (v. 24).
These words contained a wealth of new information for the disciples; they also called for the setting of a new direction. They had been following Christ as the Messiah of Israel. They had been anticipating a glorious kingdom of which they would be a part. But then He told them He was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. He said that those who would be His followers should not look to a kingdom and to glory, but should rather be ready to deny themselves, to suffer, to take up their cross daily, and to follow Him (see Luke 9:23).
Naturally, this raised questions. Where is the kingdom? Does this mean there will be no glorious kingdom? Will we not reign in glory as we have been expecting and hoping? The Transfiguration answered these questions because it previewed the coming glory of the Kingdom.
Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration is divided into two major sections. The first records the events of the Transfiguration. The second shows the various responses to those events and the impact that was made by the Transfiguration.
Matthew 17:1 begins, “Six days later.” This not only indicates when this event happened, but closely connects it with the end of Matthew 16: “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. Six days later. . . “ (16:28-17:1). Because of the chapter break, the tendency is to stop reading at verse 28, thinking of it as a major division. But the events of Matthew 17:1 happened just six days later.

Luke puts it at eight days later (see Luke 9:28), but I take it the time was actually the same. Luke simply included the day of Jesus’ prophecy and the day of the Transfiguration in his calculation, arriving at eight days, while Matthew counted just the six full days in between; so rather than contradicting each other, they merely used different ways of counting the time.
Matthew 17:1 continues, “Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves.” Why Jesus selected these three is not clear. They formed something of an inner circle with Christ and were privileged to be with Him on occasions when the other disciples were closed out.
Does this mean Jesus played favorites? No, but it does indicate that He used different people in different ways and chose some to have a ministry different from others. Peter, James and John were privileged to function with Him in an especially close way. On a couple other occasions these three were selected from among His disciples to share in special events. For instance, Luke 8 records the raising from the dead of the daughter of a synagogue official: “When He came to the house, He did not allow anyone to enter with Him, except Peter and John and James” (v. 51).
Matthew 26 records another occasion. “Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee”
(vv. 36, 37). Again, Peter, James and John were chosen to share in this special intimacy.
While this does not answer why these three were chosen, it does show that it was part of God’s purpose for them to be present on these occasions. Beyond that, history records what happened to them later. James was the first among the twelve to be martyred for his testimony regarding Jesus Christ. John was the disciple who lived the longest. And Peter became the outstanding leader during the establishment of the Church as recorded in the Book of Acts.
Matthew 17 says Jesus took Peter, James and John up on a high mountain. However, it does not tell which mountain. If they were still at Caesarea Philippi (Matt. 16:13), it would have been Mount Hermon, a tall snow-capped mountain in the northern part of Israel. Or they could have gone down to a place closer to Capernaum.
The focal point of all that took place is in Matthew 17:2. On that mountain the disciples saw something of the glory of the Messiah: “And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.” A change occurred. The word translated transfigured is one that is carried over from Greek into English as “metamorphosis ”: to be of another form. The morphae, the change of form, is one that comes from within, from the very nature or being of a person or thing. This word is used for the change of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Everyone knows that butterflies are not made by pinning wings on caterpillars. Rather it is a change that comes out of their inner nature.
The same word is used of believers in Romans 12:2: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Transformed is the word “metamorphosis” indicating a change from within. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 believers are told that as they continually behold the glory of the Lord in the mirror of the Word, they are being transformed by the ministry of the Spirit of God into conformity with His glory. It is a transformation that can only come from within by the ministry of God’s Spirit.
So in Matthew 17 Christ was transfigured from within His very being and character. This was a manifestation of the glory that belonged to Him as the Son of God. That glory, veiled in His human body from His birth at Bethlehem, was finally allowed to shine forth in the presence of three of His disciples. It was the same glory of God that was displayed in various ways at various times throughout Israel’s history.
In Exodus 40 God’s glory was displayed in the tabernacle which was the place where God resided in the nation Israel. “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (vv. 34,35).

When the tabernacle was replaced by Solomon’s temple, the glory of the Lord moved from the tabernacle to take up residence in the temple. “It came about when the priests came from the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10,11). This again was the glory of God manifested among His people Israel.
Ezekiel records a very tragic time in Israel’s history. In Ezekiel 10 and 11, he tells of the glory of God departing from the nation Israel because of its sin and apostasy. “Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim” (Ezek. 10:18). Later in Ezekiel 11 he records: “Then the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them. The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city” (vv. 22,23). The glory of the Lord departed from the nation Israel by way of the east.
In Matthew 17, this glory is again resident among the nation Israel, but it is tabernacled in the body of Jesus Christ. Looking back, the Apostle John referred to this incident in his gospel: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Acts 7 finds Stephen on the verge of being executed for his testimony concerning Christ: “But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’” (vv. 55,56). So Stephen was given a glimpse of the glory of Christ in the presence of God in heaven.
The fullest description of Jesus Christ anywhere in Scripture is found in Revelation 1. It is a description of Christ in His glorified state: “And in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength” (vv. 13-16). Note the impact upon John, because the same response is seen in Matthew 17: “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man” (Rev. 1:17). John was overwhelmed by this display of the glory of Christ.
During Christ’s earthly life, this glory was veiled in His human body. After His crucifixion, He was raised in a glorified body and after His ascension His glory was fully displayed as described in Revelation 1.
Remember the promise to the disciples found in Matthew 16:28: “there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Matthew 24 gives the description of the Second Coming of the Son of Man as He comes to establish His kingdom on the earth. “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory” (v. 30). Matthew 25:31 says, “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.”
Thus in Matthew 17 the display of the presence of God was given, and His glory was resident among His people. For a brief time, this glory was unveiled in the presence of three disciples. It was a preview of what was to come, given to remove any question or doubt of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, and of the coming kingdom in which He will rule and reign in glory.
Not only Peter, James and John were with Jesus on the mountain, but “behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him” (Matt. 17:3). Moses and Elijah came to talk with Christ. Moses was the great leader of Israel: the one selected by God to deliver the nation Israel from bondage in Egypt; the one through whom the Law had been
given, so that “Moses” and “the Law” became interchangeable expressions. With Moses appeared Elijah who was perhaps the greatest of Old Testament prophets until John the Baptist.
Why these two were selected, we are not told. It may be that Moses was chosen as representative of the Law and Elijah as representative of the prophets, for “the Law and the prophets” represent the entire Old Testament Scriptures.
Jesus referred to this in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” He used the Law and the prophets as a summary of the entire Old Testament. So to find these two Old Testament representatives talking with Christ is a reminder that all the Old Testament Scriptures find their focal point, fulfillment and realization in Christ. Also, it is interesting that under these two men and their successors, Joshua and Elisha, occurred the two greatest periods of miracle-working in Israel’s history.
Nothing more is recorded about these two heavenly visitors than that they came to talk with Christ. Luke 9:31 tells that Moses and Elijah talked with Christ about His impending departure at Jerusalem. Interestingly, the word “departure” is the word “exodus. ” This may have some connection with the Exodus led by Moses.
These two men had been gone for centuries. Elijah did not die, but was translated from this earth and taken to the presence of God in glory. Moses, however, had been dead for almost fifteen hundred years, and God Himself had buried his body.
But hundreds of years later, these two individuals were carrying on a conversation with Christ in the presence of the full display of the glory that was His as the Son of God. That gives some insight into what it will be like for us as believers after our death or departure from this earth. Do we cease to exist? No.
How did Peter, James and John know Moses and Elijah? Did they have names written on the back of their robes? No! And no photographs had been passed down either! We are not told how, but they knew.
There is something else that is interesting. Moses and Elijah, centuries after they left this earth, were talking with Christ in the presence of His glory, and they knew what was going to transpire in the future. They knew where they were in God’s framework of time. They were evidently aware of what was happening on the earth. Now I do not want to build too much of a case here. I am only talking about what is going on with these two men. The Bible does not tell us how much we will know when we are with Christ, but in this passage of Scripture, Moses and Elijah knew where Christ was in God’s timetable, that He was on His was to Jerusalem to suffer and die.
Does that mean that everyone who has gone into the presence of God is aware of God’s timetable on earth? I do not know, but the implication is that at least some of them do.
In its context, I take this event to be a time of encouragement for Christ as a man, as a human being. He is deity and you see something of the display of His deity in this passage. But to have these glorified heavenly visitors talking with Him about His coming death served as a kind of reinforcement and preparation for Him as well as a learning experience for His disciples.
A number of commentators have noted that this passage presents a picture of the groups of people that will be present when Christ comes to establish His kingdom on the earth. First, Christ was present in His glorified body. Moses was present as a representative of those who have died as believers. Elijah represents those who have been transferred by the Rapture into the presence of Christ. And the three disciples were present as those who will be found alive in physical bodies when Christ returns to earth. All the groups were represented that will be present when Christ comes to establish His kingdom on earth. It is a real glimpse of the Kingdom.
It is interesting to look at the various responses to this tremendous event. It is no surprise that Peter was first, as he has been thrust to the forefront in Matthew’s gospel. In Matthew 16, Peter said some tremendously important things, but he also said some disastrous things. One thing you can say for Peter, good or bad, he always said something!
In Matthew 17:4, Peter responds to the event on the mountain: “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.’”
Luke 9 gives additional facts: “Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep; but when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him” (v. 32). Picture the scene: Christ has taken these three disciples, and together they have made the climb up this high mountain. The disciples are exhausted, so they lie down and take a nap. Then they wake up, and behold, there stands Christ in His glory carrying on a conversation with two heavenly visitors.
Then Moses and Elijah start to leave. “And as these were leaving Him, Peter said. . .” (Luke 9:33). Moses and Elijah are starting to leave, and it may have been that Peter thought his plan would be a way to keep Moses and Elijah from leaving; maybe they were going because they had no accommodations. There appears to be a bit of confusion. Moses and Elijah have just stopped off from heaven. Now they are going back, and Peter wants to know if he should make some brush shelters for them to stay in. It does not make any sense, which is exactly what the Scripture says: Peter was “not realizing what he was saying” (v. 33)
Mark tells that Peter spoke up because the disciples were terrified and no one knew what to say (see Mark 9:5,6). We have all been in tense situations where everyone wished someone would say something, and then someone did! Well, Peter was that kind of fellow. He could not stand the tension, so he just started talking-not having any idea of what he was talking about. He just had to say something.
This is not to make fun of Peter. One of the reasons we appreciate Peter so much is because he was willing to charge in where angels fear to tread, so to speak. Sometimes he was wrong, and sometimes he was used of God.
Notice how God graciously intervened: “While he was still speaking (talking, I guess, about building those shelters), a bright cloud overshadowed them” (Matt. 17:5). In the Old Testament whenever the glory of God displayed itself, it was always in the context of a cloud. In the future when the Messiah comes to set up His kingdom, it will be with the clouds in great glory. In Scripture, the clouds symbolize glory. That is the picture here: the Son of God on earth, displaying the glory of His deity.
Into this already awe-inspiring scene comes the Father displaying the glory of His presence: “A bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!’” (Matt. 17:5). In other words, “Peter, be quiet. He is My spokesman. Listen to Him.”
This same voice was heard on a previous occasion in the New Testament when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist at the beginning of His public ministry (see Matt. 3:17).
Similarly, these three disciples received confirmation from heaven. They saw the display of Christ’s glory, followed by verbal communication from God the Father. They received confirmation that even as Christ had talked to them of His suffering and death at Jerusalem, He was perfectly carrying out the plan of God. The impact of this glorious scene upon the disciples was overwhelming.
Remember what happened to John when he was confronted with the unveiled glory of Christ in Revelation 1? John said, I fell at His feet like a dead man” (Rev. 1:17). “When the disciples heard this (the voice from heaven combined with the display of the glory of Christ and the heavenly visitors), they fell face down to the ground and were terrified” (Matt. 17:6). They thought they were going to be consumed.
Isaiah, when he stood in the presence of the glory of Christ, cried, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! ...for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:5). Likewise, in Matthew 17 the disciples were overwhelmed with the terror of the presence of Almighty God. But as He did with John in Revelation 1, Christ intervened. “And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, ‘Get up, and do not be afraid.’ And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone” (Matt. 17:7,8). After He comforted them, they lifted up their eyes and saw no one there but Christ in His normal, human condition.
“As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, ‘Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead’” (v. 9). In other words, Jesus said they were to tell no one about this until after the resurrection.
Now I can imagine John doing this, and James, too. But can you imagine the trouble Peter must have had when all the other disciples asked what happened up on that mountain? Later Peter did talk about this event. In fact, it became a tremendously reassuring event to Peter, James and John in their later ministries.
John referred to it in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt (tabernacled) among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten.”
It confirmed to Peter that what the Old Testament prophesied and promised concerning the Messiah was true and would be realized; there need be no question, no doubt, no wondering about the Old Testament Scriptures and their validity. He wrote about this incident in his second letter: “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty”
(2 Pet. 1:16). In other words, Peter said, When I talked about the fact that Christ is coming again to establish a kingdom, I was not following a fable somebody made up. No one tricked me. I was an eyewitness. I was there on that mountain in the presence of the majesty and glory that will be associated with Him in His kingdom. I was there when God spoke from heaven and said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. ” Therefore, I am unshakable in the truth of the prophesies concerning the coming of Jesus Christ and the glory of the Kingdom that He will establish.
Part of the purpose of God in exposing Peter to that event was to prepare him to stand unshakable in the face of the questions that would arise: Could Jesus be the Messiah? Where is the glorious kingdom? To these questions Peter could say, “Don’t you doubt for a moment. I had a preview. I know it will happen.”
So what happened at the Transfiguration? A number of things:
(1) The voice from heaven gave proof that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.
(2) It gave a preview of the glory of Christ as it will be seen in His kingdom. The next time that glory is seen on this earth, it will be when the sign of the coming of the Son of Man is seen in the heavens and Jesus Christ returns to earth (see Matt. 24).
(3) It gave a preview of the inhabitants of the Kingdom: saints of the Old Testament who have died; and saints (living believers) who will, at the Rapture, experience translation into the presence of God.
(4) It confirmed the promises of Old Testament prophecy.
(5) It gave a glimpse of life after death.
What we really have in the Transfiguration is a preview of the glory that will be ours as believers when we are taken into the presence of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, Paul wrote, “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.” God says a change will take place in our physical bodies: from being in perishable bodies to being in those which are imperishable; from being in mortal bodies subject to suffering and death to being in immortal bodies-bodies of glory, if you will.
Colossians 3:4 says, “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Is it any wonder that Paul wrote in Romans 8:18,19: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us ...the sons of God.” That is our destiny-glory; even as glory characterizes Jesus Christ!
Another passage that talks about our destiny is 1 John 3:2. “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (italics added). We shall see Him glorified. And we, too, are destined to share in His glory, not in His deity, but to share for all eternity the glory that He has provided for us in His death and resurrection.
Is it any wonder that the Scriptures say that as children of God we are to make this the riveted focal point of our lives? We are to let the promise of future glory control and shape all that we are and all that we do, the way we think and the way we live, until we are called into the presence of Christ and the glorification process is brought to its fulfillment. What a blessed hope!