About eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter, John, and James, and went up onto the mountain to pray.
Parallel Translations
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About eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter, John, and James, and went up onto the mountain to pray.
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And it folowed about an.viii. dayes after thoose sayinges that he toke Peter Iames and Iohn and went vp into a moutayne to praye.
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And it came to passe about an eyght dayes after those wordes, that he tooke Peter and Iohn, and Iames, and went vp into a mountaine to pray.
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Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to Luke 9:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 109:4 In return for my love, they are my adversaries; but I am in prayer.
- Matthew 17:1-13 After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them up into a high mountain by themselves. He was changed before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the light. Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him. Peter answered, and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, let’s make three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Behold, a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” When the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces, and were very afraid. Jesus came and touched them and said, “Get up, and don’t be afraid.” Lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus alone. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Don’t tell anyone what you saw, until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” His disciples asked him, saying, “Then why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus answered them, “Elijah indeed comes first, and will restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has come already, and they didn’t recognize him, but did to him whatever they wanted to. Even so the Son of Man will also suffer by them.” Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptizer.
- Matthew 26:37-39 He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.” He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.”
- Mark 9:2-13 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, and brought them up onto a high mountain privately by themselves, and he was changed into another form in front of them. His clothing became glistening, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Elijah and Moses appeared to them, and they were talking with Jesus. Peter answered Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let’s make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” For he didn’t know what to say, for they were very afraid. A cloud came, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly looking around, they saw no one with them any more, except Jesus only. As they were coming down from the mountain, he commanded them that they should tell no one what things they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept this saying to themselves, questioning what the “rising from the dead” meant. They asked him, saying, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He said to them, “Elijah indeed comes first, and restores all things. How is it written about the Son of Man, that he should suffer many things and be despised? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they have also done to him whatever they wanted to, even as it is written about him.”
- Mark 14:33-36 He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be greatly troubled and distressed. He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch.” He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him. He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Please remove this cup from me. However, not what I desire, but what you desire.”
- Luke 6:12 In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God.
- Mark 1:35 Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place, and prayed there.
- Mark 6:46 After he had taken leave of them, he went up the mountain to pray.
- Luke 8:51 When he came to the house, he didn’t allow anyone to enter in, except Peter, John, James, the father of the child, and her mother.
- Luke 9:18 As he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he asked them, “Who do the multitudes say that I am?”
- Hebrews 5:7 He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,
- 2 Corinthians 13:1 This is the third time I am coming to you. “At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Lest the disciples of Christ should be offended at…
Lest the disciples of Christ should be offended at the debasing himself in his flesh, he teacheth them that it is voluntary, showing therewithall for a space the brightness of his glory.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 28 And it came to pass about an eight…
28 And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.
Ver. 28. About eight days] Putting the two utmost days also into the reckoning. {See Trapp on "Mat 17:1"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain See Poole on "Mat 17:1", and following verses to…
See Poole on "Mat 17:1", and following verses to Mat 17:9. See Poole on "Mar 9:2", and following verses to Mar 9:10.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Here we have recorded the history of our holy…
Here we have recorded the history of our holy Saviour’s transfiguration; when he laid, as it were the garments of our frail humanity aside for a little season; and put on the robes of his divine glory to demonstrate and testify the truth of his divinity; for his divine glory was an evidence of his divine nature, and also an emblem of that glory which he and his disciples, and all his faithful servants and followers, shall enjoy together in heaven.
Observe, 1. The design of our Saviour in this his transfiguration, namely, to confirm his disciples’ faith in the truth of his divine nature: he was therefore pleased to suffer the rays of his divinity to dart forth before their eyes, so far as they were able to bear it; his face shined with a pleasing brightness, and his raiment with such a glorious lustre, as did at once both delight and dazzle the eyes of his disciples.
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Observe, 2. The choice which our Saviour makes of the witnesses of his transfiguration: his three disciples, Peter, James, and John. But why disciples? Why three disciples, and why these three?
1. Why disciples? Because his transfiguration was a type of heaven: Christ vouchsafes therefore the earnest and first fruits of that glory only to saints upon earth, on whom he intended to bestow the full crop in due time.
2. Why three disciples? Because these were sufficient to witness the truth of this miracle. Judas was unworthy of this favor, yet, lest he should murmur or be discontented, others are left out as well as he.
3. But why these three rather than others?
Probably 1. Because these three were more eminent for great zeal and love towards Christ: now the most eminent manifestations of glory are made to those that are most excelling in grace.
2. Because these three disciples were to be witnesses of Christ’s agony and passion, to prepare them for which, they are here made witnesses of his transfiguration. This glorious vision upon Mount Tabor fitted them to abide the terror of Mount Calvary.
Observe 3. The glorious attendants upon our Saviuor at his transfiguration: they were two; those two men, Moses and Elias. This being but a glimpse of heaven’s glory, and not a full manifestation of it, only two of the glorified saints attended it, and these two attendants are not two angels, but two men; because men were more nearly concerned than angels in what was done. But why Moses and Elias, rather than any other men?
1. Because Moses was the giver of the law, and Elias the chief of the prophets; now both these attending upon Christ, did show the consent of the law and the prophets with Christ, and their accomplishment and fulfilling in him.
2. Because these two men were the most laborious servants of Christ: both adventured their lives in God’s cause, and therefore were highly honored by him; for those that honor him he will honor.
Observe, 4. The carriage and behavior of the disciples upon this great occasion:
1. They supplicate Jesus: they do not pray to Moses or Elias, but to Christ: Master, it is good being here.
O what a ravishing comfort and satisfaction is the communion and fellowship of the saints! But the presence of Christ amongst them, renders their joys transporting.
2. They proffer their service to further the continuance of what they did enjoy: Let us make three tabernacles; saints will stick at no cost or pains for the enjoyment of Christ’s presence and his people’s company.
Learn hence, 1. That a glimpse of heaven’s glory is sufficient to raise a soul into ecstacy and to make it out of love with worldly company.
2. That we are apt to desire more of heaven upon earth than God will allow us; we would have the heavenly glory come down to us, but are not willing by death to go up to that.
Observe, 5. How a cloud was put before the disciples’ eyes, when the divine glory was manifested to them, partly to allay the lustre and resplendency of that glory which they were swallowed up with: the glory of heaven is insupportable in this imperfect state, we cannot bear it unveiled; and partly did this cloud come to hinder their looking and prying farther into this glory. We must be content to behold God through a cloud darkly here: before long we shall see him face to face.
Observe, 6. The testimony given out of the cloud by God the Father, concerning Jesus Christ his Son: This is my beloved Son, hear him.
Where note, 1. The dignity of his person; he is my Son, for nature coessential, and for duration co-eternal with his Father.
2. The endearedness of his relation; He is my beloved Son, because of his conformity to me, and compliance with me: likeness is the cause of love, and an union or harmony of wills causes a mutual endearing of affection.
3. The authority of his doctrine; Hear ye him; "not Moses and Elias, who were servants, but Christ my Son, whom I have authorized and appointed to be the great prophet and teacher of my church; therefore adore him as my Son, and believe in him as your Saviour, and hear him as your lawgiver." The obedient ear honors Christ more than either the gazing eye, the adoring knee, or the applauding tongue.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We have here the narrative of Christ's transfiguration, which…
We have here the narrative of Christ's transfiguration, which was designed for a specimen of that glory of his in which he will come to judge the world, of which he had lately been speaking, and, consequently, an encouragement to his disciples to suffer for him, and never to be ashamed of him. We had this account before in Matthew and Mark, and it is well worthy to be repeated to us, and reconsidered by us, for the confirmation of our faith in the Lord Jesus, as the brightness of his Father's glory and the light of the world, for the filling of our minds with high and honourable thoughts of him, notwithstanding his being clothed with a body, and giving us some idea of the glory which he entered into at his ascension, and in which he now appears within the veil, and for the raising and encouraging of our hopes and expectations concerning the glory reserved for all believers in the future state.
I. Here is one circumstance of the narrative that seems to differ from the other two evangelists that related it. They said that it was six days after the foregoing sayings; Luke says that it was about eight days after, that is, it was that day sevennight, six whole days intervening, and it was the eighth day. Some think that it was in the night that Christ was transfigured, because the disciples were sleepy, as in his agony, and in the night his appearance in splendour would be the more illustrious; if in the night, the computation of the time would be the more doubtful and uncertain; probably, in the night, between the seventh and eighth day, and so about eight days.
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II. Here are divers circumstances added and explained, which are very material.
1. We are here told that Christ had this honour put upon him when he was praying: He went up into a mountain to pray, as he frequently did (Luk 9:28), and as he prayed he was transfigured. When Christ humbled himself to pray, he was thus exalted. He knew before that this was designed for him at this time, and therefore seeks it by prayer. Christ himself must sue out the favours that were purposed for him, and promised to him: Ask of me, and I will give thee, Psa 2:8. And thus he intended to put an honour upon the duty of prayer, and to recommend it to us. It is a transfiguring, transforming duty; if our hearts be elevated and enlarged in it, so as in it to behold the glory of the Lord, we shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory, Co2 3:18. By prayer we fetch in the wisdom, grace, and joy, which make the face to shine.
2. Luke does not use the word transfigured - metamorphōthē (which Matthew and Mark used), perhaps because it had been used so much in the Pagan theology, but makes use of a phrase equivalent, to eidos tou prosōpou heteron - the fashion of his countenance was another thing from what it had been: his face shone far beyond what Moses's did when he came down from the mount; and his raiment was white and glistering: it was exastraptōn - bright like lightning (a word used only here), so that he seemed to be arrayed all with light, to cover himself with light as with a garment.
3. It was said in Matthew and Mark that Moses and Elias appeared to them; here it is said that they appeared in glory, to teach us that saints departed are in glory, are in a glorious state; they shine in glory. He being in glory, they appeared with him in glory, as all the saints shall shortly do.
4. We are here told what was the subject of the discourse between Christ and the two great prophets of the Old Testament: They spoke of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Elegon tēn exodon autou - his exodus, his departure; that is, his death. (1.) The death of Christ is here called his exit, his going out, his leaving the world. Moses and Elias spoke of it to him under that notion, to reconcile him to it, and to make the foresight of it the more easy to his human nature. The death of the saints is their exodus, their departure out of the Egypt of this world, their release out of a house of bondage. Some think that the ascension of Christ is included here in his departure; for the departure of Israel out of Egypt was a departure in triumph, so was his when he went from earth to heaven. (2.) This departure of his he must accomplish; for thus it was determined, the matter was immutably fixed in the counsel of God, and could not be altered. (3.) He must accomplish it at Jerusalem, though his residence was mostly in Galilee; for his most spiteful enemies were at Jerusalem, and there the sanhedrim sat, that took upon them to judge of prophets. (4.) Moses and Elias spoke of this, to intimate that the sufferings of Christ, and his entrance into his glory, were what Moses and the prophets had spoken of; see Luk 24:26, Luk 24:27; Pe1 1:11. (5.) Our Lord Jesus, even in his transfiguration, was willing to enter into a discourse concerning his death and sufferings, to teach us that meditations on death, as it is our departure out of this world to another, are never unseasonable, but in a special manner seasonable when at any time we are advanced, lest we should be lifted up above measure. In our greatest glories on earth, let us remember that here we have no continuing city.
5. We are here told, which we were not before, that the disciples were heavy with sleep, Luk 9:32. When the vision first began, Peter, and James, and John were drowsy, and inclined to sleep. Either it was late, or they were weary, or had been disturbed in their rest the night before; or perhaps a charming composing air, or some sweet and melodious sounds, which disposed them to soft and gentle slumbers, were a preface to the vision; or perhaps it was owing to a sinful carelessness: when Christ was at prayer with them, they did not regard his prayer as they should have done, and, to punish them for that, they were left to sleep on now, when he began to be transfigured, and so lost an opportunity of seeing how that work of wonder was wrought. These three were now asleep, when Christ was in his glory, as afterwards they were, when he was in his agony; see the weakness and frailty of human nature, even in the best, and what need they have of the grace of God. Nothing could be more affecting to these disciples, one would think, than the glories and the agonies of their Master, and both in the highest degree; and yet neither the one nor the other would serve to keep them awake. What need have we to pray to God for quickening grace, to make us not only alive, but lively! Yet that they might be competent witnesses of this sign from heaven, to those that demanded one, after awhile they recovered themselves, and became perfectly awake; and then they took an exact view of all those glories, so that they were able to give a particular account, as we find one of them does, of all that passed when they were with Christ in the holy mount, Pe2 1:18.
6. It is here observed that it was when Moses and Elias were now about to depart that Peter said, Lord, it is good to be here, let us make three tabernacles. Thus we are often not sensible of the worth of our mercies till we are about to lose them; nor do we covet and court their continuance till they are upon the departure. Peter said this, not knowing what he said. Those know not what they say that talk of making tabernacles on earth for glorified saints in heaven, who have better mansions in the temple there, and long to return to them.
7. It is here added, concerning the cloud that overshadowed them, that they feared as they entered into the cloud. This cloud was a token of God's more peculiar presence. It was in a cloud that God of old took possession of the tabernacle and temple, and, when the cloud covered the tabernacle, Moses was not able to enter (Exo 40:34, Exo 40:35), and, when it filled the temple, the priests could not stand to minister by reason of it, Ch2 5:14. Such a cloud was this, and then no wonder that the disciples were afraid to enter into it. But never let any be afraid to enter into a cloud with Jesus Christ; for he will be sure to bring them safely through it.
8. The voice which came from heaven is here, and in Mark, related not so fully as in Matthew: This is my beloved Son, hear him: though those words, in whom I am well pleased, which we have both in Matthew and Peter, are not expressed, they are implied in that, This is my beloved Son; for whom he loves, and in whom he is well pleased, come all to one; we are accepted in the Beloved.
Lastly, The apostles are here said to have kept this vision private. They told no man in those days, reserving the discovery of it for another opportunity, when the evidences of Christ's being the Son of God were completed in the pouring out of the Spirit, and that doctrine was to be published to all the world. As there is a time to speak, so there is a time to keep silence. Every thing is beautiful and useful in its season.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And behold there talked with him two men,.... Of…
And behold there talked with him two men,.... Of great note and fame:
which were Moses and Elias; the one the giver of the law from God to the people "of Israel", as well as the redeemer of them from Egyptian bondage, and who led them through the wilderness, to the borders of Canaan's land; and the other a prophet famous for his zeal for God, and his worship, and who was translated, soul and body, to heaven: these appeared and talked with Christ on the mount; and what they talked of is mentioned in the following verse; See Gill on Mat 17:3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Matt. xvii, 1; Mark ix, 2.
Matt. xvii, 1; Mark ix, 2.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 28. About an eight days after] See the…
Verse 28. About an eight days after] See the whole of this important transaction explained at large on Mt 17:1-13.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Luk 9:28-36. It came to pass about eight days…
Luk 9:28-36. It came to pass about eight days after — Including the day on which the discourse, recorded in the preceding chapter, was delivered, and that on which the fact, here mentioned, took place: otherwise, exclusively of these two days, it was six days after, as Matthew has it. See the following account of our Lord’s transfiguration, explained at large in the notes on Mat 17:1-8, with some additional observations on Mar 9:2-10. Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory — Like Christ, with whom they talked. They saw his glory — The very same expression in which it is described by Joh 1:14; and by Peter, 2Pe 1:16-17.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain See an account of the transfiguration in Mat 17:1-13,…
See an account of the transfiguration in Mat 17:1-13, and Mar 9:2-13.
Luk 9:29
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The fashion - The “appearance.”
Glistering - Shining like lightning - of a bright, dazzling whiteness. As Mark says, “more white than any fuller could make it.”
Luk 9:31
In glory - Of a glorious appearance. Of an appearance like that which the saints have in heaven.
His decease - literally, his “exit” or “departure.” The word translated here “decease” - that is, exit, or “going out” - is elsewhere used to denote death. See 2Pe 1:15. Death is a departure or going out from this life. In “this” word there may be an allusion to the “departure” of the children of Israel from Egypt. As that was going out from “bondage,” pain, and humiliation, so death, to a saint, is but going forth from a land of captivity and thraldom to one of plenty and freedom; to the land of promise, the Canaan in the skies.
He should accomplish - Which was about to take place.
Luk 9:32
Heavy with sleep - Borne down with sleep - oppressed, overcome with sleep. It may seem remarkable that they should fall asleep on such an occasion; but we are to bear in mind that this may have been in the night, and that they were weary with the toils of the day. Besides, they did not “fall asleep” while the transfiguration lasted. While Jesus was praying, or perhaps after he closed, they fell asleep. “While” they were sleeping his countenance was changed, and Moses and Elias appeared. The first that “they” saw of it was after they awoke, having been probably awakened by the shining of the light around them.
Luk 9:36
Jesus was found alone - That is, the two men had left him. In respect to “them” he was alone.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Mountain, &c. --- Since Christ has ascended the mountain,…
Mountain, &c. --- Since Christ has ascended the mountain, both to pray and to be transfigured, all of us who hope for the fruit of his resurrection, and long to see the king in his glory, must dwell in heaven by our thoughts, and apply our minds to continual prayer. (Ven. Bede)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain b. The Transfiguration (Luk_9:28-36)
b. The Transfiguration (Luk_9:28-36)
28And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James [James and John, V. O.6], and went up into a [the] mountain to pray. 29And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering [ἐξαστράπτων, lit., flashing forth light]. 30And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias [Elijah]: 31Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease [or, departure] which he should [was about to] accomplish at Jerusalem. 32But Peter and they that were with him were heavy [weighed down] with sleep: and when they were awake,7; they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. 33And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias [Elijah]: not knowing what he said. 34While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they 35[i.e., Jesus, Moses, and Elijah] entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved [elect, V. O.8] Son: hear him. 36And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone. And they kept it close, and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen.
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EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Luk_9:28. Eight days.—According to Matthew and Mark, six days after the just-mentioned conversation. If we assure that Lake has reckoned in the day of the discourse and a second day for the Transfiguration, which had perhaps already taken place in the morning, the difference is then almost reconciled, and it does not even need the assumption of some, that the Saviour spent one or two whole days on the mountain, the Transfiguration taking place after their expiration.
Into the mountain, τὸ ὄρος.—More definite than Matthew and Mark, who only mention an ὄρος ὑψηλόν. The tradition which has pointed to Tabor has been often contradicted, yet the objections raised against this are, according to our opinion, not well tenable. That this tradition existed even in the time of Jerome, and that the empress Helena for this reason erected a church on Tabor, proves of itself not much, it is true. Yet it may still be called remarkable, that tradition designates a place so far distant from Cæsarea Philippi, where our Saviour had just before been found (Mat_16:13). Without sufficient ground in the apostolic tradition, it appears probable that they would not have assumed the theatre of the one event to be so far removed from that of the other. For the other mountains which have been thought of instead of Tabor, namely, Hermon or Paneas, there is almost less yet to be said. Yet it must not be forgotten that about a week intervened between the Transfiguration and the first prediction of the Passion, in which time the Saviour may very well have traversed the distance from Cæsarea to Tabor, which, it is true, is somewhat considerable. Comp. Mat_17:22. If the Saviour, moreover, shortly after He left the mountain, returned to Capernaum, Mat_17:24-27, this town was scarcely a day’s journey distant from Tabor. The single important difficulty is that raised by De Wette, following Robinson, that at this time there was a fortification on the summit of Tabor. But although Antiochus the Great fortified the mountain 219 b.c., it is not by any means proved that in the time of Jesus this fortification was yet standing, and though, according to Josephus, this mountain, in the Jewish war, was fortified against the Romans, this, at all events, took place forty years later. Traces of these fortifications are found apparently in the ruins which have since been discovered especially on the south western declivity; but in no case is it proved that the whole mountain was built over at the time of Jesus. Moreover, it must not be overlooked how exceedingly well adapted the far-famed beauty of this place was for its becoming a theatre of the earthly glorification of the Lord.—According to a Dutch theologian (Meyboom), we are to understand the southern summit of the Anti-Lebanon, a snowy peak, which now bears the name Dschebel Escheik.
Peter, James and John.—Already previously witnesses of the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and later than this of the agony in Gethsemane, the most intimate of His friends, those who were initiated into the most mysterious and sublime scenes. The influence of the autopsy of Peter is, in Mar_9:3; Mar_9:6; Mar_9:8; Mar_9:10, unmistakable.
Luk_9:29. The fashion of His countenance was altered.—We have here the first feature in the narrative which requires special attention; the alteration of the outward appearance of the Saviour. We cannot possibly assume (Olshausen) that the body of the Saviour, even during His earthly life, underwent a gradual process of glorification, which here entered into a new stadium. This view leads us to a Docetic conception, and moreover explains, it is true, the shining of His countenance, but not the gleaming of His garments, on which account even Olshausen sees himself necessitated to conceive the Saviour not only as glittering, but also as shined upon. Justly does Lange call attention to the fulness of the Spirit which, from within, overstreamed His whole being. Even with this, however, the brilliancy of His garments is not yet sufficiently explained, so that there is occasion to connect with the inward outstreaming of glory an external illumination. But why might not this latter have arisen from the brilliancy with which undoubtedly we must conceive the appearance of the two heavenly messengers as attended? For we nowhere read that the Saviour shone so miraculously before they had appeared to Him. Even in the case of Moses, Exo_34:29, the brilliancy of his countenance is occasioned by an external heavenly light. [With all deference to the author, this anxious analysis of the Transfiguration appears to us artificial and puerile.—C. C. S.]
Luk_9:30. Two men.—How the apostles learned that it was Moses and Elijah no one of the narrators tells us. They may have become aware of it either by intuition, or by some outward token have understood it from the nature of the discourse, or have heard it afterwards from Jesus. In no case does the uncertainty as to the manner how they learned it give us authority for the assertion that they could not have known it at all, and still less for the rationalizing conjecture that it was two human strangers, secret disciples, confederates with Jesus, and the like.
Which were Moses and Elijah.—That these words were meant to be only the subjective judgment of the relator, but in no way the objective expression of the fact, has, it is true, been often said, but never yet been proved.
Luk_9:31. Spake of His decease.—Luke alone has this intimation as to the subject and the purpose of the interview, by which the true light is first thrown upon this whole manifestation. That Luke’s account has arisen “from the later tradition, which very naturally came to this reflexion,” we cannot possibly believe with Meyer ad loc. The witnesses who saw the rest may also have heard this and remembered it afterwards.—It is noticeable that Peter, 2Pe_1:15, calls his own death also, to which he is looking forward, an ἔξοδος.—When they were awake, διαγρηγορήσαντες.—Lange: “Sleeplessly watching.” De Wette: “When they had waked up.”—At all events it is an antithesis to the preceding ὕπνῳ βεβαρημένοι, by which we are forbidden to draw from this last expression the inference that they had been hindered by sleep from being competent witnesses. However drunken with sleep they may have been, they had not, however, at all gone to sleep, but remained so far awake that they could become aware of all that here took place with the bodily eye and with the ecstatic sense of the inward man alike. Even had we no other proof, yet this very feature in the narrative would show us that we have here before us no dream of the three sleeping disciples, or phantasm of their own heated imagination. That Luke, more than the other two Synoptics, would warrant us to assume something here merely subjective (Neander), is at least wholly unproved.
Luk_9:33. And it came to pass.—The first feeling which animated the disciples in the view of the heavenly spectacle was naturally fear, Mar_9:6. But scarcely have they recovered from that when an indescribable feeling of felicity fills them, to which Peter, almost with child-like transport, lends words. The heavenly temper of the spiritual world communicates itself to the dwellers of earth, and as it were with their hands will they hold fast to the heavenly presence before it vanishes from their eyes.—Three tabernacles.—From the fact that Peter does not propose to build six, but three booths, it may be assuredly concluded that by ἡμᾶς he means only himself and his fellow-disciples,—not all who were there present (De Wette). Sepp, ii. p. 408, takes the liberty of finding in the tabernacles a symbol “of the threefold ministry in the Church.”
Not knowing what he said.—Not because he was yet entirely overcome with sleep, but because he was wholly taken captive by the extraordinariness of the whole scene. Else he would not have expressed himself with so little suitableness, a subjective reflection which manifestly proceeds from Peter himself.
Luk_9:34. A cloud.—The Shekinah, the symbol of the glory of God. “Hœc, ut ex sequentibus patet, ad ima se demisit.” Bengel. The cloud of light which formerly filled the sanctuary of the Lord now receives the three as into a tabernacle of glory, and ravishes the end of the manifestation from the eyes of the disciples, as its beginning also had remained hidden from them.
Luk_9:35. A voice.—The same which was heard before on the Jordan and afterwards in the Temple. As the Saviour, by the Divine voice on the Jordan, had already been consecrated as the King of the kingdom of heaven, and afterwards, Joh_12:28, as the High-priest of the New Testament; so here, on the part of the Father, His Prophetic dignity is in its elevation above that of the two greatest messengers of the Lord in the Old Testament proclaimed to His disciples.—Hear Him.—At the same time an echo of an utterance of Moses, Deu_18:15. Comp. Psa_2:7; Isa_42:1.
Luk_9:36. And they kept it close.—According to Mat_17:9, at the express command of our Lord. The whole conversation respecting Elijah, which Matthew and Mark now give, Luke passes over, perhaps because he considered it for his Gentile Christian readers partly as little intelligible and partly as less important.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. For the statement and criticism of the different interpretations, see Lange on Mat_17:1.
2. As well those who interpret the Transfiguration on the mountain as a purely objective manifestation from the spiritual world without any subjective mediation, as also those who derive all from the quickened receptivity of the disciples, supported by some outward circumstances, such as the morning light, the gleaming of snow, and the like, misapprehend both the letter and the spirit of the narrative. The point of view from which what here took place must be considered, is presented to us by the Saviour Himself when He speaks of a ὅραμα, a word which in the New Testament is often used of an objectively real phenomenon (Act_7:31; Act_12:9). It is, as Lange very justly names it, “a manifestation of spirits in the midst of the present state.” But he who ascribes the whole miracle to the subjectivity of the apostles will scarcely be able to explain how the so simple, and as yet so earthly-minded, disciples, should all at once have been transported out of themselves into such an ecstasy that they could believe that they saw heaven opened above the very head of the Messiah. No, the language of the three Synoptics warrants decidedly the opinion that the disciples, fully awake, perceived with their eye and ear an objective appearance. For even if Peter did not know what he said, he yet knew very well what he saw; but had they been misled by their heated imagination, and had he or his companions afterwards shown it, the Saviour would certainly not have neglected to instruct them more perfectly thereupon. But on the other hand, this also must be maintained with as much decision—that they by that which they outwardly saw were transported into the condition of an exalted [intensified, potenzirten] life of the soul, and thereby became receptive for the hearing of the heavenly voice. Whoever, like Peter, finds in dwelling together with citizens of the spiritual world nothing terrifying, but on the contrary, wishes that this might endure as long as possible, shows by that very fact that he is completely exalted above himself. Here, apparently, there took place a similar union of sensuous and spiritual intuition, of a miraculous fact with an exalted inward life, to that which we can also perceive in the miracle at the Baptism.
3. When philosophy, a priori, doubts the possibility of such a revelation of the spiritual world perceivable by mortals, we shall simply answer her that she is incompetent from her own resources to decide anything in reference to an order of things which is known to us as little by conclusions of reason as by intuition. If, however, historical criticism inquires whether there is sufficient ground to assure to the narrative of the Transfiguration its place in the series of the facts in the public life of our Lord, we would recall that the grounds which elsewhere speak for the credibleness of the Synoptics whenever they relate the most astonishing miracles, hold good here also in undiminished force. Some have, it is true, asserted that such enigmatical and isolated events did not belong to the original apostolic Kerygma; but this is mere rationalistic caprice. The command of the Lord to keep silence until His resurrection, implied not only the permission, but in a certain measure the command, to speak of what took place here after His resurrection; and it would have been psychologically inconceivable if His disciples had neglected to do so. It is sufficiently evident how high a place this narrative occupies in the Synoptics; higher even than the miracle at the Baptism. The difference of the several accounts in respect of some points is in fact insignificant. It is true John says not a word of what here took place: his silence, however, cannot by any means throw any reasonable suspicion on the testimony of his predecessors in narration. On the other hand it is entirely in the spirit of his Gospel, that he gives us to see the glory of the Only-begotten Son of the Father less in such single details than in the grand unity of His manifestation. Only a simple spiritualism, which, moreover, forgets that the fourth Gospel also speaks of voices from heaven, Joh_12:28, can from this silence deduce anything against the objectivity of the history of the miracle. And, what above all may not be overlooked, the testimony of the Synoptics is in a striking manner supported by the second epistle of Peter, Luk_1:16-18, whose spuriousness, it is true, has often been asserted, but, in our eyes at least, has been as yet by no means proved. Comp. Dietlein, Der 2te Brief Petri, p. 1–71; Guericke, Neutestamentl. Isagogik, p. 472; Stier, Brief Judä, p. 11; Thiersch, Apost. Zeitalter, p. 209; et al. plur.
4. The inquiry as to the purpose of the heavenly manifestation is not difficult to answer. The representatives of the Ancient Covenant come in order to consecrate the Messiah for death. The Lord must have longed to speak of that which now lay so deeply at His heart, and yet could find no one on earth who could fully comprehend Him, to whom He could with confidence have unbosomed Himself. His subsequent agony in Gethsemane would certainly have been still more overpowering and deep had the hour of Tabor not preceded. If we read elsewhere that even the angels desire to look into the work of redemption (1Pe_1:12), we here become aware how it awakens not less the inmost interest of the blessed departed. For our Lord, this manifestation and interview was a new proof that His plan of suffering was in truth comprehended in the counsel of the Father, and to the disciples the remembrance of this night might afterwards become a counterpoise against the scandal and the shame of the cross. Finally, as respects the heavenly voice, the exaltation of Jesus even over the greatest men of God in the Ancient Covenant was thereby established, the testimony at the Jordan was repeated, and therefore a new proof of His sinlessness and of His being well pleasing to God was given, whereby the scoffings which He should afterwards hear were more than lavishly even beforehand compensated to Him. As respects the further purpose of the manifestation in its whole, and in its different parts, see Lange ad loc.
5. The Christological importance of this whole event for all following centuries is self-evident. A new light from heaven rises upon Jesus’ Person. On the one hand it rises upon His true Humanity, which needed the communication and strength from above. On the other hand, His Divine dignity, as well in relation to the Father, as also in comparison with the prophets, is here made known to earth and heaven. Considered from a typico-symbolic point of view, it is significant that the appearance of the prophets is represented as a vanishing one, Jesus, on the other hand, as alone remaining with His disciples. Their light goes down, His sun shines continuously.
6. Not less light here falls upon the Work of the Saviour. The inner unity of the Old and the New Covenant becomes by this manifestation evident, and it is shown that in Christ the highest expectations of the law and the prophets are fulfilled. His death, far from being accidental or insignificant, appears here as the carrying out of the eternal counsel of God, and is of so high significance that messengers of heaven come to speak concerning it on earth. The severity of the sacrifice to be brought by Him is manifest from the very fact that He is in an altogether extraordinary manner equipped for this conflict. And the great purpose of His suffering, union of heaven and earth, Coloss. Luk_1:20, how vividly is it here presented before our souls when we on Tabor, although only for a few moments, see heaven descending upon earth, and dwellers of the dust taken up into the communion of the heavenly ones.
7. The manifestation on Tabor deserves, moreover, to be called a striking revelation of the future state in this. We see here: the spirits of just men made perfect live unto God, even though centuries have already flown over their dust. In a glorified body they are active for the concerns of the kingdom of God, in which they take the holiest interest. Although separated by wide distances of time and space beneath, Moses and Elijah have met and recognized one another in higher regions. The centre of their fellowship is the suffering and glorified Jesus, and so blessed is their state, that even their transient appearance causes the light of the most glorious joy to beam into the heart of the child of earth. Earthly sorrow is compensated and forgotten; the Canaan which Moses might not tread in his life, he sees unclosed to him centuries after his death. Thus do they appear before us as types of that which the pious departed are even now, in their condition of separation from the body, and as prophets of that which the redeemed of the Lord shall be in yet higher measure at His coming.
8. The inseparable connection of suffering and glory, as well for the Lord as for His disciples, is here in the most striking manner placed before our eyes. Tabor is the consecration for Calvary, but at the same time gives us a foretaste of the Mount of Olives. At the same time the carnal longing for the joy of Ascension without the smart of Good Friday, is here for all time condemned. The hours of Tabor in the Christian life are still as ever like those of Peter and his companions. “Even with the purest feeling of the joy of faith there mingles here on earth much that is sensual and self-seeking; such exaltations of the spirit wrought by God Himself, are not bestowed on us in order for us to revel here in the intoxication of unspeakable emotions; there follows upon them the cloud, which withdraws from us all sensible sweetness of the enjoyment given us, and in our poverty and sinfulness causes us to feel the terrors of God, that we may ever learn to serve Him the more in the Spirit.” Von Gerlach.
9. There are admirable paintings of the Transfiguration, especially by Raphael. See Staudenmayer, Der Geist des Christenthums, dargestellt in den heiligen Zeiten, Handlungen und Kunst, ii. p. 430–437, and the chief histories of art. Comp. the Essay on the History of the Transfiguration by Dr. C. B. Moll in Piper’s Evang. Kalender, 1859, p. 60 seq.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The mountain-heights in the life of the Saviour.—Prayer the night-rest of Jesus.—The inward glory of the nature of our Lord revealed without.—The eye of the fathers of the Ancient Covenant directed full of interest upon the Mediator of the New.—The conflict which is carried on on Earth, is known to the dwellers of Heaven.—Jesus consecrated to His suffering and dying by a visit from the dwellers of heaven. This consecration was: 1. Necessary, on account of the true Humanity of the Saviour; 2. fitting, on account of the high momentousness of the event; 3. of great value for the disciples, as well then as afterwards; 4. continually important for the Christian world of following centuries.—Servants of God on earth separated from one another, in heaven united with one another.—The high importance which heaven ascribes to the work of redemption on earth.—The gleaming heaven in contrast with the sleeping earth.—The blessed view of the unveiled world of spirits.—“Master, it is good for us to be here.” 1. That we are here; 2. that we are here; 3. that we are here with Thee and heaven.—Tabor delights endure only for instants.—Even in communion with the dwellers of heaven, Peter cannot deny his individuality.—When I was a child, I spake as a child.—Alternation of rapture and fear in the consecrated hour of the Christian life.—The voice of God from the cloud contains even yet important significance: 1. For the Saviour, 2. for the disciples, 3. for the world.—God wills that all men should hear the Son of His love. 1. This the Father requires; 2. this the Son deserves; 3. this the Holy Spirit teaches us.—The prophets vanish, Jesus remains alone.—Jesus alone: 1. So appears He even now to His own in the holiest hours of life; 2. so will it also be hereafter. Even heaven vanishes to the eye which may behold the Lord of heaven face to face.—Christian silence.—Even to his fellow-disciples the disciple of the Saviour cannot relate all which the Saviour has often let him taste.—[How some Christian people are perpetually tormented with a notion that they must testify to whatever manifestation of God is granted to themselves, at the risk of bringing shallowness and weakness upon their own experience!—C. C. S.]—How well it is with the friend of the Saviour on Tabor: 1. How well it was there for His first disciples; they saw there a manifestation: a. most sublime in itself, b. most momentous for the Master, c. most pregnant of instruction for themselves. 2. How well it is continually with the Christian there; he finds, a. support for his faith, b. a school of instruction for his life, c. a living image of his highest hope.—The light which Tabor throws: 1. Upon the majesty of the person of Jesus; 2. upon the fitness of His suffering; 3. upon the sublimity of His kingdom.—Hear ye Him: 1. With deep homage; 2. with unconditional obedience; 3. with joyful trust.—The near connection of Old and New Covenant.—Tabor the boundary: 1. Between the letter and the Spirit; 2. between the ministration of condemnation, and the ministration of righteousness; 3. between that which vanishes away, and that which abides. 2Co_3:6-11.—Jesus’ Transfiguration considered in connection with His Passion: On Tabor, 1. The prediction of His Passion is repeated; 2. the necessity of His Passion is confirmed; 3. the conflict of His Passion is softened; 4. the fruit of His Passion is prophesied.—The ascent [Aufgang] to Tabor, and the decease [Ausgang] at Jerusalem. We receive here light upon: 1. The exalted character of the Person who accomplishes this decease; 2. the worth of the work which is accomplished in this decease; 3. the glory of heaven which through this decease is disclosed.—Jesus the centre of union of the Church militant and the Church triumphant.—From the depth into the height, from the height again towards the depth.
Starke:—The prayer of believing souls brings a foretaste of eternal life with it.—Oh, Saviour, if Thou wert so glorious on the Mount, what must Thou now be in heaven!—Christ, Moses, and all the prophets speak with one voice concerning our redemption. Be not then unbelieving, but believing.—Nova Bibl Tub.:—When Jesus shall waken us to His glory, we shall be as those that dream.—Quesnel:—Whoever will enjoy rest and glory before labor and suffering, has never yet become acquainted with true religion.—The saying, “It is good to be here,” may be spared till we are in heaven.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Our future blessedness is yet encompassed with a cloud; “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” 1Jn_3:2.—My Redeemer, it is nothing to me who abandons me, if only Thou remain. Psa_73:25.
Wallin:—Desire no heaven upon earth.—Arndt:—Jesus’ Transfiguration the opening scene of His passion. 1. The connection in which it stands with the Passion; 2. the significance which it has especially for the Passion.—Fuchs:—The Transfiguration of Christ: 1. Where did it happen? 2. how did it happen? 3. whereto did it happen?—Couard:—The importance of this narrative: 1. For our faith, 2. for our life, 3. for our hope.—In Krummacher’s Elijah the Tishbite, the concluding discourse upon: Jesus Alone.—Schleiermacher:—4th vol. of sermons, p. 338.—Palmer:—“Lord, it is good to be here.” An admirable text for occasional sermons, remarks at communions, weddings, at the grave, &c., useful also at dedications.
Footnotes:
[6][Luk_9:28.—The Rec. is approved by Tischendorf, Lachmann, Tregelles, Alford, with Cod. Sin., A., B., C.1, 12 other uncials. Van Oosterzee’s order only by C.3, D., 2 other uncials.—C. C. S.]
[7][Luk_9:32.—“Some difficulty is here occasioned by διαγρηγορήσαντες. The verb διαγρηγορεῖν signifies elsewhere: to watch through; so Herodian, III. Luk_4:8 : πάσης…τῆς νυκτὸς διαγρηγορήσαντες. Accordingly Meyer wishes it to be so taken here: Since they, however, remained awake, did not actually fall asleep. But according to the connection with the preceding it is altogether improbable that such is the meaning: ‘since they, notwithstanding their disposition to sleep, yet remained awake,’ but rather that Luke meant this word, in any case an unusual one, in the sense: After they as it were had passed through their slumber to awaking again, had again waked: as the Vulgate had already rendered it by evigilantes (Luther: da sie aber aufwachten).” Bleek. Van Oosterzee takes Meyer’s interpretation against the preferable one, as it seems to me, of Bleek.—C. C. S.]
[8]Luk_9:35.—According to the reading of B., L., [Cod. Sin.,] ἐκλελεγμένος, approved by Griesbach, Schulz, Tischendorf, and Meyer. The Recepta ἀγαπητός, although strongly attested, appears to be taken from the parallels in Matthew and Mark.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain JESUS TRANSFIGURED. (Luk 9:28-36)
JESUS TRANSFIGURED. (Luk 9:28-36)
an eight days after these sayings--including the day on which this was spoken and that of the Transfiguration. Matthew and Mark say (Mat 17:1; Mar 9:2) "after six days," excluding these two days. As the "sayings" so definitely connected with the transfiguration scene are those announcing His death--at which Peter and all the Twelve were so startled and scandalized--so this scene was designed to show to the eyes as well as the heart how glorious that death was in the view of Heaven.
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Peter, James, and John--partners before in secular business; now sole witnesses of the resurrection of Jairus' daughter (Mar 5:37), the transfiguration, and the agony in the garden (Mar 14:33).
a mountain--not Tabor, according to long tradition, with which the facts ill comport, but some one near the lake.
to pray--for the period He had now reached was a critical and anxious one. (See on Mat 16:13). But who can adequately translate those "strong cryings and tears?" Methinks, as I steal by His side, I hear from Him these plaintive sounds, "Lord, who hath believed Our report? I am come unto Mine own and Mine own receive Me not; I am become a stranger unto My brethren, an alien to My mother's children: Consider Mine enemies, for they are many, and they hate Me with cruel hatred. Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail. Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth: Show Me a token for good: Father, glorify Thy name."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain § 75.—TRANSFIGURATION AND DISCOURSE WHILE DESCENDING THE MOUNT, Luk_9:28-36.
§ 75.—TRANSFIGURATION AND DISCOURSE WHILE DESCENDING THE MOUNT, Luk_9:28-36.
Mat_17:1-13; Mar_9:2-13.
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29. Glistering—The verbs to glister, to glisten and to glitter are but different forms of the same word, and have nearly the same meaning.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28-36. The Transfiguration.
28-36. The Transfiguration.
28. about an eight days after] See Mat_17:1-13; Mar_9:2-13. This is merely the inclusive reckoning which St Luke saw in his written sources, and means exactly the same thing as “after six days” in Mar_9:2. (This explains Mat_27:63.)
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he took] The solemnity of this special choice is marked in the other Gospels by the additional word anapherei, “He leads them up” (cf. Luk_24:51). Mat_26:37.
Peter. and John and James] See Luk_6:14, Luk_8:51. The object of this occasion was to fill their souls with a vision which should support their faith amid the horrors which they afterwards witnessed.
into a mountain] Rather, into the mountain. The others say “into a lofty mountain.” There can be little doubt that Mount Hermon (Jebelcsh Sheikh) is intended, in spite of the persistent, but perfectly baseless tradition which points to Tabor. For (1) Mount Hermon is easily within six days’ reach of Caesarea Philippi, and (ii) could alone be called a “lofty mountain” (being 10,000 feet high) or “the mountain,” when the last scene had been at Caesarea. Further, (iii) Tabor at that time in all probability was (Jos. B. J. i. 8, § 7, Vit. 37), as from time immemorial it had been (Jos_19:12), an inhabited and fortified place, wholly unsuited for a scene so solemn; and (iv) was moreover in Galilee, which is excluded by Mar_9:30. “The mountain” is indeed the meaning of the name “Hermon,” which being already consecrated by Hebrew poetry (Psa_133:3, and under its old names of Sion and Sirion, or ‘breast-plate’ Deu_4:48; Deu_3:9; Son_4:8), was well suited for the Transfiguration by its height, seclusion, and snowy splendour.
to pray] The characteristic addition of St Luke. That this awful scene took place at nighty and therefore that He ascended the mountain in the evening, is clear from Luk_9:32-33 : comp. Luk_6:12. It is also implied by the allusions to the scene in 2Pe_1:18-19.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (28-36) And it came to pass.—See Notes on Mat_17:1-13,…
(28-36) And it came to pass.—See Notes on Mat_17:1-13, and Mar_9:2-13. St. Luke’s way of reckoning, “about an eight days,” where the other two Gospels give “after six days,” is interesting, as throwing light on the mode of reckoning which sees three days in the interval between our Lord’s death and resurrection. (See Note on Mat_27:63.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 28-36. The Transfiguration.
Vers. 28-36. The Transfiguration.
And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. Some eight days after this question asked in the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi, and its reply, and the sermon to the people on the subject of "No cross, no crown," which immediately followed, our Lord summoned the three leading disciples and took them up into a mountain to pray. They had spent the last few days apparently in quiet converse together. SS. Matthew and Mark speak only of six days. St. Luke gives the period in round numbers, counting portions of the first and last days as whole days. We may well imagine that this was a period of intense depression in the little company of Jesus. Their Master"s popularity was fast waning among the people. His powerful enemies seemed gathering closer and closer round the Teacher whom they were determined to crush. The late utterances of Jesus, too, whether spoken to them alone, or publicly to the people, all foreshadowed a time of danger and suffering in the immediate future for him and for them a time which, as far as he was concerned, would close with a violent death. To raise the fainting spirits of his own, to inspire them with greater confidence in himself, seems to have been the immediate purpose of that grand vision of glory known as the Transfiguration. It is true that to only three was vouchsafed the vision, and silence was enjoined on these, but the three were the leading spirits of the twelve. If Peter, James, and John were brave, earnest, and hopeful, there was little doubt that their tone of mind would be quickly reflected in their companions. Tradition, based on the fairly early authority of Cyril of Jerusalem, and of Jerome (fourth century), speaks of the mountain as Tabor, but the solitude evidently necessary for the manifestation would have been sought for in vain on Mount Tabor, a hill which rises abruptly from the Plain of Esdraelon, not very far from Nazareth to the south-east, for the summit of Tabor at that time was crowned with a fortress. The mount, in most probably was one of the lower peaks of Hermon, at no great distance from the fountain source of the Jordan and Caesarea Philippi, in which district we know Jesus and his companions had been teaching only a few days before.
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Vers. 28-36. The Transfiguration.
"When, in the desert, he was girding himself for the work of life, angels of life came and ministered to him. Now, in the fair world, when he is girding himself for the work of death, the ministrants come to him from the grave, but from the grave conquered one from that tomb under Abarim which his own hand had sealed long ago, the other from the rest into which he had entered without seeing corruption. "There stood by him Moses and Elias, and spake of his decease." And when the prayer is ended, the task accepted, then first since the star passed over him at Bethlehem the full glory falls on him from heaven, and the testimony is borne to his everlasting Sonship and power him! Thus beautifully and truly writes Ruskin of the solemn transaction in Jesus" history recorded by the synoptical evangelists. It is a new anointing of Jesus as the Christ of God, his installation into the last part of his ministry on the earth. At the baptism, the Spirit descended, and the voice came from heaven, "My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This was the general inauguration of the Messiahship. Now there comes the special inauguration of Christ as "the End of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth." "Moses and Elias appear to hold converse on that sublime event which had been the great central subject of all their teaching, and solemnly to consign into his hands, once and for all, in a symbolical and glorious representation, their delegated and expiring power." Now the voice is, "Hear" not Moses and Elias, but "my beloved Son!" A wondrous, awe-striking hour! The hush over nature, the darkness illumined by an inexpressible radiance, the face of the Man of sorrows then and there shining as the sun, the raiment penetrated by the glory "white and glistering" as the light, and the conversation of the three shining ones, these, the features of the scene, left an indelible impression on the chosen witnesses. Peter, ever ready, though not ever wise, has some foolish speech about erecting three booths. But by-and-by they realize the significance of that which they saw. "We were eye-witnesses of his majesty," cries the same Peter. "This voice we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount." Not, indeed, that such a momentary illumination of Christ is to be held as a proof of first authority. He proceeds, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." But it was a hint as to the "power and coming of the Lord Jesus," confirming the "more sure word," and helping into the understanding of the truth that, with the decease at Jerusalem, the old was finished and the new began.
"God had reconciled all things to himself." Now, with regard to the vision, observe
I IT WAS ON A MOUNTAIN. The hill or upland scene occupies a prominent place in the history of our Lord. It seems to have been a craving of his human heart to get "where beyond the voices there is peace." There he could breathe more freely; there he found a nourishment and invigoration which were welcome. On the high ground he preached his famous sermon. To the mountain he was wont to retire for prayer. When all went to their own homes, he went to the Mount of Olives. On the hill of Golgotha he (tied. The mountain in Galilee was the meeting-place with his apostles after the Resurrection. From the slope of Olivet he ascended to heaven. Now, for this brief moment of glory, the place chosen is "the high mountain apart." Do we not need an upland scene in our life? No hill, no transfiguration. The face never shines. It is a dull, dreary toil. The holy mount, on whose top one can leave the carking care and the weary plod, where the air is always pure the hill that is commanded only by the heights of God"s presence ah! this is the secret worth possessing.
II IT IS AS HE PRAYS THAT THE FASHION OF THE COUNTENANCE IS ALTERED. He goes up to the mountain, not to meet Moses and Elias, nor to have a seance with spirits, but to pray to meet his Father, that, out of the Father"s heart, he might fill the fountains of his spirit. As he prays he passes into that blessed light of God which "enwrapped him in such an aureole of glistering brilliance, his whole presence breathed so Divine a radiance, that the light, the snow, the lightning, are the only things to which the evangelist can compare that celestial lustre." Christian! the lesson thereby suggested thou needst not that any teach thee. It is the same lesson, but in a higher form, that was shadowed forth in Jacob"s Peniel, in the wrestling by the brook Jabbok. Through the wrestling of the angel the heart of the supplanter was plucked out of him; in his prayer which prevailed he found the new name the Israel, the prince with God and man. Hast thou never found it so? Hast thou never, in some great sorrow, poured out thy heart before God, and realized that, when thou didst kneel, thou wast only the worm, and no man weak and spiritless; when thou didst rise from thy knees, thou wast the man, and no worm the fashion of thy countenance had been altered? Let the sons of pride speak as they choose, the children of quietness know that "more things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of.
III THERE IS CONFERENCE WITH THE DEPARTED. The two shining presences are spoken of as invested with the properties and functions of life. "Two men, which were Moses and Elias." We know little about the world of the dead, about the possibilities of intercommunion they with us, and we with them. There is a feeling, widely diffused, that some kind of intercourse there is. Even the negro, in his African platoon, lays aside a little rice each day as the share of his departed kindred. Through all times, everywhere, the human heart is found asking, speculating over the question, "Is there no bridge between the dead and the living"? Is all speech, all fellowship, for ever broken?" Well, in this Scripture we read of two men, who for long generations had been removed from this earthly scene, profoundly interested in events to be transacted on this globe of ours on which depended the salvation of the world. May not this be a glimpse into the hidden economy? May not that which we see in them during this moment of sight into the unseen, be the picture of what is going on even now in the home of the blessed and holy dead? Is not the talk on Hermon an illustration of the communion of saints; reminding us that heaven and earth are nearer than we think of, that it is given to us in prayer to "... join hands With those who went before, And greet the blood-besprinkled bands On the eternal shore"? "Ye are come... to the spirits of just men made perfect.
IV THE GLORY IS TRANSIENT. A brief moment, and then the vision fades into the light of common day. Moses was forty days and forty nights on the mount. Jesus is on the Mount for only a short hour. Even while the foolish apostle spoke, there came a cloud that overshadowed them. The Lord cannot afford to luxuriate on the mountaintop. There is a universe to be reclaimed; there are shapes of disease and sin and want waiting for him below. More than ever is he straitened until his bloody baptism is done. And so with the disciple. It is good to have the retreat, the mountain, the sabbatical hour each day, the sabbatical day each week. But the purpose of the rest is to refit for the labour. And, after all, the highest transfiguration is not that of the dazzling outward light, but that of the beauty shining through the common ordinary things, and investing them with a heavenly grace and truth. The teaching given the apostles next after the transaction on the mountain is the taking of a little child, and saying, "Whosoever shall receive this child in my Name receiveth me.
The Transfiguration.
This incident is one that stands quite by itself; it is wholly unlike everything else in our Lord"s history. It was miraculous enough, yet we do not count it amongst the miracles of Christ. It may be viewed in many lights; it may illustrate
I THE CLOSE RELATION BETWEEN OUR SPIRITUAL AND OUR BODILY NATURE. This manifested glory was not altogether outward; it was more than a radiance thrown around or imposed upon him, which might just as readily have occurred to any Jewish rabbi. It does not correspond with the illumination or" the wall of a building or the face of a cathedral. It was the glory of his Divine nature, usually hidden, now shining through and revealing itself in his form and countenance. We are sure that the appearance of our Lord at all times answered to his character and his spirit. We gather this from the charm which he exerted over his disciples and over little children; from the confidence which he inspired in the social outcasts of his day; in the occasional flashings forth of his Divine sovereignty. (Joh_2:15 Mar_10:32Jo 18:6) The Transfiguration was by far the most striking instance of his bodily nature being lighted up and irradiated by his indwelling glory; there was as much of the spiritual as of the material about it; it could not have happened to any other than to our Lord. And this opens the question how far our spiritual experiences may and should glorify our personal appearance. The spirit does act powerfully upon and manifest itself through the body which is its organ. We know how love gleams, how indignation flashes, how scorn and hatred lower, how hope shines, how disappointment pales, how all the passions that breathe and burn in the human breast come forth and make themselves felt in the eye, the lip, the countenance of man. We may and should see a kind or a pure heart in a kind or pure countenance, as we do see avarice or indulgence in a keen or a bloated visage. We bear about in our body the marks of our association with the Lord Jesus, and other marks also which are not derived from such fellowship as that. Holiness has its transfiguring influence, as sin has its debasing effect, upon the human form and figure the one refines and glorifies, as the other disfigures and degrades. There are two things to be heeded here.
1. We must not draw hasty and unjust inferences; there are those who, so far as appearance goes, are victims of misfortune or are vicarious sufferers.
2. We must endeavour to let a holy character be visible in our bodily persons. Inward excellence is the source of outward beauty. No tailoring or millinery, no cosmetics or perfumery, will make beautiful the face and form behind which is an ugly heart; selfishness and pride and envy will never look anything but unsightly and forbidding. The thoughts that breathe, the feelings that glow, the spirit that animates, the character that shines through it is this which beautifies, which adorns, which makes attractive, which wins confidence and love. These are the things to care for, to cultivate, to cherish; it is thence that our influence for good will spring.
II THE CARE WHICH GOD TAKES OF HIS OWN IN THEIR TIME OF SPECIAL NEED. What was the purpose of this wonderful scene? It was to prepare the disciples (and perhaps the Master) for the last scenes of all. Those two celestial visitants spake of "the decease which he should accomplish," etc. A terrible ordeal was that through which he and they would pass. Therefore it seemed well to the Father to give to him and to them the most imposing, the most impressive, the most convincing proof that he was well pleased with his Son, and that he was, indeed, the Messiah of their hopes. We know from Peter"s Epistle (2Pe_1:16, 2Pe_1:17) how strong a confirmation of their faith it was and continued to be. Thus God cared for his own, and thus he still cares. Our lives glide on like peaceful rivers; but most human lives prove to be rivers with cataracts in their course. Times of grave trial and peril come, when there is a great strain on our faith and patience; when we have to draw on our last resources; critical trial-hours they are, like those which came to the Master and to his faithful baud. How shall we be assured of calmness, fortitude, fidelity, when we pass through them? If we are loyal to our Lord in the days of sunshine and prosperity, if we "abide in him" now, he will not fail us then. As our day his grace will be. He will prepare us for the trial-hour; he will be with us in its darkest moments; he will lead us oat into the sunshine on the other side. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain He took Peter, and John, and James
Luk_9:28-36
He took Peter, and John, and James
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The Transfiguration
I.
THE SCENE OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.
II. THE PURPOSE OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.
1. Its intent touching Jesus. To strengthen and brace His spirit for the solemn and awful work before Him.
2. Its interest touching Moses and Elias. For them it must have been s new revelation of the wisdom and glory of God in the consummation of His eternal purpose to redeem a ruined world.
3. Its intent touching the three apostles. To rectify their conceptions of the Messiah.
III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.
1. It marks the topmost step in the progressive glorification of the manhood of Jesus Christ. His incarnation and His whole life upon earth was a humiliation; but side by side with that humiliation there was going on a process of glorification. From infancy His person had been the centre of a widening circle of epiphanies, manifesting forth the glory which was progressively unfolded within the Tabernacle of His humanity.
2. It may be looked upon as the inauguration of the New Covenant. The law and the prophets, having prepared the way for the new dispensation of grace, mercy, and peace, in Christ Jesus our Lord, now appear as His attendant ministers, at once to bear witness to Him, and to learn from Him the mystery of redemption. Then, having borne their testimony, they give way to Him, and the voice of God proclaims Him the Head and Lord of all.
3. It represents to us the investiture of Jesus Christ as High Priest. The Father was now robing His Son in the sacred garments of His holy priesthood in which he was to offer the great sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and, bearing upon His heart the names of His people, to pass through the veil--that is to say, His flesh--into the Holy of holies in the heavens, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
4. It is, above all, designed to exhibit to us the transcendent value of the sufferings and death of Christ. In the Basilica at Ravenna there is a mosaic of the sixth century, representing in emblematical form the Transfiguration of Christ--a jewelled cross set in a circle of blue studded with golden stars, in the midst of which appears the face of Christ, the Saviour of the world; while from the cloud close by is thrust forth a Divine hand that points to the cross. Those early artists were right in their reading of this sublime event. The Transfiguration sets the cross of Christ in the centre, surrounds it with a radiant firmament of Gods promises and of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and shows us the hand of God Himself, emerging from the cloud of glory, and pointing to the cross, as though God the Father would say to man what John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God, &c.
5. It has a prophetic significance. Standing on Hermon with these three apostles, a long vista stretches out before us into the distant future, including in its scope that great day when the Son of God shall take to Himself His power, His mighty power, in order to reign, His kingdom has come at last; and what is the manner of it? It is a kingdom of redeemed men--of men who stand, like Moses and Elias, with Christ in glory, not only redeemed, not only delivered from sin and suffering and sorrow and trial and pain, but transformed and transfigured with that same glory by which the person of Jesus is inwrapped.
6. It has a symbolic import. It symbolizes the transformation and transfiguration of our spirits, our whole reasonable, moral, and spiritual nature into the image of Jesus Christ our Lord.
CONCLUDING LESSONS:
1. If we desire to behold the glory of the transfigured Redeemer, we must climb with Him the mount of prayer.
2. Learn from this great scene the metamorphic power of prayer. There are holy men and women, even in this our practical age, and amid the practical duties of life, whose spirits are manifestly transformed, who, already in this mortal life, are seen walking with Christ in the white robes of self-renouncing, self-forgetting love. If we ask the secret of this new transfiguration, the answer can only be, They are men and women who breathe the atmosphere of fervent prayer.
3. Consecration to the path of suffering is the preparation for transfiguration. Oh, the mystery of suffering, the mystery of sorrow, the mystery of bereavement! Oh, the mystery of loneliness and of affliction in this world! But see, it vanishes like the morning mist, as we discover that they who tread the path of suffering are preparing for the Mount of Transfiguration.
4. Learn from this scene the true relation of the contemplative to the active life. We cannot spend our lives on the mountain-top of vision, or of ecstasy, or of contemplation. It is good to be here, says the mystic, beholding the vision of the glory of God. It is good to be here, says the ascetic, apart from the world, disciplining the soul, striving to obtain purity of heart. It is good to be here, says the student, revelling in the contemplation of the Divine, beholding the glory of God in history, in philosophy, in revelation. But we may not thus spend our lives. The voice of God calls us down to grapple with the problems and the duties which wait on every side. Sin is here! sorrow is here; darkness is here; unbelief is here. If God has revealed to us the glory of His Son, it is not that we should give our lives up to its contemplation, but that we should gain thereby inspiration and strength to tread the path of duty or of suffering, that we should consecrate our selves to the work of lightening the darkness, and lessening the suffering, and cleansing the defilement, of the world in which we live. (R. H. McKim, D. D.)
Our Lords Transfiguration
I. TRANSFIGURATION DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE BEEN AN UNUSUAL EXPERIENCE WITH OUR LORD. He was accustomed to go apart to pray--to ascend mountains and spend whole nights in devotion. He was accustomed to meet heavenly beings there. He was accustomed to shine among them as the light. All this we know. But once He took three earthly witnesses, and permitted them to see those angels, who strengthened Him, comforted Him, ministered to Him. Some, at least, of these celestial visitors were seen to be pious men who had lived and tried to do Gods will on earth. One of them certainly had died, and been buried as we must be. Look upon this lantern. Its sides are unflecked crystal. No stain dims their transparency. Each ray of the Drummond light that blazes within them is perfectly transmitted. Such a light in such a body was Jesus Christ when His soul had been kindled by converse with Moses and Elias upon the theme which at His birth made heaven sing.
II. WHAT LESSONS DID CHRIST MEAN TO TEACH HIS DISCIPLES BY GOING THUS ONCE INTO HIS CLOSET WITHOUT HAVING SHUT TO THE DOOR?
1. He showed them the source of His strength. Such seasons of communion with heaven are needed by His disciples. We need experiences which remind us that we are citizens of eternity--experiences which will make the events of the markets, of the graveyard, and even wars and rumours of wars, seem insignificant, except so far as they move us to consider the sign of the Son of Man.
2. Christ strengthened His disciples to meet the trouble that was coming, by showing them what that trouble meant. The thing of which blind mortals had been ashamed is the thing in which heaven glories! Is it not plain that the three who most needed this lesson were Peter, who had protested most vehemently against the cross, and James and John the throne-seekers? Peter, who will take the sword to assault the High Priests servant, and the sons of Zebedee, who would call down fire from heaven after the manner of Elijah before he learned to under stand the power of Christ revealed in the still, small voice? Did not these most need to be taught that the throne of God was the cross?
3. But why did the Master forbid the three to mention the heavenly interview until after He should arise from the dead? Plainly a prominent purpose of the peculiar experience granted them was, to impress their minds with a consciousness of the sympathy of the two worlds. The scene must have made them feel that heaven and earth were adjacent mansions in their Fathers house; that the door was always swinging. As their Master retired at will into celestial companionships, so might they. But this was a lesson they did not need to use while He, their Guide, their Friend, their Saviour, was with them in the world. Hear ye Him! was the sole direction they required then. But the time was drawing near when they would need to use the lesson learned upon the mount. That time was not when Jesus hung upon the cross, not even when His body lay in the sepulchre, but when He had risen, and they would be tempted to believe that their continued communion with Him was an illusion, an idle tale.
And most of all after the ascension would they need to realize the meanness of heaven and earth. (W. B. Wright.)
The redeeming majesty of the Son of God
I. Look AT THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH THE EVANGELISTS RECORD.
1. The scene was a mountain. It is not fanciful to say that mountains seem to have a power of attracting to themselves the great things of men. Natural advantages may account for it in part; symbolism may account for it still more. Physical qualities present a strong claim, spiritual significance a stronger. However some may disesteem the more ethical relations of the material to the mental, we believe that men have been wise in seeking for types as well as space in the outward world, and that their religions, whether of human origin or of Divine origin, as among the Jews, have embodied a deep truth in connecting their sacred scenes and sacred services with the ancient mountains and everlasting hills. When the Son of God appeared in glory, the earth assisted in his temporary enthronement, and the local accident harmonized with the spiritual import of that august event.
2. The company who witnessed it. These witnesses were enough to attest the reality of the occurrence. But why select them? Why not permit all the apostles to be thus privileged? The answer to this may not be within our knowledge. It is, however, probable that they were more intimately related to the Saviour than the rest. They had a closer fellowship; they could follow Him further; they required a higher preparation. They perhaps loved more, could bear more, and needed more. And thus, as He showed Himself to all of them more than to the world, so He showed Himself to some of them more than to the rest, admitted them to the deeper things of His spirit, and the stranger facts of His history, now permitting them to behold His sorrowfulness unto death, and now permitting them to be eyewitnesses of His Majesty.
3. The time it took place. A week after the conversation which Christ had with His apostles at Caesarea Philippi, when Peter declared his belief in His Messiahship, and Christ predicted His sufferings. The immediate season was night, for what took place on their descent from the mount, Luke says, was on the next day. Hence the disciples fell asleep. The darkness of the night would add to the solemnity of the scene. And may we not say that the seasons of our greatest glory are commonly connected with gloom, and that the evil of sorrow and shame help the display of the moral lustre of the soul? But the circumstance to which I would especially call attention is that Christ was praying. The obvious lesson to be drawn from our Lords conduct on this and other occasions is, that not only should we always indulge the spirit of prayer, but that we should enter into the greatest events and experiences with peculiar devotion; that special temptations, special duties, special sufferings, and special good, all call for special wrestling with God; that instruction and strength, fortitude and honour, are to be sought from heaven; that only in prayer can we meet our enemy, only in prayer can we fulfil our vocation, only in prayer can we drink the cup of love, and only in prayer can we gain the Spirit of glory and of God.
II. THE MEANING AND DESIGN OF THIS GLORIOUS SCENE.
1. It had immediate reference to the circumstances of Christ and His disciples. Jesus was now entering upon the last and most sorrowful portion of His career. He was probably within a fortnight of His death. It was not the dying, but the attendant circumstances that made the future so distressing to the mind of Jesus. In another sense than that of the disciples, He feared as He entered the cloud. He was chastened and oppressed by the anticipation of His peculiar woe. And, doubtless, He received from God the Father honour and glory, on the occasion before us to strengthen Him for the coming conflict. But if the Transfiguration was meant for Christ, it was also meant for the disciples. It was intended to reward and establish the conviction of His Messiahship, which they had lately expressed. It was intended to extend and exalt their conceptions of His character and work.
2. The Transfiguration has a meaning to ourselves, as a type of the redeeming majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(1) Christ is glorified. He is personally transfigured in heaven. He is changed, and His body is a glorious one, the beauteous type of the restored bodies of all who die in Him. This body exists in light. Ineffable brightness invests it. Far different is it from what is below--the seat of infirmities, and pains, and death. Far different is its state from its state below--one of want, exposure, injury, and shame.
(2) The glory of Christ is the glory of One who is appointed the Lord and Lawgiver of man. He is to be heard.
(3) It is the glory of One who passed to honour through suffering and death. Most notable is it that the theme of conversation with the glorified messengers was His decease.
(4) It is the glory of One whom both worlds obey and honour.
(5) It is the glory of One in whom all history finds its meaning and its honour. (A: J. Morris.)
Christs Transfiguration
I. INTRODUCTION .
1. The time. Luke says, about an eight days, Matthew and Mark, after six days. The reconciliation is easy. Matthew and Mark spoke of the space of time between the day of prediction and the day of Transfiguration exclusively; Luke includes them both.
2. The persons chosen to attend Him in this action.
(1) Why three? (Deu_17:6.) And as John speaks (1Jn_5:7-8) of three witnesses in heaven and three on earth, so here are three and three, three from heaven--God the Father, Moses, and Elias; and three from earth--Peter, James, and John.
(2) Why those three? Many give divers reasons. Peter had led the way to the rest in that notable confession of Christ (Mat_16:16), and is conceived to have some primacy for the orderly beginning of actions in the college of the apostles. James was the first apostle who shed his blood for Christ (Act_12:2), and John was the most long-lived of them all, and so could the longer give testimony of those things which he heard and saw, till the Church was well gathered and settled.
3. The place. A high mountain.
(1) For elevation.
(2) For secrecy.
4. The preparative action. Prayer.
II. THE TRANSFIGURATION ITSELF.
1. Its nature. It was a glorious alteration in the appearance and qualities of His body; not a substantial alteration in the substance of it. It was not a change wrought in the essential form and substance of Christs body, but only the outward form was changed, being more full of glory and majesty than it used to be or appeared to be.
(1) How His body, now transfigured, differed from His body at other times during His conversing with men. Though the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him always, yet the state of His body was disposed so as might best serve for the decency of human conversation; as the sun in a rainy, cloudy day iS not seen, but now as it might cover His Divine nature, it would break out in vigour and strength.
(a) It was not a change or alteration of the substance of the body, as if it were turned into a spiritual substance; no, it remained still a true human mortal body with the same nature and properties it had before, only it became bright and glorious.
(b) As the substance of the body was not changed, so the natural shape and features were not changed, otherwise how could it be known to be Christ, the shape and features were the same, only a new and wonderful splendour put upon them.
(c) This new and wonderful splendour was not in imagination and appearance only, but real and sensible.
(2) How His body transfigured differed from His glorified body.
(a) Partly in the degree and measure, the clarity and majesty of Christs glorified body is greater and more perfect. Here is a representation, some delineation, but not a full exhibition of His heavenly glory.
(b) Partly in continuance and permanency this change was not perpetual, but to endure for a short time only, for it ceased before they came down from the Mount.
(c) The subject or seat of this glory differed, the body of Christ being then corruptible and mortal, but now incorruptible and immortal. If Christs body had been immortal and impassible, then Christ could not die.
(d) Here are garments, and a glorified body shall have no other garments than the robes of immortality and glory in heaven. Christ shall be clothed with light as with a garment.
2. Its objects.
(1) To show what Christ was. The dignity of His Person and office.
(2) To show what Christ should be; for this was a pledge with what glory He should come in His Kingdom (Mat_16:27); it prefigured the glory of His second coming.
(3) To show what we shall be; for Christ is the pattern.
Uses:
1. Be transformed, that you may be transfigured (Rom_12:2). The change must begin in the soul.
2. Be contented to be like Christ in reproaches, disgraces, and neglect in the world, that you may be like Him in glory. Your Lord is a glorious Lord, and He can put glory upon you.
3. To wean our hearts from all human and earthly glory; what is a glorious house to the palace of heaven; glorious garments to the robes of immortality? The glory of Christ should put out the glory of these petty stars that shine in the world, as the sun puts out the fire. We have higher things to mind; it is not for eagles to catch flies, or princes to embrace the dunghill.
4. Since this glory is for the body, do not debase the body, to make it an instrument of sin (1Th_4:4). Possess your vessels in sanctification and honour, do not offend God to gratify the body, as they Rom_14:13) who make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. Do not spare the body to do God service (Act_26:7). (T. Manton, D. D.)
And it would be good for us also to be on the mount, for we, too, need to see Jesus transfigured. Some would say, if they were honest, that while they have a certain admiration for Christ, they see nothing transcendent in Him. To them, He is only one among the great--one among great peaks, not the greatest peak of all. They are not on the height where He is to be seen. They must ascend the mount of knowledge and faith, where alone His glory is to be seen. Have we seen this glory of Christ? Some say, These visions are a questionable good; they lead people into saying foolish things. But notice, it was only Peter who spoke, John and James were silent; Peter would not have spoken so if he had taken time to think, but Peter was always impetuous. What, then, was the good to the disciples? It struck down their prejudices. It silenced all objections to the death of Christ. The Church has come during the last fifty years to enjoy a vision of the Transfiguration of Christ--that is, to see more than in previous centuries the glory of His character and of His death. Christ is more prominent, more precious to the Church than ever before. It has consequently been delivered from many prejudices, and has been prepared for the great trial of anti-christian criticism. It is good for us to be here in this generation. But if this be true of the Church at large, let it be true also of our Own individual lives; you have difficulties about His death. Could you but see His glory these difficulties would vanish away. Or you have trials of various kinds--they will seem insignificant on the Mount of Transfiguration. But how shall we get on to the mount? how obtain these glorious views of Christ? Be guided by the circumstances before us. It comes
(1) by abiding with Christ;
(2) by free communion with Christ;
(3) by increasing devotion to Christ.
The excellence of a great picture or book or character does not always appear at first. So we must have some good knowledge of Christ, some acquaintance with Him. Let there be an earnest study of these Gospels. Be not impatient. See how freely these three talked with Christ, There must not only be thought about Christ, but free talk with Him. (T. Goodrich.)
Christs Transfiguration
I. THE FINAL CAUSE: why Christ was transfigured.
1. The Redeemer of souls lived in great humility upon earth, nay, like an abject worm, to attract the love of the Church; now He changed Himself into this admired excellency, to increase their faith.
2. By this apparition the three disciples saw in what form He would come to judgment.
3. He did represent Himself as the argument and idea of that beautiful reward which the bodies of the just shall have in the general resurrection.
4. For this once Christ looked like a person of Divine authority, that the minds of His disciples might not be cast down with despair at the cross.
5. The fifth and last reason hath a moral use. There is an old man with his corruptions to be metamorphosed in us all, sieur Pelias recoctus, as the fable goes, that Medusa bathed the body of Pelias with certain magical drugs, and from a decrepit old man transmuted him into a vigorous youth. This is a figment; for no man spent his young years so well, to deserve at Gods hands in this world to be young again: but there is a renovation in the spirit of our mind. God will not know us in our own form and filthiness, unless we put on the image of Christ. As Jacob obtained his fathers blessing, not in his own shape, but in the garments of Esau; so we must sue our blessing, having put on the righteousness of Christ; then the Lord will receive His servant, and say unto thee, as Jacob did unto Esau, I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God.
II. THE EFFICIENT CAUSE: from whence this splendour was derived. Many obscure points will come to light by asking this question: Whether this lightsome beauty like the sun did appear in our Saviours face from the beatification of His human soul, or from the union of His Divine nature? First, you must understand, that the great school-man, Aquinas, took the best end of the cause into his hand, when he answered to neither of those two members, but rather to the purpose of the question in this wise, fuit haze qualitas gloria, sed non corporis gloriosi, quia nondum erat immortalis. This Transfiguration was a quality of glory, but not of a glorified body, because He was not yet passed death, and raised up to be immortal and impassible. In this distinction is covertly included, that it was not such a brightness as the soul shall communicate to the body, when it is reunited in a joyful resurrection, hut was created at this time by the Divine power, to foretell and shadow what would come to pass with much increase in the kingdom of God. Praelibatio regni Dei fuit haec transfiguratio, says Cajetan: this was but the landskip or pattern of the true happiness which shall be in the kingdom of heaven.
III. THE EFFECT ITSELF. Alteration in His countenance: whiteness and glistering in His raiment. It is a good thing to be safe under His mercy, the cheerful aspect of His face doth promise that at the least. And doth not this glistering transmutation assure us likewise, that His grace shall shine in our hearts to produce the fruits of life: The life is the light of men, says St. John; and by inversion it is true to say, that this light is the life of the soul. Though this which I have said already be much, yet this prospective of admirable light leads us further; for in this transformation the Master did show what liveries of glory the servants should wear when they should dwell with Him in His kingdom for ever. All the light which is in this world is but like a glowworm to the day, in respect of that mirror of marvellous light m the heavenly Jerusalem, where millions of millions of saints shall be gathered together, and every saint shall shine more sweetly and majestically than the whole globe of the sun; what a ravishing object will this be? What an unutterable concurrence of illumination, especially when the sense of the eye shall be perfecter than the eagles a thousandfold, and no whir dazzled to behold it? O Lord, what good things hast Thou laid up for them that fear Thee? And thus you see what the Transfiguration in our Saviours countenance did portend--light of grace in this world; light of glory in the next; and light of mercy and comfort in respect unto them both. I conceive that in the resurrection of the just every countenance which had disfigurement in it, or any monstrous disproportion, shall be new shaped and fashioned. Because that great workmanship of God which abideth for ever shall be conspicuous to all eyes with most exact decency and comeliness. One thing more may yet be expected from me to be spoken of for the finishing of this point. St. Luke says, that His countenance was altered, and His raiment glistered. Was that all? Was His face only glorified with light, and not the rest of His body? There are some that hold how His whole body was transfigured and bedecked with light, and that the radiancy of the body did shine through the garments and make them brightsome; and they think that St. Matthews text doth favour this opinion, for he speaks of a total transfiguration first, and then of the shining of the face--He was transfigured before them, and His face did shine as the sun. The matter is not great which way the truth stands. But I assent to that which is the more probable tenent, that the rays of splendour did issue out from no part of His body, but from His face only. As the face of Christ did bear the greatest share of ignominy at His passion-being buffeted, being spit on, being pricked with thorns--so the honour of His Transfiguration did light upon his face rather than upon any other part of the body, because Gods reward shall make amends in every kind for the despite of Satan. The Jews did strip Him of His garment, and arrayed Him with a robe of scorn, and then led Him to be crucified: so God, to show that His Son deserved no such ignominy, made His garments to shine with unspeakable purity. As lapidaries say of a true diamond, that whereas other precious stones have some colour in their superficies well known by name, as the ruby and sapphire, but the colour of the diamond cannot be well called by any name, there is a white gloss and a sparkling flame mixed together, which shine fairly, but render no constant colour, so we cannot say what manner of show the raiment of our Saviour did make. These two did concur to the composition of the beauty, candour, and lux; a whiteness mixed with no shadow, a light bedimmed with no darkness. (Bishop Hacker.)
Thoughts on the Transfiguration
1. An illustration of the personal character of Jesus, and the connection which exists between eminent devotion and Divine manifestation.
2. The Divine dignity of the Son of God.
3. The susceptibility and the need of Jesus as Son of Man.
4. The importance of Christs redemptive work. Of all subjects that they might have chosen, the heavenly visitants talk with Him about His coming death.
5. Christs supremacy and authority. Hear Him.
6. From the whole incident we may learn--
(1) The weakness and poverty of humanity.
(2) What a grand and glorious thing it may become. (T. Binney.)
Lessons
1. This event gives us an insight into the unseen world.
2. An assurance of Christs Divine personality.
3. The subject of converse was the Atonement.
4. It is quite in accordance with mans imperfect condition at present, that Peters rapture so soon came to a close.
5. The Transfiguration suggests to us the nature of our own condition hereafter. (F. Jacox.)
The mountain where the Transfiguration took place
Where did the Transfiguration take place? An old tradition tells us on Mount Tabor; but though I am always reluctant to refuse assent to these traditions if I can find reason to believe them, yet no traditions are of apostolic authority, and I cannot believe that which assigns the Transfiguration to Mount Tabor. We know that the preceding conversation took place at Csesarea Philippi. Now this is far off from Mount Tabor, but near to that city is a mount which may be called the mount of the Holy Land, the snow-clad mount of Hermon. And what place so fitting for a retreat as that? We have no hint in the Bible of any long journey taken from Caesarea Philippi to Mount Tabor of the tradition, while the solitude which our Lord would naturally seek would not be found there, for Mount Tabor was fortified by stations and garrisons of Roman soldiery. Then, again, the whole setting of the story, according to the imagery of St. Luke, seems to imply that the incident took place on some snow-clad height. Tabor is not snow-clad, but all the year through the heights of Hermon are clad with snow. There is no doubt, then, to me, that one of the lower slopes of Hermon was the scene of the Transfiguration of our Lord. (Canon Body.)
Arguments in favour of Hermon as the scene of the Transfiguration
There can be little doubt that Mount Hermon (Jebel es Sheikh) is intended, in spite of the persistent, but perfectly baseless tradition which points to Tabor. For
(1) Mount Hermon is easily within six days reach of Ceesarea Philippi, and
(2) could alone be called a lofty mountain (being 10,000 feet high), or the mountain, when the last scene had been at Caesarea. Further
(3), Tabor, at that time, in all probability was (Jos. B. J. 1.8, § 7, Vit. 37), as from time immemorial it had been (Jos_19:12), an inhabited and fortified place, wholly unsuited for a scene so solemn; and
(4) was moreover in Galilee, which is excluded by Mar_9:30. The mountain is indeed the meaning of the name Hermon, which being already consecrated by Hebrew poetry (Psa_133:3), and under its old names of Sion and Sirion, or breastplate (Deu_4:48; Deu_3:9; Son_4:8), was well suited for the Transfiguration by its height, seclusion, and snowy splendour. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Arguments in favour of Tabor as the scene of the Transfiguration
The tradition which has pointed to Tabor has been often contradicted, yet the objections raised against this are, according to our opinion, not well founded. That this tradition existed even in the time of Jerome, and that the Empress Helena for this reason erected a church on Tabor, proves of itself not much, it is true. Yet it may still be called remark able, that tradition designates a place so far distant from Caesarea Philippi, where our Saviour had just before been found (Mat_16:13). Without sufficient ground in the apostolic tradition, it appears probable that they would not have assumed the theatre of the one event to be so far removed from that of the other. For the other mountains which have been thought of instead of Tabor, viz., Hermon, or Paneas, there is almost less yet to be said. Yet it must not be forgotten that about a week intervened between the Transfiguration and the first prediction of the Passion, in which time the Saviour may very well have traversed the distance from Caesarea to Tabor, which, it is true, is considerable. If the Saviour, moreover, after He left the mountain, returned to Capernaum (Mat_17:24-27), this town was scarcely a days journey from Tabor. The single important difficulty is that raised by De Wette, following Robinson, that at this time there was a fortification on the summit of Tabor. But although Antiochus the Great fortified the mountain, 219 B.C., it is not by any means proved that in the time of Jesus this fortification was yet standing, and though, according to Josephus, this mountain, in the Jewish war, was fortified against the Romans, this, at all events, took place forty years later. Traces of these fortifications are found apparently in the ruins which have since been discovered, especially on the south-western declivity; but in no case is it proved that the whole mountain was built over in the time of Jesus. (Van Oosterzee.)
Why a mountain was chosen for the Transfiguration
A valley is as capable of Gods glory as a mountain, for God is God of the valleys as well as of the hills, whatsoever Benhadad, the king of Syria, said to the contrary; but Christ chose this high hill as well for the exercise of prayer, as for the mystery of His Transformation. There may seem to be two intentions that He desired such a place for prayer, quia coeli conspectus liberior, quia solitude major: First, upon the higher ground there is the more free contemplation of heaven, the place to which we lift up our eyes and our hearts in prayer; for though our Lord is everywhere, both in heaven and earth, and under the earth, yet thither we advance our devotions as to the chief throne of His Majesty. Next, our Saviour left a concourse of people beneath, and went to the mountain to pour out His devotions there as in a solitary sequestration, where he should not be troubled. Into such unfrequented hills He did often retire alone, as if He would teach us to bid all the world adieu, and all earthly thoughts, when we utter our supplications before our Heavenly Father: neither doth it seem expedient to act the miracle of the Transfiguration upon a meaner theatre than an exceeding high mountain, to show what ascensions must be in their soul who have a desire to be exalted to Gods glory. (Bishop Hacket.)
We must climb if we would see Christ
Our heart, according to its own evil inclination, cleaves unto the dust like a serpent, our thoughts are of low stature, like Zachaeus; if they will climb up, let it be for no other end, or errand, but, as he did, to see Christ. There are two mountains, says Bernard, which we must ascend, but not both at once. First, there is the mountain where the Son of God did preach (Mat_5:1-48.), and after that go up to the mountain where He was Transfigured (Mat_17:1-27.). Non solum meditemur inpraemiis, sed etiam in mandatis Domini: I beseech you first meditate upon the sayings and commandments of God, and afterward upon His Transfiguration, upon the reward of glory: and not, as it is the vain custom of the world, run on presumptuously upon assurance of glorification, and to forget the true order, first to ascend upon the mountain of obedience. (Bishop Hacket.)
The transfiguring look
As Jesus prayed there on the mount, the fashion of his countenance was altered. And so we may say that, as man prays--or, in other words, as in any posture man comes in contact with the great realities of religion and of the soul, and expresses his relation to these--the fashion of his countenance alters, the look of humanity is transfigured. I affirm that there is no mode of action, no posture of being, so grand, so hopeful, so pregnant with suggestion, as that of man praying--one in whom culminates the fullest expression of Christian belief and service. It is a transfiguring look, which lifts him above all sin and frailty and dust and shadow, and exhibits him as a child of God and an heir of immortality. Higher than any mere intellectual achievement is this uplifting and surrender of the soul. Newton grasping the firmament in his thought is not so sublime a spectacle as Newton when he kneels and adores. And as with individual instances, so with the collective humanity. Its supreme expression is in the act of faith and worship. Wherever to-day humanity heaves with the great ground-swell of religion, and all outward distinctions dissolve in the light of spiritual relations--I say that there this humanity is transfigured; it is lifted above its sins and miseries and frailty, and all that gives occasion for sceptical distrust. For as man prays--as his nature assumes its highest expression--the shadows of his mortality disappear, and the fashion of his countenance is altered. Even at the risk of some repetition, let me specify that which has now been generally suggested.
I.
I observe, then, in the first place, that the very attitude of religious faith contradicts sceptical theories of human nature.
In trying to estimate the worth and the purpose of any being, it seems reasonable that we should adopt for our standard the highest manifestations of that being.
As an illustration of my meaning, I remark that we estimate any individual man, not by what he may be doing at any specified time, not by the weakness or failure of some particular occasion, but by what he has done in his highest moods, what he is capable of doing at his best.
We do not expect that Demosthenes will always give us an Oration for the Crown, that Shakespeare will always write a Hamlet, or Tennyson an In Memoriam.
But surely it is by these productions, and not their poorest, that we rate such men.
We measure their calibre by their broadest circle of achievement, and stamp the recognition of genius upon that which they have done, and can do, in the full swell of their powers.
Now apply this illustration to classes of being.
There are fools and knaves and tyrants and sensualists; there are such as Caligula and Benedict Arnold and George IV.: but here, also, are Pauls and Fenelons and Florence Nightingales; here are men and women writing a Christian martyrology in letters of blood and fire on the walls of amphitheatres; here are Latimers and Ridleys holding unblenching hands in the flame; here are Pilgrims clasping Bibles to their breasts as they sail over stormy seas. Nay, let us get away from these scenic instances of history, here, right around you, are poor widows in bare garrets, kneel ing, with God-seeing eyes; here are oppressed and suffering men clinging to their simple belief in an infinite Helper, and feeling the consolation of Jesus breathing upon their sorrow; here are poor brethren of ours, pressed by grievous temptations, lifting up their souls to Him who can make them strong in their moral conflict, and with swift strokes of supplication cleaving down help from the Almighty. Here is a man called to lie down and die, leaving a sick wife, leaving little helpless children; feeling the mortal terror creeping inward to his heart, as the mortal agony creeps over his flesh; but still looking up to the Father, laying hold of immortality, and in that one touch of faith making the coarse sheet that soon is to be his shroud more glorious with heavens light than the hearse of Napoleon, rumbling through the streets of Paris and blossoming with a hundred victories. In such, in a thousand ways, here is the spectacle of man praying--man summoning faith and devotion, and taking hold of unconquerablestrength, lifted into unfading light; and, I ask, what do you make of this? I maintain that thus estimating humanity by its highest, not by its lowest attitudes, this weak, sinning, dying creature refutes all sceptical conclusions, and the fashion of its countenance is altered.
II. I proceed to observe, in the next place, that in this expression of our nature we find a refutation of any extreme claim of action as opposed to worship, and also of science as setting itself in the place of religion. Action cannot occupy the place of prayer. As the very motive power of our action, we need the inspiration and the vision which are revealed to faith. Nor can science be substituted for religion. The soul of man requires a light that we cannot find through the telescope, or at the end of the galvanic wire. It cannot rest or be satisfied with the mere discernment of natural laws. It cannot steer through the mystery of life with no other chart than the physical constitution of man. It needs a heavenly Father and a redeeming Christ. Christ the revealer, Christ the glorified, Christ the transfigured, represents something without ourselves and above ourselves. He presents a point of reconciliation between the human and the Divine, that no one else--no Plato, no Socrates, no oracle of scientific truth, no modern type ofphilanthropy--can give. In the light which streams upon us from the personality of Jesus the fashion of mans countenance is altered.
III. In closing, let me say that the fact which we have been considering, not only refutes false theoretical, but unworthy practical conclusions. Construct, in theory, a universe that will justify profaneness or licentiousness, meanness and fraud, lack of principle and lack of love. How awful the system of things in which such lives would be logical conclusions! A universe in which there are no foundations of eternal and immutable morality, no source for Divine light like that which shone upon Jesus and from Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration! But if we are children of God and heirs of immortality, what then should be the scope and standard of our lives? Oh, my brethren! if there is a world from which a supernatural splendour fell upon the face of the praying Jesus--if there was such a Jesus, revealing such things to men--if these things are real--it is not merely, the fashion of mans countenance that alters, but the entire fashion of human life! Then, not those things concerning which men think and act as though they really made up the substance of our being, but those we seek for and cling to in solemn moments, in our best hours and in our last--these are the supreme, the eternal fashion, all else being uncertain and perishable. (E. H. Chapin, D. D.)
Lessons from the Transfiguration
1. One use of this scene was to give to the favoured disciples a clearer idea of the nature of Christs kingdom.
2. Another use of this scene was to disclose more than had yet been seen of Christs personal majesty and true glory.
3. We may note a third use of the Transfiguration in the confirmation it afforded to the harmony of Christs teaching with that of Moses and the prophets.
4. The Transfiguration scene was of use in helping to show the place, in heavenly as well as earthly interest, of the death of Christ.
5. A fifth and very important use of the Transfiguration was in the glimpse it afforded of the heavenly world.
6. The one other use of this wonderful scene to be noticed, is the lesson of patience it teaches, with respect to our earthly temptations, conflicts, and work. (H. M. Grout, D. D.)
Transfiguration during prayer
O the wise God, that would have the glory of transfiguration fall upon Himself at no other time but in the fervour of prayer. Miserable men are those that desire not to be transfigured and to cast off the old man; but more miserable that think to be transfigured without continual prayer. An hypocrite would seem to be a transformed man; Satan would appear to have transformed himself into an angel of light; hypocrites and devils all love to make a show of transfiguration, but they did never pray to God to change their inside, which is nothing but filthiness, and to be renewed in the spirit of their mind; hold on, and cease not to pray, till you be changed into new men. As a distiller keeps his extractions at the furnace till he see them flower and colour as he could wish; so, as long as we feel the relics of the old Adam remaining, especially while we feel them reign and get the dominion over us, we must ply our Saviour day and night with a restless devotion and a flagrant importunity; and I am sure while we pray, not the fashion of our countenance, but the fashion of our heart shall be altered. Well, I pray you remember, that when our Saviour went up into the mountain, as well to be transfigured as to pray, yet the text names this only, that He went up into the mountain to pray; that name stands in chief, and drowns the mention of the other business, as if prayer were a greater work than that resplendent Transfiguration. And what needed He to pray, but to bring us upon our knees humbly and frequently before His Father, and our Father. (Bishop Hacker.)
The beauty of Jesus Christ
And what was that glory? What made His face shine? What was the light which enveloped His form? We know that it was the glory of God, a glory not from without but from within, a light shining from the essential beauty of the Godhead within, not flashed from without. The Transfiguration, then, was not a miracle, but a witness of the abiding presence of Christs Divinity: His whole Being shone, and like Moses, when gazing day and night upon the image of God till it became, in a measure, stamped upon him, and the skin of his face shone, what did He do? Moses, we are told, put a veil over his face to hide it from the people of Israel, and so it was with Christ: He veiled His glory. If He had been outwardly true to what He bore within Him He would have been seen always with His glory unveiled; it would have been about Him in the manger at Bethlehem--transfigured Babe! in His home at Nazareth--transfigured Boy! it would have shone about Him during His ministry in Galilee--transfigured Man! and, at the last, on Calvarys Cross--transfigured Sufferer! But under the very conditions of coming as man among men, the Godhead within was veiled, and the outcoming of those rays held back which would have made for ever beautiful the Sun of Righteousness. For a moment there is no restraint, for a moment He knows the beauty of repose as in His solitude He holds communion with His Father, and all the beauty from within shines forth, and He is transfigured. The beauty of Jesus Christ! not an outward beauty, such as appeals to the physical part of man. When we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He does not stand out as an Apollo of the Greeks or as a Samson of the Bible stories. As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved. As the apple-tree, you notice, not as the cedar; yet if there is no physical beauty, there is a beauty of His own in every feature, every action, every part, for the transfiguration beauty was the beauty of God. God had communicated His beauty to His Son, for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily--the perfect beauty of an intellect which is permeated with light, of a heart which is filled with love, of a will lifted up wholly to the will of God, of conscience at perfect peace, of an imagination sanctified by the most perfect imagery. For the fact remains, which is so true of Him, and, in a great measure, of our fellow-creatures, that the spirit moulds the countenance. There is such a thing as a saint-like countenance, wherefore where there is the indwelling of the Divine there is a beauty of face and figure, movement, speech, and tone, which nothing else can give. (Canon Body.)
The irradiation of our Lords raiment
The evangelists, in their record of the Transfiguration scene, seem to concentrate the attention of Christian people on the irradiated garments in which our Lords sacred form was enveloped. Indeed, the description of the irradiation of the garments of Christ is certainly fuller than the description of His transfigured humanity. St. Matthew tells us that His raiment was white as light; St. Mark, that His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them; and St. Luke, as our text reminds us, that His raiment was white and glistering. Therefore, in studying the history of the mystery of the Transfiguration our duty is carefully to notice this feature, and to seek to learn the lesson that the glorified beauty of the raiment of Christ teaches us. The scene of the Transfiguration is one which each of us can easily paint for ourselves by an effort of the imagination. Jesus Christ was, no doubt, poorly clad, probably in the garb that a mechanic was wont to wear in those days. His clothing was not the clothing of soft raiment, for they that wear soft raiment are in kings houses; not in the palace of a king among a favoured few dwelt the Incarnate Son of God, but in a cottage where His lot was cast among the toiling many; and there He dwelt for thirty years, clothed surely in raiment of the most homely nature, probably made by His mothers own hands, and woven from the wool of the flocks. And if the raiment of our Lord had no beauty of form or material to make it lovely, so, too, it must have borne signs of wear, the stains and marks of daily toil. Thus clothed, then, our Lord passed to the Mount of Transfiguration; and, whilst He prayed He was transfigured before them. The light of the essential Godhead within broke forth, and, lo! as its rays shone through the veil of His humanity, it pierced the poor garments in which He was clothed, which, though worn and stained, now became white with a supernatural whiteness, and, though lacking beauty, now became beautiful with a supernatural beauty. Sweet vision of irradiated garments! what an abiding spiritual meaning it shows forth! St. Augustine, in a notice which occurs in his Commentary on the Psalms, says The raiment wherewith Christ was clad is His Church. Sweet, sacred vision of a transfigured Lord associated with an irradiated Church; showing forth the abiding relationship of Christ with His Church through endless ages of glorified eternity, and His closest union with this Church, which He has put on as a mystic garment shining with the glory of His own mystic beauty. In this glorified raiment of Christ we see shadowed forth His Church under all conditions of time and of eternity. The Church exists, and is eternally predestinated in the fulness of time to be the glorified vesture of her Lord; the Church, which is Gods elect, admitted by baptism and by the cleansing waters of the holy font brought into this election, this ecclesia of God. Is not the Church in her making like the garments of our Lord? Mary takes of the wool of the flock, and therewith weaves the raiment which He puts on in all its meanness and poorness, and then glorifies. Just so with the Church. In what is she poor, do you say? Surely her poverty is in the men and women within her who are lacking in purity and in beauty; but our Lord stretches out His hand and brings them into union with Himself; not a hypostatical union, such as the union of the Divine and human natures in Himself, but a sacramental union, which can be severed, like the putting on of the garments with which He was clad. Then, having as it were put them on to lie on His Sacred Heart, He works in them the work of justification, taking from them the soil of guilt, and by the work of renewal ever removing from them all spots and wrinkles, till passing from glory to glory, and going from beauty to beauty, the just become more and more pure in the sight of God. He gives them not only purity but beauty; Christ acts on the pure and makes them lovely; He communicates to them His own Divine beauty, till in time the Church on earth becomes white and glistering with the glory He imparts. And what is the glorification of the Church? What is the consummation of sanctification? What is the end of justification? Is not the goal to be absolutely beautiful? is it not that when we awake we may find that we are beautiful even in the sight of God? Yes, in the glorified raiment of Christ we see a pledge of His work in His Church, a pledge which in her perfect day shall be accomplished, yet for its accomplishment it is necessary that her members co-operate with Him in a three-fold way. The members of Christs Church must be channels of Divine grace. Men and women touching the garments of Christ were made whole; as, for instance, that poor woman who had suffered for many years from a sad disease, and who stretched forth her hand in the crowd, saying within herself, If I may but touch His garment I shall be whole; but Christ said not, Who touched my raiment? but Who touched Me? (as St. Luke tells us), for His raiment had been but the means of conveying His own healing power: and in the same way Christ has made His Church the instrument through which He distributes truth, and grace, and peace; and if her members would reach forth to her essential glory in eternity they must reach forward to her Divine mission in time, and become, like His garments, channels of His grace to those around. Is it not so? Have you thought that those same garments were probably on the hill of Calvary? But where do we see them then? No longer clothing that sacred form, but thrown at the foot of the cross, given over to the Roman soldiery, His very vesture the prize of a gambling game which they were playing just beneath Him. As with the raiment of Christ so must it be with His Church. The Church can only pass to her Divine glory under the same conditions by which Christ passed to His; the Church must not only imitate Him in His active ministry, but share His sufferings: she, too, must go to her Gethsemane, and pass along her way of sorrow, and hang down upon her cross of shame, and pain, and humiliation; and only as she patiently perseveres in walking on the road of the Cross can she hope to reach to the glory awaiting her above. There is only one ladder from earth to heaven, that is the ladder of our Saviours Cross. And it is necessary for us always to keep this vision of the transfigured raiment of Christ before our minds; for this reason, that we never look at any creation of God aright unless we keep in sight the ideal of that creation as it is in the mind of God, otherwise we form a wrong conception of it. Gods ideal cannot be realized here and now. If we look at the world in its present conditions only, should we not find it hard to justify the dealings of God with men? But these conditions are only accidental; sin came into the world, and with it poverty, crime, pain, death. God has mysteriously permitted a temporary marring of His creation, but that which mars it does not come from God, therefore it cannot last. We Christians are saved from being pessimists because we know that the present conditions are not final. There is a time, at the coming of our Lord, when error will be banished by truth, iniquity by righteousness; when universal knowledge mill cover the face of society; when peace shall be the only condition of mind among Gods people. Look with eyes brightened by faith, then, even though we see antichrist developed, yet our hope shall be bright, aye, brighter than before, for the development of antichrist is the very pledge of the coming of Christ. And so, too, with the Ideal of man; none have ever realized, even if they have grasped, their own ideal; and certainly no one can ever have grasped their ideal as it is in the mind of the Creator, far less have carried that out. What is this ideal? is it not conformity to the perfection of God Himself? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Yet we know by experience that, here and now, we cannot conform to this perfection; and so the Church, here and now, fails to realize her ideal: to-day she is of the earth earthy, as poor, and stained, and marred as the garments of Jesus before they were transfigured by His imparted glory. Often perplexities meet us when we try to reconcile the actual condition of the Church with the ideal. But on the Mount of Transfiguration we see this--that in His own time and way Christ will realize the ideal of His Church. Till then let us live in faith and hope, refusing to let our faith be staggered by the Churchs troubles in time, but giving ourselves up to His service, lying, as His sacred garments did, at the foot of His cross, in sure and confident expectation that He will realize His own ideal, and that in eternity we shall see Jerusalem the Golden, shining with the glory of God and of the Lamb, and the Church, as His vesture, lying on His bosom in closest union with her Lord! (Canon Body.)
Luminous hours
To every one of us, first or last, come these luminous hours. But they are transient. As the Transfiguration on the Mount was designed to teach the disciples how to conduct themselves when the exigencies which were to come upon them should be developed, so these luminous hours which come to all men ought to be used by them to determine their duties and courses. It is when you are on the mountain-top that you should take your land-marks and steer toward them, and when you go down and lose sight of them, keep straight across the valley until you rise so that they greet your vision again. Not when you are in the valley can you tell which way to travel, unless you have learned it on the top of the hill. Another thing. After all the beauty and sublimity of this wonderful miracle wrought upon the person of Jesus Christ, and after all the instruction connected with it, it still comes back to me, in the light of the apostles joyful yet sad utterance, Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. We are all of us ignorant; we know in part; but the time is drawing near when neither upon this mountain, nor at Jerusalem, nor upon Mount Hermon, nor upon any earth summit, shall we need to receive instruction, or have any luminous hours, or pass through this or that experience; but when we shall stand in Zion, and before God, and shall see Him as He is, and shall be like Him, and shall rejoice with Him for ever and for ever. (H. W. Beecher.)
The Transfiguration
This remarkable story divides into two parts the ministerial life of Christ. It is the central point of His public career. It is connected, in thought, with His baptism by the voice from heaven. It is connected with His death by the conversation with Moses and Elias. We must not forget the appropriateness of the comparison of the whiteness of Christs garments to snow, for above the apostles heads was the dazzling snow which illuminates the peak of Hermon. Observe--
I. CHRISTS LOVE FOR MOUNTAIN-SOLITUDES. This is only one instance out of many, and it brings before us the sensitive humanity of Christ. Christ loved nature. All the world to Him was sacramental. It should be so with us. Celestial messages and grace should flow to us through every sight and sound which touches and exalts the heart.
II. THE TRANSFIGURING GLORY. It supplies us with a principle. The outward form takes its glory or its baseness from the inner spirit.
III. THE VISION. Moses and Elias represent the law and the prophets, and Christ is the end of them both. All the revelation given in the past culminated in the revelation which He gave. The glory of the law and of the prophets was fulfilled and expanded in His perfect glory. The whole of the Old Testament, so far as it was spiritual, was taken up into the New. The unity of the Old Testament with the New was declared, and the superiority of the New Testament over the Old.
IV. The apostles not only saw a vision, but they heard A CONVERSATION. Strangely in the midst of radiant glory, of ecstatic joy, intervened the thought of death and sorrow. Learn that eternal life is giving, that eternal joy is the sacrifice of self; that the human is only then transfigured into the Divine life when the pain of sacrifice is felt as the most passionate ecstasy. That is the transfiguration power. That thought transfigures the world of humanity. It is the life of heaven with God. (Stopford A, Brooke, M. A.)
I. THE LEADING FEATURES OF THE TRANSFIGURATION ITSELF.
1. The prayers of Christ.
2. The witnesses of the Transfiguration.
3. The manner of the Transfiguration.
4. The appearance of Moses and Elias.
5. The subject of their conversation with Jesus.
II. THE DESIGN OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.
1. TO accredit the Divine mission of our Lord.
2. To connect the different dispensations of revealed truth together, to give an authorised sanction to Old Testament announcements, to affix the signet of heaven to all the ancient types and prophecies, and to show that Christ was the glory, the substance, the terminating object of them all.
3. To afford a practical demonstration of mans immortality.
4. To asssure us that in the life of the world to come we shall know each other. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The prayers of Christ
Communion with God is a condition of spiritual elevation.
I. NOTICE TWO OR THREE THINGS WITH REGARD TO SUCH ELEVATIONS.
1. They presuppose a somewhat advanced condition of the spiritual life.
2. They are fraught with the richest, keenest bliss.
3. They are given not merely for their own sake, but as means to important and practical ends.
II. WHAT IS THE RELATION WHICH PRAYER SUSTAINS TO THESE ELEVATIONS? The evangelist evidently wishes us to understand that there was a connection between the Saviours praying and His being transfigured, that in some way the one was the consequence and the out come of the other.
1. Prayer draws us away from the presence of distracting objects.
2. Prayer relieves us from the pressure of worldly toil.
3. Prayer calls out the finer, better feelings of our nature.
4. Prayer opens to us all the treasures of Gods own being.
III. REFLECTIONS.
1. It is not necessary for our prayers to be consciously and intentionally directed towards this particular end.
2. Let us be thankful that such elevations are possible to us.
3. Let us show our thankfulness by putting ourselves constantly in that prayerful attitude which is the one chief condition of spiritual exaltation. (B. Wilkinson, F. G. S.)
The Transfiguration
-Christ ever seemed to live in view of the two worlds, even as He belonged to both. The Transfiguration, viewed as an example of intercourse between the seen and the unseen, appears not like a magicians marvel, based on optical illusions; but an example of what it seems natural should always be--heaven opened, its glory visible, its great inhabitants present to converse, and Peters proposition, what we should all feel, natural.
I. JESUS TRANSFIGURED. Tendency in the inner nature of everything to clothe itself with an appropriate external shape. Hereby was given to the world, for once, a fit investment for His exalted soul, a supreme exposition of the old poets lines--
There shone through all His fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
II. JESUS TRANSFIGURED AS HE PRAYED. These words, which mean so much, given only by Luke.
III. THE TRANSFIGURATIONS OF PRAYER. Such scenes are not repeated. This was given, as the poet says of sunsets--
that frail mortality may see,
What is? Ah no, but what can be.
But though the law of conformity between the material and the spiritual be not so closely observed, it tends to fulfil itself everywhere. It is deeply true to-day, that the nature which habitually prays, which habitually seeks heaven, becomes heaven-like; precisely as it is true that the nature which habitually stoops to debasement becomes debased, and its debasement can be read in the countenance. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)
The Transfiguration of Christ
This singular and beautiful incident in the life of our blessed Redeemer I propose to set before you in detail, as befitting the occasion of this sermon, and because it is an incident not only most interesting in itself, but also one which presents to us an idea of that transfiguration into glory which we shall ourselves sometime experience, if by perseverance in the faith we attain to the resurrection of the just. It was into a high mountain, St. Mark informs us, that Jesus led the chosen three, Peter and James and John, by themselves apart from the rest. This is the true sense of the passage in St. Matthew: not that the mountain stood apart from other mountains, but that our Lord took with Him three of His disciples apart from the rest. Nevertheless tradition has long asserted this high mountain to be Tabor, a solitary hill indeed, and apart from others--a hill studded with trees, rising like a rounded mass of verdure out of the plain of Galilee to the height only of 1,700 feet. But there stands another hill in Palestine that rises high above all the hills of Palestine, with snow-clad summits towering to an altitude of 10,000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. It is the hill of Hermon: nay, rather it is a mountain, the only mountain that deserves the name in the Holy Land. The northern barrier it is of the Holy Land; that lofty barrier which set the last limit to His wanderings who was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. To some one or other of the southern peaks of Hermon modern research has assigned the scene of the Transfiguration. But leaving the question of place undetermined, we may briefly remark in passing that hills and mountains and high places were often the exalted platforms of exalted events. On Mount Sinai was the law delivered. Up the slopes of Moriah was Isaac led to the sacrifice. On the hill of Rephldim Moses built an altar, and stood with the rod of God in his outstretched hand. From the summits of Ebal and Gerizim sounded the blessings and the curses. Elijah sacrificed on Carmel. On the hill of Zion stood the Temple. I have looked up to the hills, we read in the Psalms; and from the Mount of Olives our blessed Lord was wont to look up to heaven, which is Gods hill--from those hallowed heights prayers ascended from Christ, and Christ Himself ascended bodily. But to return to the text--into this high mountain--whether it was Tabor or Hermon, or neither, but some hill country on the shores of lake Tiberias, our Saviour went up. For what purpose? For the purpose of devotion and prayer. St. Luke expressly asserts that He went up to pray, and moreover, that as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment became white and glistering. The fashion of His countenance was altered. For this was a transfiguration, not a transformation: there was no change of form; the shape of the head and the outline of the features, and the symmetry of the body all remained the same; only the figure or fashion of His countenance was altered: and His face did shine, did shine as the sun: and His raiment became dazzling white, as the light, white as snow, white as no fuller on earth can whiten. His form, I say, was unaltered, but the fashion of that form underwent a change, His whole sacred person seemed to be living with light, living with the light of the glory which is above the brightness of the sun; this intense unearthly light struggling through the veil of the flesh, streaming through the threads of His raiment, flashing from the inner man to the outer--why so? Why from the inner man to the outer? Because the spirit of Jesus was then rapt in prayer to His Father when His body began to be transfigured. For prayer--fervent prayer--is a great power; it is the silent engine that bends heaven to earth; it is the power which moves the hand which moves the world. The countenance of a holy man rapt in prayer seems to be illumined from within, and is, as it were, a transfiguration begun. It was this surpassing splendour of the heavenly glory which long afterwards again riveted the gaze and dazzled the eye of one of the spectators of this wonderful scene. What St. John afterwards saw, in a trance, in a vision on the Lords day, that he was commanded to write. And he wrote, I saw one, like unto the Son of Man (the beloved disciple recognized his risen and ascended Master)--I saw one, like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a shining garment down to the foot and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and His voice as the voice of many waters, and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. But, brethren, this vision of glory on the heights of the mystic mountain, this brief heaven upon earth in the life of our Lord, this beautiful insertion of a golden link in the iron chain that bound His career, this brilliant intrusion of the Transfiguration into the dreary uniformity of His humiliation, was not without human witnesses. Peter and James and John--the legal number of three--were witnesses of the Transfiguration onthe mount, even as they were afterwards witnesses of the Agony in the garden. On both occasions they slumbered and slept. On the present occasion something there was in the majesty of heaven descending to earth which seems to have overpowered the senses of the chosen three. And yet, while their Master was standing and praying near them in the mount, to watch the light of love looking out of His earnest eyes, to see His soul outpoured in those palms outspread, was enough, one would think, to bring His followers, the chosen three, to their senses and to their knees. Yet it was not so, for they saw but heard not; or if they heard they heeded not; or if they heard and heeded, it was but for a little while. Soon somehow their ears became dull, their spirits drowsy, their eyes heavy; they felt a film of stupor rising and spreading between themselves reclining and their Saviour standing. He in the attitude of one praying, they in the posture of men drooping, listless, lethargic, unconcerned, indifferent, with dreamy eyes and heads nodding in a bewilderment. So the disciples slumbered and slept, but their Master watched and prayed. And as they slept and as He prayed, as they slept the sleep that is cousin to death, and He prayed the prayer that is akin to life, then in the dull stupor of their prostration, and in the holy rapture of His supplication, was ushered in the first act in the Divine drama of the Transfiguration. How it was ushered in, what it was, is not recorded. For when the chosen three awoke out of their sleep, the glory had already set in; and they, lifting up their eyes, beheld the glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father. And they saw also standing in that glory together with Jesus two human forms. The three attendants, Peter and James and John, themselves outside the glory, beheld the two companions of Jesus standing with Him inside the glory. These two human forms, whether in the body or out of the body, I know not, were Moses and Elias: Moses the publisher of the law, Elias the chief of the prophets, both of them seen shining in the same light with Christ Himself, who gave the law and sent the prophets. Moses and Elias, admirable to the Jews for their miracles, beautiful to God for their holiness. Moses and Elias, each admitted to conference with God in Horeb; both of them types of Christ; both of them fasters of forty days; both of them dividers of the waters, messengers of God to kings; both of them marvellous in their life, mysterious in their end. A chariot of angels came and took away Elias; he was sought by the prophets and not found. Michael, the archangel, strove with the devil for the body of Moses; and he was sought by his people and not found. But strange to say, both Moses and Elias were destined to be found at last without seeking. Many centuries after their disappearance three fishermen of Galilee found the two prophets of God both together, standing with the Messiah, shining in fellowship with the brightness of His glory on some mountain or other in Galilee. Doubtless, other than human spectators were gazing upon this marvellous scene of the transitory glory. We may well believe that myriads of angels, ever moving on the wings of ministration, on this occasion also clustering around the peaks of Tabor, did in amazement behold Him between two saints transfigured, whom afterwards they beheld in horror between two thieves disfigured. Meanwhile Peter and James and John, from the outer twilight of the sunshine of this world, were looking with an astonished curiosity into that heavenly circle of sevenfold brightness, which ensphered in one glory the shining three, Jesus and with Him Moses and Elias. And as they gazed they heard Moses and Elias speaking--speaking still as of old prophetically and of Christ, for they spake of His decease, or, as St. Luke writes, they foretold His departure. This they did, not to inform Him that He was to die, for this He knew long before; nay, He Himself communicated it to them, for He was the Word of the Father, and they were but two voices or echoes of that Word--the two prophets inside thus spake in order that the three disciples outside might hear, and that, hearing from two heavenly witnesses what they had before heard from their Divine Master, they might by the threefold testimony be settled, strengthened, established in the belief of the coming passion. And now behold a bright cloud overshadowed them! The outer skirts of the central glory began to advance--to enlarge their borders and to encompass the chosen three. Peter and James and John stand for a while in the golden suburbs of the heavenly Jerusalem. A bright cloud overshadowed them. He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb softened the dazzling brightness with a luminous curtain. Nevertheless, even in the haze of the cloud that relieved the blaze, they were affrighted. The majesty was veiled to them, yet they were afraid. The glory was tempered to them, yet they trembled. But if the subdued flashing of the clouded splendour alarmed them, the thunder of the voice that came out of the cloud appalled them. It was the voice of God! This is My Son, My Beloved, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him. At the sound of that Divine voice the three disciples fell upon their face and were exceedingly afraid. And Jesus approaching them, as was His wont, did not rebuke them either for their past drowsiness or for their present terror, but gently said, Arise, and be not afraid. And lifting up their eyes they saw no one save Jesus only. This was the last scene of this Divine drama. All had now vanished--Moses, Elias, the cloud, the voice, the glory. The mountain remained standing, as it stood before, but not more solid and real than the glimpse of heaven of which it had been the brief stage. Peter and James and John, who had drooped and slumbered, who had gazed upon the scene and wondered, who had heard the voice and had fallen and been raised and comforted, they also remained near the spot. And last, but net least, Jesus, too, remained on the scene; but the beauty of comeliness, the brightness of majesty, the glory of His countenance had departed from Him. This was the second time that He relinquished His glory for us and for our salvation. He was now to outward view just what He was before the change, a man to common eyes of no mark, of no desire. Now, as before, He was in the form of a servant, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knew what was in store for Him: that from the summits of the glory He must descend into the garden of the agony; from the garden of the agony bearing the cross of shame He must be lifted up on the tree of the curse. That Divine face which had so lately shone with the light of God must be smitten and buffeted and spit upon; that sacred brow and those stainless hands that had just now glistened with a heavenly brightness must be bruised with thorns and pierced with nails; that raiment which had been woven anew with threads of light must be stript from His body and divided as a spoil. As He came down from the mount of the Transfiguration He knew that He must die. He knew as He descended from that happiness that He must descend still further, that henceforth His path lay terribly downward. He knew that He, bearing the nature of all men, must step by step pass down the sleep stair of the humiliation, from the glory to the agony, from the bitter sharp agony to the awful tragedy. He knew that He, the Messiah, the Redeemer of men, the Creator and the Restorer of the world, the Holy One of Israel, the Son of God, must for some hours hang upon the tree, in the daylight a mark of mocking men, in the darkness a butt of scoffing fiends. In this storm of hate, in this wild rage of popular fury, the sea and the waves roaring, cries of blasphemy, shouts of derision shocking His pure ears, from all sides looks of malignant glee, glances of triumphant scorn meeting His meek eyes--He knew that thus and thus He must depart, alone in His passion, abandoned of His fellow-men, deserted by the chosen three, forsaken of the twelve elect, forsaken even in His inmost consciousness of His God. He knew, I say, as He descended from the mount of the Transfiguration that He must die--must die the death of a common malefactor, in order that He might become the common Benefactor of mankind and the propitiation, not only for the sins of His Church, but for the sins also of the whole world. (T. S. Evans, D. D.)
A bore the cloud
An alpine traveller has told us how, one day, he set out from Geneva, in a dense and dripping fog, to climb one of the hills in the range of the Grand Saleve; and how, after ascending for some hours, he came out above the mist, and saw the cloudless sky above him, and around him on every hand the snowy battlement of the glorious mountains. In the valley lay the fog, like a waveless ocean of white vapour; and as he stood on the overhanging crags, he could hear the chime of bells, the lowing of cattle, and the sound of labour coming up from the villages that lay invisible beneath; while now and then, darting up out of the cloudy sea, there came a bird, which after delighting itself awhile in the joyous sunshine, and singing a glad song to greet the unexpected brightness, dived down again and disappeared. Now, what that brief time of unclouded radiance was to the bird which had left the drizzling dulness of the lower world beneath it, that was the experience of the Transfiguration to our Lord Jesus. His earthly life, as a whole, was spent in the valley, beneath the clouds of suffering and sorrow; and it was only at rare intervals that He emerged above it, and stood on the mountain-top in the glorious majesty of His native Godhead. Of such occasions, that of she Transfiguration was, by far, the grandest. It stands alone, even among the marvels of His history, rising above them with as much magnificence as does the mountain on which it took place above the surrounding plain. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The countenance as an index
The human face is a book where men can read strange matters. Said Dr. Bellows in a recent sermon: There is an ecumenical council in the soul of man, a conflict of opinions good and evil, a debate on the great truths of duty and destiny; and we might carry out the figure and say that the doings of this great council in the soul cannot be kept secret by closed lips, for the face is a bulletin-board that constantly indicates the working of the heart. We have all seen how anguish of heart disasters the cheeks and furrows the face, and writes upon it the epitaphs of buried hopes; we have seen faces tramped as hard as a highway by the hoofs of pain and oppression, and every one is thus familiar with the fact that sorrow engraves its story in the countenance. But look, also, into the faces that glare at you from the dens of infamy; faces that seem to contain the ruins of the ten commandments; faces that hurt you more than a blow; faces where from the eyes the spirit wildly peeps; faces like petrified vices, not a finger-touch of God left whole upon them, and you will realize that vice as well as misery makes its trademark on the visage while it ravages the heart. Great soul-artists always recognize the fact that we are to see the mind in the visage. Dickens makes even the dogs to lead their blind masters up side alleys to escape the cruel face of Scrooge, while on the other hand, the little boy in the churchyard looks with tears into the face of little Nell, as her countenance is being transfigured by approaching death to see if she is already an angel, as the neighbours have said she will be soon. (W. F. Crafts.)
Modern transfigurations
But these transfigurations are not out of date. In the sweet hour of prayer, and around the mercy-seat, it is is still true of many a believer, as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was changed. I have seen faces that shone with the light of a new experience; faces that caused me to look steadfastly, for they were as the faces of angels by this transfiguration from within. Often I meet a face which is a transfiguration of trust and joy; often I feel the outshining of a mystic glory and peace as I gaze within a face that is itself a gospel, a living epistle known and read of all. Recently there knelt at the altar of mercy a man whose face was horrible with agony and remorse. At length he cried, My sins are washed away in the blood of the Lamb! and he looked up beautiful, as it were, with the face of an angel. The beauty of the Lord our God was upon him. Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, he was changed into the same image.
The transforming power of communion with God
Whether that communion take the form of prayer, or a childlike confidence, or a searching after truth and life, it has this power. Contrast the portraits of Luther and Loyola; George Canning and George IV.; John Milton and Charles I.; or more pertinently still, the portrait of Bunyan, the wild, godless tinker of 1650, with the same Bunyan of twenty years later, the thinking, praying, dreaming maker of laces in Bedford jail for conscience sake. Or picture to yourself the appearance of John when the fisherman on the Galilean sea--what his face was when with indignant anger he said, Shall we call down fire from heaven and consume them?--and what he was and his face was, when after intimate communion with the Father through Christ Jesus, he stood by the Cross--and what later still, when old and sainted, he repeated his one text and sermon, Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (John Christian, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 28–36. About an eight days after. See notes on…
28–36. About an eight days after. See notes on Matt. 17:1–9, for the Transfiguration. Also Mark 9:1–8. Luke adds the fact that the Lord went into the mountain to pray; that as he prayed, he was transfigured; that the fashion of his countenance was altered; that the theme of conversation with Moses and Elias was the Lord's decease; that the apostles were awake when they saw the vision; that they told no man in those days, even as Jesus directed (Matthew).
They kept it close. Until after the death and resurrection of the Lord.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Luk_9:28. About an eight days.—I.e. including the day on…
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk_9:28. About an eight days.—I.e. including the day on which the words were spoken and the day on which they were fulfilled. St. Mark says “six days,” reckoning the intervening time. Took.—“Took with Him” is a better reading (R.V.). A mountain.—Rather, “the mountain” (R.V.). It is probable that this was Mount Hermon, as it is the only place within the neighbourhood of Cæsarea Philippi that satisfies the requirements of the case. The summit of Tabor, which is the traditional site of the Transfiguration, seems to have been occupied by a fortress at this time. Besides, Tabor is in Galilee, while from Mar_9:30 we would understand that Jesus and His disciples went into Galilee after this event. To pray.—This is peculiar to St. Luke.
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Luk_9:29. White and glistering.—The “and” is not in the original: the phrase might be rendered “sparkling white.” There is perhaps a reference in the word translated “glistering” or “sparkling” to the lightning-flash.
Luk_9:31. Spake of His decease.—Lit. “departure” out of the world—a word which probably includes His resurrection and ascension. The other evangelists say that Moses and Elijah “talked” with Jesus: St. Luke alone tells the subject of their conversation.
Luk_9:32. Heavy with sleep.—This seems to indicate that the vision took place at night: in accordance with this, we read in Luk_9:37 of their descending from the mountain “next day.” And when they were awake.—R.V. “when they were fully awake,” or “having remained awake” (margin). The idea seems to be that they struggled successfully against the inclination to sleep.
Luk_9:33. As they departed from Him.—I.e. Moses and Elijah. A better rendering would be, “as they were parting from Him” (R.V.); or, “as they were being separated from Him.” Good for us.—Good, delightful, pleasant. Tabernacles.—Or, “booths.”
Luk_9:34. A cloud.—Matthew, “a bright cloud”: probably we are to understand the Shekinah—the symbol of God’s presence.
Luk_9:35. My beloved Son.—Another reading is, “My Son, my chosen” (R.V.): this is a very probable reading, as, apart from MS. evidence in favour of it, it is more easy to imagine “beloved” (which occurs in Matthew and Mark) being substituted for “chosen,” than “chosen” for “beloved.”
Luk_9:36. Was past.—R.V. “when the voice came,” with “was past” in the margin. Lit. the phrase is, “when the voice had been,” i.e. had ceased. They kept it close.—According to the command of Jesus (Matthew and Mark).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_9:28-36
“In the Holy Mount.”—All the accounts of the Transfiguration carefully date it with reference to Peter’s great confession and Christ’s subsequent plain announcement of His sufferings. “These sayings” made an epoch in our Lord’s life both as regarded Himself and His followers, marking for Him a new step towards the cross, which was henceforth perceptibly nearer and still more familiar, and for them a new pain, which might easily become apostasy. The Transfiguration seems to have a bearing both on Him and them.
I. The change in our Lord’s appearance.—St. Luke’s special contribution to this part of the narrative is the mention of Christ’s praying. It connects His prayer immediately with the glory shining in His face. Prayer and communion with God will imprint a glory on a homely face yet, which, though it be nowise miraculous, does none the less show where the man has been. If we lived more habitually in the secret place of the Most High, our faces would oftener seem like those of angels, and a pure and quiet heart would make itself seen there. The glory that shone on Christ’s countenance and whitened even His garments did not fall on Him from without, but rose, as it were, to the surface from within. “The veil, that is to say, His flesh,” became partially transparent for a moment, and revealed not only the glory of grace and truth, but the lesser glory, which could be made visible, at least by symbol. It was a gleam of Deity, like a stray sunbeam through a rift in a clouded sky. So could He always have walked among men; and that brief flash increases our sense of the continual voluntary humiliation of His humble manhood, and tells us that “there was the hiding of His power.”
II. His converse with the mighty dead.—They came before the apostles were awake, and that mysterious colloquy had lasted for an indefinite time before human ears caught some fragments of it. St. Luke gives the fullest account of this incident. He alone tells us that our Lord’s companions were “in glory,” robed in like lustre to His, and “walking with Him in white.” He alone tells us the subject of their speech. They did not come as to tell Him that He must die; for His plain declaration to that effect preceded this event. Did they come to learn it from Him, and so to bear back to the dim regions whence they came the glad tidings that the long-waited-for hour was ready to strike? They stand there surely rather as learners than as teachers. The legislator and the great prophet represented all the earlier revelation, and fitly stand at His side to whom it had all pointed. The “departure which He should accomplish at Jerusalem” was the goal of law and prophecy. The loftiest organs of revelation in the past were His heralds and servants, honoured by being allowed to attend on Him. The depths of the worlds of the dead were moved at His coming, and “the people that walked in darkness” saw “a great light.” Jesus, too, needed strengthening, and the presence of these two may have been for Him what the angel from heaven was in Gethsemane. The continued conscious existence of the dead, the purpose of all “the sundry times” and “divers manners” of the past speech of God, the sovereign completeness and supremacy of the message in the Son, the central place of His death in His work—are all set forth in that wondrous interview between these three.
III. The attesting voice from heaven.—Peter’s foolish speech was, according to this Gospel, called out by seeing the two majestic forms in the act of “parting from Him.” The apostle was half-awake, stunned, and bewildered, and would fain have kept them there. There is something very naïve and childlike in the proposal to make the three tabernacles, as if these might be an inducement for the strangers to stay awhile. Inconsiderate as the speech was, it was very full of love to Jesus, and it said something for Peter’s loyalty and reverence for Him, that he put the Lord first, before Moses and Elijah. His preposterous proposal was interrupted by the descent of the cloud. One reading of St. Luke’s words makes all six to have entered into it, whilst another, more probably, leaves the disciples without. The remark about the voice coming “out of the cloud” seems to imply that the hearers were not within its folds. If so, then that visible symbol of the Divine Presence, which had dwelt in the first Temple between the cherubim, and had been absent for long ages, now again appeared. The disciples saw with terror Jesus and Moses and Elijah lost in its folds. They were alone, and might well wonder whether they were ever to see Jesus more. The Divine voice was meant altogether for the disciples, both in its first part, which declares Christ’s dignity, and in its second, which commands their attentive acceptance of His word. In them the whole world is spoken to, and the command is for each of us. The strange light had faded from His face when He came to them, the mysterious two had vanished, the cloud had melted into the blue, the silent, bare hillside was as it had been, and “Jesus was found alone.” So all other teachers, helpers, guides, are lost in His sight, or drop away as the ages roll on, and He only is left. But He is left, and He is enough and eternal. Happy are we if in life we hear Him, and if in our experience Jesus is found alone, the all-sufficient and unchanging companion and portion of our else lonely and restless spirits.—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_9:28-36
Luk_9:28-29. The Transfiguration Prayer.—This great scene left its mark for ever on the three chosen witnesses of it. The evidence of the Transfiguration must of necessity have been more impressive to the three spectators than it can be to the readers of their account of it. Marvellous, miraculous revelation! What mysteries gather round the scene! Jesus had gone up into the mountain to pray. It was as He prayed that He was transfigured. Can we at all interpret this prayer? We cannot. We know not what that prayer specially asked. But we may know some of the Divine intercessions specially needed by us in seasons of which the Transfiguration is for all time the august and solemn type.
I. Seasons every life has of a brighter experience than the common. Seasons of natural or spiritual exhilaration, in seclusion or in company. How natural to wish to prolong these seasons, neglecting every-day duties, heedless of other men’s sorrows! Is it wrong for us to think at such moments of the gracious intercession above, which would ask for us to use as not abusing, even if it be the Christian intercourse or the spiritual happiness? These things must come and go; duty before pleasure, even in the soul.
II. How sorely do we all need the Transfiguration view of Christ—were it but for once—never to fade again out of the memory, the soul’s memory, of the beholder! St. Peter thought of that one night when he was drawing near to his own “exodus,” and said that it assured him of the truth of his preaching, and of the truth of his Gospel, on to the very end. Which of us does not want just that something, if it might be so, to turn faith into sight and hope into knowledge? It would perhaps come to us—or something of its kind—if we watched for it as men watch for the morning—if we had the patience and the earnestness to say to the Divine Visitant, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me!” Shall we use the record of the Transfiguration prayer as giving us hope that the heavenly intercession may ask that indeed beatific vision, the spiritual sight of Christ, even for us?
III. Do we not all need that firm hold of the two revelations, the cross and the glory of Jesus Christ, which He enforced so strongly by the teaching and the prayer of this memorable moment? May the prayer of Christ in heaven reconcile us to this twofold condition: a Divine Lord dying to save, a Divine Love humbling itself to suffer—a cross uplifted to draw all men to Him who hangs upon it, a cross to be borne now by all who would enter into the glory!—Vaughan.
An Answer to Prayer.—The Transfiguration was an answer to prayer. We do not say that Jesus was praying for this alteration in. His countenance and raiment, or even for the privilege of talking with these wise and sympathetic spirits about the work which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem. But yet all this was in answer to the prayer He was offering when it came. To lift up the soul to God calms and ennobles it.
Luk_9:28-36. The Meaning of the Transfiguration.
I. The Transfiguration is an illustration of the efficacy of prayer.
II. It demonstrates the perfect holiness of Jesus Christ.
III. It brings into clear view the voluntary character of His submission to sufferings and death.
An Aid to Faith and Patience.—The Transfiguration was an aid to faith and patience, specially vouchsafed to the meek and lowly Son of man in answer to His prayer, to cheer Him on His sorrowful path to Jerusalem and Calvary. It supplied three distinct aids to faith.
I. It gave a foretaste of the glory with which He should be rewarded after His passion for His voluntary humiliation and obedience unto death.
II. It gave assurance that the mystery of the cross was understood and appreciated by saints in heaven, if not by the darkened minds of sinful men on earth.
III. A third and chief solace to the heart of Jesus was the approving voice of His heavenly Father.—Bruce.
Luk_9:28. “Peter and John and James.”—Those now chosen to witness His glory on the mountain of transfiguration afterwards witnessed His agony in the garden of Gethsemane.
Luk_9:29. A Light from Within.—It would appear that the light shone not upon Him from without, but out of Him from within: it was one blaze of dazzling, celestial glory; it was Himself glorified. What a contrast now to that “visage more marred than any man, and His form more than the sons of men”! (Isa_52:14).—Brown.
Luk_9:30. “Moses and Elias.”—The two who appeared to them were the representatives of the Law and the Prophets: both had been removed from this world in a mysterious manner—the one without death; the other by death, indeed, but so that His body followed not the lot of the bodies of all; both, like the Greater One with whom they spoke, had endured that supernatural fast of forty days and nights: both had been on the holy mount in the visions of God. And now they came, endowed with glorified bodies before the rest of the dead, to hold converse with the Lord on that sublime event, which had been the great central subject of all their teaching, and solemnly to consign into His hands, once and for all, in a symbolical and glorious representation, their delegated and expiring power.—Alford.
Moses now admitted to the Land of Promise.—Moses had not been permitted when alive to enter the land of promise; but here we see him brought into it to do homage to Christ.
Preparation for Death.—When, in the desert, He was girding Himself for the work of life, angels of life came and ministered unto Him; now, in the fair world, when He is girding Himself for the work of death, the ministrants come to Him from the grave—but from the grave conquered—one from that tomb under Abarim, which His own hand had sealed long ago; the other from the rest into which he had entered without seeing corruption. There stood by Him Moses and Elias, and spake of His decease. And when the prayer is ended, the task accepted, then first since the star paused over Him at Bethlehem, the full glory falls upon Him from heaven, and the testimony is borne to His everlasting Sonship and power—“Hear ye Him.”—Ruskin.
Witnesses to Immortality.—Here we have two thoroughly trustworthy witnesses, in Moses and Elias, that the dead are not dead, and that those who die in faith only pass out of this poor, wretched life into a better.—Luther.
Recognition in Another World.—St. Peter knows and recognises Moses and Elias, whose features he had never before seen. Perhaps we have here an intimation of the fact that saints in glory will know each other.
Luk_9:31. “Spake of His decease.”—
(1) The adoring gratitude of glorified men for His undertaking to accomplish such a decease;
(2) their felt dependence upon it for the glory in which they appeared;
(3) their profound interest in the progress of it;
(4) their humble solaces and encouragements to go through with it; and
(5) their sense of its peerless and overwhelming glory.—Brown.
“Decease.”—The striking word “departure” which St. Luke uses, and which is here translated by “decease,” suggests ascension rather than death. It is doubly significant, as being both an appropriate term in the case of the Son of God, and as alluding to the new exodus in which He delivers all who believe in Him from worse than Egyptian bondage. There is something deeply tragic in the allusion to Jerusalem—“the city that slays the prophets” (chap. Luk_13:33).
Luk_9:33. “Good for us to be here.”—The words contain an admixture of truth and error.
I. Truth: a recognition of that wherein felicity consists—in a vision of the Redeemer’s glory, and in hearts aflame with love and joy.
II. Error: a certain tinge of carnal self-love, and great ignorance of that which is needed to fit us for everlasting happiness. The vision is a means, and not an end; it is given to prepare for tribulations, and to sustain the disciples under them—to strengthen them for self-denying service.
“Three tabernacles.”—His desire was foolish, because—
I. He did not comprehend the design of the vision.
II. He absurdly put the servants on a level with their Lord.
III. He proposed to build fading tabernacles for men who had been already admitted to the glory of heaven and of the angels.—Calvin.
Luk_9:33; Luk_9:40; Luk_9:45. Three Incapacities.—
1. Speech without knowledge.
2. Action without power.
3. Hearing without understanding.
Luk_9:34. Fearing as they entered the Cloud.—Men are impatient of clouds, and are slow to learn their uses, until they get a period of unbroken sunshine. Men do not see much in the clouds; they are generally unwelcome visitors. They are not ready to learn that clouds are often the bearers of blessings, and harbingers of good.
I. They are slower still to learn the revealing power of clouds. Job said, “Men do not see the bright light that is in the clouds.” “In the clouds”; not fringing the clouds, but in them. We look for light by the dispersion of clouds; God’s greatest sons have looked for it in the heart of clouds. When God gave the law, He did it amid clouds and thunderings. At the heart of the densest cloud was God Himself, and it was from the midst of that cloud that Moses came with his face reflecting a glory greater than the glory of the sun. These three apostles on the mount were not afraid of the glory of the Transfiguration and the brightness of that light that touched the summit upon which they stood: they were only afraid of the darkening cloud into which they were called to enter. They had no idea that there was a burden of glory, but had a very keen conception of the burden of darkness. Paul exclaimed, “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
II. In such circumstances as this the cloud very often reveals more than the glory. I know it is hard to believe it. You will remember that in Eden it was in the cool of the evening that our first parents heard the voice of God—just when the shadows were lengthening, and the brightness of the day was departing, and the darkening hour was drawing near, so full of solemnity, because so full of subdued light suggestive of mystery. And we may follow that a little further, and sometimes find that when the darkness is thickest round us, and we can see nothing, God often reveals Himself to us as He does not when our vision is distracted by the beauties of creation around us. We have seen Jacob ascending the hill as the night gathered and the darkness descended, and laying his head upon a stony pillow to sleep, and when asleep having a grander vision than he ever could in his waking hours. We see too much sometimes to see at all. The world with its thousands of objects, while all given to us that we may see them, very often fail to give us the truest sights; and the night must come and the darkness gather round us, so that, closed in with God, we may have some revelation we had not in the glaring and blinding day.
III. They, however, feared simply because they did not know the capacity of the cloud to teach them the lesson they needed to learn. It was in the cloud that they learnt to give undivided attention to what Christ had to tell them; and His first command was to keep the memory of that revelation to themselves, and meanwhile to come down, in the inspiration of it, to the foot of the hill, and there heal one of the world’s sufferers. The people at the foot of the hill should be better for the Transfiguration at its summit.—Davies.
Luk_9:35. “My beloved Son: hear Him.”—Two titles bestowed on Christ.
I. Beloved Son—as distinguished from servants like Moses and Elijah.
II. The supreme and only Teacher of His Church.
Luk_9:36. “Jesus was found alone.”—Moses and Elias vanish. Christ is left alone. The law and the prophets were for a time, but the gospel remains for ever to the end.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain Mat 17:1-13; Mar 9:2-13; Luk 9:28-36. Mark: “And after…
CHAPTER 37
TRANSFIGURATION
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Mat 17:1-13; Mar 9:2-13; Luk 9:28-36. Mark: “And after six days, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, and carries them up into an exceedingly high mountain, privately, alone; and He was transfigured before them, and His garments became shining, exceedingly white as snow, such as no fuller on earth is able to whiten. And there appeared unto them Elijah, with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.” Luk 9:30 : “Behold, two men were talking with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who, being seen in glory, were speaking of His departure, which He was about to fulfill in Jerusalem. And Peter, and those who were along with Him, had been burdened with sleep. But keeping awake through the night, they saw His glory, and the two men who were standing with Him.” The transfiguration is the most unearthly scene mortal eyes were ever permitted to behold. Here, again, we see the signal honor conferred by our Lord on Peter, James, and John, who certainly did enjoy a deeper insight into Divine things than the other nine.
a. What was the character of that wonderful scene? It was a prelibation of heaven, come down to earth — i.e., a peep into the glory world; Jesus, for the time, putting on His glory in the presence of Peter, James, and John, that these notable apostles might be prepared to edify us all as eye- witnesses. Their descriptions are very graphic; Mark, Peter’s amanuensis, certifying that His raiment was whiter than any fuller on earth could possibly make it, His countenance and entire person shining with a brightness infinitely eclipsing the noonday sun in his meridian splendor. The scene transpired in the night, perhaps after several hours spent in prayer, in which their weary bodies became sleepy; the transcendent glory, when bursting on them, utterly expelling all drowsiness, so they had no trouble to keep wide awake all the balance of the night, so thrilled with the unearthly glory that they felt like remaining there forever; hence suggested “to build tabernacles.” Amid the scene, Moses and Elijah both appear.
How did the apostles know them? Either by their statues or Divine intuition, and more probably the latter. They appear in their glory, as both of their bodies had been long ago glorified. When Elijah mounted the fiery chariot, he lost all mortality, materiality, and every ounce of his weight, still retaining his identity, which had passed into celestial glory. If Moses was not translated from Pisgah’s pinnacle, he was raised from the dead, thus, in either case, escaping from Satan’s material prison, in consequence of which he gave the archangel Michael an awful battle (Jud 1:9), only to encounter signal defeat, while Moses, with the archangel, sweeps up the shining way, and joins the enraptured host in the city of God. We have in the glorified manifestation of Moses and Elijah a clear confirmation of the glorious destination of all God’s saints; those living on the earth at the Lord’s appearing being translated into the glorified state suddenly (1Th 4:13-18), like Elijah, when he mounted the chariot of fire; and all the buried saints resurrected, like Moses, when Michael came after him, and took him to heaven; thus Moses and Elijah, representing all the saints of all ages, and thus appearing in their glory, are an incontestable earnest of the glorification awaiting all the saints, some through transition, and others through the resurrection. Moses and Elijah, representing the two great departments of the old disperisation — i.e., the Law and the Prophets, the former being the lawgiver, and the latter, the greatest of the prophets; hence Moses and Elijah here appear in glory, not only confirming the glorification of all the saints, some by translation and others by the resurrection, but as the representatives of the Law and the Prophets, they here appear in the presence of Jesus, to whom they resign their delegated and expiring power, thus recognizing the supercession of the Law and the Prophets by the Kingdom of Heaven. They depart away before the scene is over, signifying the retreat of the old dispensation and the incoming of the new. Luk 9:33 : “And it came to pass, while they were departing from Him [i.e., Moses and Elijah], Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elijah; not knowing what he says.” No wonder Peter felt like staying there forever, as he had really witnessed a prelude of heavenly glory, practically spending those wonderful hours in heaven. Yet he did not understand what he was talking about, as Moses and Elijah had already finished their errand, and were moving back to heaven. Jesus must soon go, and Peter, James, and John, with the other nine, must go to the ends of the earth, preaching the gospel; hence permanently abiding there was utterly out of the question. Amid Pentecostal meetings, especially holiness camps, we frequently are permitted to tarry a little while on the Mount of Transfiguration, reluctant to come down; yet we must come down, and finish our work, fighting sin and Satan in the dark valleys of a lost world. “And He speaking these things, and there was a cloud, and it overshadowed them; and they were afraid while they were entering into the cloud. And there was a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My Beloved Son: hear ye Him; and while the voice was sounding, Jesus was found alone, and they kept silent, and told no one, in those days, any of those things which they had seen.”
b. A world of investigation and controversy has labored through all bygone ages to locate the Mount of Transfiguration. When I was on Mount Tabor, which is a long way from Caesarea-Philippi, far out southwest, near Nazareth and the Mediterranean Sea, I saw three magnificent stone temples, somewhat in ruins, the Latin monk, in charge of the convent constantly occupied on that summit, pointing them out to me as these three tabernacles which Peter suggested to build — one for Jesus, one for Moses, and another for Elijah. The convent on that mountain perpetuates the memory of the transfiguration. Origen, who was born A. D. 185 — a great preacher and a martyr in his day; his father being a preacher and a martyr; also his grandfather; the latter, of course, having seen the apostles, and having been converted through their ministry — certified, and has left it in his writings, that Tabor was the Mount of Transfiguration. Saint Jerome, who spent thirty years in Palestine in the fourth century, and other Christian fathers, add their testimony, so that, through the ages past, Tabor has been visited by thousands of Christian pilgrims, believing, without a doubt, that while walking over its summit and worshipping in its three tabernacles, they were on the veritable spot of this wonderful heavenly scene, where our Lord brought a prelude of celestial glory down, and permitted mortal eyes to contemplate the unearthly splendors of the bright upper world. It seems almost a pity to mar the sanctity and glory of this illustrious mountain by even insinuating that the adoring myriads who have lived and died, believing without a doubt that they had actually trodden upon that hallowed spot, and lingered in the tabernacles built responsive to Peter’s suggestion, and with their mortal feet trodden the summit where Jesus, Moses, and Elijah once stood, invested with celestial glory. But facts are stubborn things, and I must say that they are unfavorable to the identity of Tabor with the Mount of Transfiguration.
c. Others have labored assiduously to identify it with the Mount of Beatitudes, on which our Lord’s celebrated sermon was delivered, lying a few miles back from Capernaum, and overshadowing it, as this mountain is quite lofty; and Capernaum is the first place mentioned after the transfiguration, and the events which transpired at the base of the mountain; presuming that the six days mentioned as transpiring before the transfiguration were, in all probability, spent traveling, giving them ample time to come from Caesarea-Philippi down to the Sea of Galilee.
d. As to the six days immediately preceding the transfiguration, in which we have not an intimation, much less a record, of anything said or done, it seems quite plausible that they have a symbolic signification, typifying the days of Jehovah.
“Let not this escape your memories, beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2Pe 3:8.)
The adverb “as” is hos, and means “about,” vindicating the indefiniteness of the period, simply a long time, about a thousand years, so that we must not emphasize human chronology too rigidly, as God is His own Timekeeper.
“For, not following cunningly devised fables, have we made known to you the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but being made eyewitnesses of His majesty. For receiving from God the Father the honor and glory of such a voice, having been borne to Him from the excellent glory, This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. We heard this voice, borne from heaven, being with Him in the holy mount.” (1Pe 1:16-18.)
You see from this Scripture that Peter refers to it as a preliminary coming of the Lord, and a confirmation of His sure and certain second and glorious advent, which was thus adumbrated while on this mount, which was made holy by the heavenly scene which there transpired. Now these six days preceding the transfiguration here mentioned, symbolize the six Divine days, aggregating six thousand years, preceding the glorious coming of the Lord.
e. “And having come out from thence, they traveled through Galilee.”
(Mar 9:30.) This statement certainly sweeps away the theories in favor of Tabor, Beatitudes, and all other places, except that region in which they have spent several days in addition to the six here mentioned. Hence the facts certainly favor the conclusion that it was one of the mountains in the vicinity of Caesarea-Philippi. Strenuous efforts have been made to locate the transfiguration on the highest peak of Hermon. This is hardly probable, as it is about eighty miles from there to the loftiest summit, and directly away from Galilee, due north, whereas we have not an intimation that Jesus ever traveled north of Caesarea-Philippi in His earthly ministry. If He had gone so far, we certainly would have some specification of it. Hermon is the highest peak of the great Anti-Lebanon Range, which runs from Northern Syria south to the vicinity of the Galilean Sea, Caesarea- Philippi being in the Jordan Valley, down at the foot of this great range, and many lofty summits round about, well suited to verify the description here given of this celebrated holy mountain. I climbed a lofty mountain, belonging to the Hermon Range, overshadowing Caesarea Philippi, visiting the ruins of a large temple built by Herod the Great, where tradition says Jesus preached. I see no reason why that mountain, or some other one overhanging the Jordan Valley, through which they traveled back to Capernaum, might not have been the veritable Mount of Transfiguration f. Amid the multiplicity of claimants, through ages of superstition, we must conclude that no one knows that veritable mountain. There are so many summits about Caearea-Philippi, and rising along the Anti-Lebanon Range, hanging over the Jordan Valley, any one of which would satisfy the description, that we must leave the matter undecided, simply concluding that the preponderant argument favors some one of those mountains in the vicinity of Caesarea-Philippi, which are convenient to their journey down the Jordan, bearing in mind the affirmation (Mar 9:30), “Having come out from thence, they traveled through Galilee.” Now bear in mind, Galilee runs up almost to Caesarea-Philippi, favoring the conclusion that the Mount of Transfiguration must have been in that vicinity. Some have suggested that, as it took place in the night, they would have been uncomfortably cold on the summit of Hermon, ten thousand feet high.
While I do not believe they went to that summit, as it was too far north, the question of cold is relieved with reference to that mountain, or any other, by the fact that it was midsummer. As Capernaum is the first place mentioned, where they halted in their journey through Galilee, the facts certainly corroborate the conclusion that the mountain was up there near Caesarea Philippi, as they would travel through Galilee all the way to Capernaum. As our Lord knew what floods of superstition and actual idolatry would accumulate on that memorable spot — which has actually taken place on Tabor — I do not wonder that He dropped the veil over it, withholding its name. Peter, writing about it, gives us no clew to its identity, simply calling it the “holy mountain.” Consequently its identity is all at sea, and must so remain, till Peter, James, and John in glory return.
Mat 17:9. “And they, coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell no one the vision until the Son of man may be risen from the dead. His disciples asked Him, saying, Why then do the scribes say that it behooves Elijah first to come? And Jesus, responding, said to them, Indeed, Elijah cometh first, and will restore all things.” As Elijah here means John the Baptist, how did he restore, verify, complete, all things? John was the greatest of the prophets, and actually wound up the prophetical dispensation, which focalized in Christ, by not only preaching Him, but pointing Him out, and publicly introducing Him to the world. “But I say unto you, That Elijah has already come, and they did not know him, but did unto him all things which they wished; the Son of man is thus about to suffer by them. Then His disciples understood that He spoke to them concerning John the Baptist.” This transfiguration, taking place about eight months before the crucifixion, was the solemn installation of our Lord into that momentous series of events destined to culminate in His arrest, arraignment, condemnation, execution, resurrection, and ascension, thus unveiling to mortal eyes the heavenly side of His Messiahship. O that you and I may so sink away into God, and lose sight of this world, yea, climb so high up the Mount of Transfiguration, that we shall reach an experience in which we have a constant panorama of these thrilling realities, revelatory of the heavenly state, which is so nigh, and only separated by an intervening veil, liable to drop at any moment, thus revealing to us the unutterable glories of celestial worlds, of which, in the transfiguration, we have a vivid adumbration!
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXX. D. The…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXX. D. The Transfiguration].
LXX. THIRD WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD'S TERRITORY. Subdivision D. THE TRANSFIGURATION. CONCERNING ELIJAH. (A Spur of Hermon, near Cæsarea Philippi.) aMATT. XVII. 1-13; bMARK IX. 2-13; cLUKE IX. 28-36.
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c28 And it came to pass about eight days asix days cafter these sayings [Mark agrees with Matthew in saying six days. Luke qualifies his estimate by saying "about." But if we regard him as including the day of the "sayings" and also the day of the transfiguration, and the other two as excluding these days, then the three statements tally exactly. The "sayings" referred to were the words of Jesus with regard to his suffering at Jerusalem], that aJesus taketh ctook awith him Peter, and James, and John his brother [These three, as leaders among the apostles, needed the special encouragement which was about to be given. For further comment, see Mar_9:30). Moreover there is little doubt that at that time and for centuries previous there was an inhabited fortress upon Mt. Tabor ( Jos_19:12; Jos. B. J. i. 8, 7; Vit. 37). Moreover, Mt. Tabor is not a high mountain, its elevation above the sea being but 1,748 feet. Hermon, on the contrary, is the highest mountain in Palestine, its elevation, according to Reclus, being 9,400 feet. It was Jesus' custom to withdraw for prayer by night ( Mat_14:23, Mat_14:24, Luk_6:12, Luk_21:37, Luk_22:39) and the transfiguration took place at night.] 29 And as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment i became white and dazzling. a2 and he was transfigured [i. e., transformed; the description shows to what extent] before [418] them; and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. bglistering, exceeding white; so as no fuller on earth can whiten them. [We may conceive of the body of Jesus becoming luminous and imparting its light to his garments. The Christian looks forward to beholding such a transfiguration and also to participating in it-- 1Jo_3:2.] a3 And, behold, there appeared unto them ctwo men, who were Moses and bwith cElijah; band they were talking with Jesus. [The three apostles could identify Moses and Elijah by the course of this conversation, though it is possible that miraculous knowledge may have accompanied miraculous sight.] c31 who [i. e., Moses and Elijah] who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. [The word for decease is "exodus," an unusual word for death. It means a departure and is, as Bengel says, a very weighty word, since it includes the passion, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.] 32 Now Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep [it being night]; but when they were fully awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. 33 And it came to pass, as they were departing from him, aPeter answered and said banswereth and saith aunto Jesus, bRabbi, cMaster, aLord, it is good for us to be here: band let us make three tabernacles; aif thou wilt, I will make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. cnot knowing what he said. b6 For he knew not what to answer; for they became sore afraid. [Peter's fears overcame his discretion, but did not silence his tongue. Though he trembled at the fellowship of Moses and Elijah, he also realized the blessedness of it and could not let them depart without an effort to detain them, though the best inducement that he could offer was to build three booths, or arbors, made of the branches of trees, for their and Christ's accommodation. By thus speaking, Peter placed Jesus upon the same level with Moses [419] and Elijah--all three being worthy of a booth.] c34 And while he said these things, a5 While he yet speaking, behold, bthere came aa bright cloud bovershadowing them: cand overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. [Clouds often roll against the sides of Mt. Hermon, but the brightness of this cloud and the fear which it produced suggests that it was the Shekinah, or cloud of glory, which was the symbol of God's peculiar presence-- Exo_13:21, Exo_13:22, Exo_19:9, Exo_19:18, Exo_24:16, Exo_40:34, Exo_40:35, 1Ki_8:10.] aand behold, bthere came a voice out of the cloud, asaying, This is my beloved Son, cmy chosen: ain whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. [This command contains the chief significance of the entire scene. Spoken in the presence of Moses and Elijah, it gave Jesus that pre-eminence which a son has over servants. He is to be heard. His words have pre-eminence over those of the lawgiver and the prophet ( Heb_1:1, Heb_1:2). Peter recognized Jesus as thus honored by this voice-- 2Pe_1:16-18.] 6 And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. [As every man is who hears the voice of God.] 7 And Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise, and be not afraid. [As mediator between man and God, Jesus removes fear.] b8 And suddenly looking round about, a8 And lifting up their eyes, bthey saw no one any more, save Jesus only with themselves. c36 And when the voice came, Jesus was found alone. [Leaders and prophets depart, but Christ abides-- Heb_3:5, Heb_3:6.] b9 And as they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them, that they should tell no man what things they had seen, save when the Son of man should have risen again from the dead. a9 And Jesus commanded them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen from the dead. [The people were not ready for the publication of such an event. To have told it now would only have been to raise doubts as to their veracity.] b10 And they kept the saying, [420] questioning among themselves what the rising from the dead should mean. [Jesus spake so often in parables and made so frequent use of metaphors that the apostles did not take his words concerning the resurrection in a literal sense. They regarded his language as figurative, and sought to interpret the figure.] cAnd they held their peace, and told no man in those days any of the things which they had seen. a10 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? bHow is it that the scribes say that Elijah must first come? [They were puzzled by the disappearance of Elijah. They looked upon him as having come to fulfill the prophecy of Malachi ( Mal_4:5, Mal_4:6), but they marveled that, having come, he should so soon withdraw, and that they should be forbidden to tell that they had seen him, since the sight of him would be some sign of Jesus' Messiahship.] a11 And he answered and bsaid unto them, Elijah indeed cometh first, and restoreth ashall restore all things [this sentence leads some to think that Elijah will appear again before the second coming of our Lord, but the words are to be interpreted in connection with the rest of the passage]: band how it is written of the Son of man, that he should suffer many things, and be set at naught? [If the writings concerning Elijah perplexed the apostles, those concerning the Messiah perplexed them also. From one set of prophecies they might learn something about the other. Elijah came, but the Scriptures concerning him were so little understood that he was put to death. The Messiah also came, and the prophecies concerning him were so little understood that he, too, would be set at naught.] 13 But I say unto you, that Elijah is come, aalready, and they knew him not, but did band they have also done unto him whatsoever they would. Even as it is written of him. aEven so shall the Son of man also suffer of them. 13 Then understood the disciples that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. [Malachi used the name of Elijah figuratively to represent John the Baptist. [421] See pp. 102, 284. That there shall be a second coming of Elijah in fulfillment of this prophecy is hardly possible, for the office of Elijah is prophetically outlined as that of the restorer. But Elijah could not restore Judaism, for that dispensation had been done away with in Christ. He could hardly have chosen to restore Christianity, for even if it should need such a restoration, a Jewish prophet would be ill-suited to such an office. One of the apostles would be vastly preferable.]
[FFG 418-422]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain And it came
And it came
See note on the transfiguration, (See Scofield "Mat 17:2").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Transfiguration.
The Transfiguration.
The miracle itself:
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v. 28. And it came to pass, about an eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.
v. 29. And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering.
v. 30. And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias,
v. 31. who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.
v. 32. But Peter and they that were with Him were heavy with sleep; and when they were awake, they saw His glory, and the two men that stood with Him.
After these things had happened, after Peter had spoken the confession in the name of all the disciples, a matter of about eight days, on the eighth day after, Jesus took Peter and John and James along with Him. He wanted to give them visual evidence and proof that He was truly the Son of the living God. He ascended the mountain with them, the highest mountain in the neighborhood where they were at that time, a mountain well known to all of them. The Lord’s purpose was to pray, to enter into intimate communion with His heavenly Father, for the purpose of getting wisdom and strength for His coming difficult work, for the Galilean ministry was drawing to a close, and the days of the Judean ministry would be short. And God revealed Himself in a remarkable manner to His Son. For while Jesus was engaged in prayer, His entire aspect changed. The appearance of His face became unlike His usual self, and all His clothing became white and resplendent, shining, flashing like lightning. And suddenly there were two men that appeared and were engaged in conversation with the Lord, namely, Moses and Elijah. In the case of the first, only God knew his grave, and as for the second, the Lord took him up to heaven outright. Moses had given the Law and was the great exponent of the Old Testament covenant, and Elijah had been zealous for the Law and suffered much for his faithfulness. Both of them had looked forward with eager longing to the coming of the Messiah. And now that the Christ had appeared on earth and was engaged in^ the work of His ministry, God permitted and caused these men to appear to Jesus on the mountain before the amazed eyes of the three apostles. Thus Peter and the others were witnesses of the glory of Jesus, 2Pe 1:16. The divine glory, which He otherwise bore hidden before the eyes of men and only occasionally made manifest in word and deed, this glory now shone forth through His weak flesh, imparting to it that wonderful majesty which it was destined to bear at all times after entering into the final glory. Meanwhile, Peter and the other men were almost overwhelmed by the glory of the revelation; the brightness and the wonder of it all affected them so that they were as if heavy with sleep; they could barely manage to open their eyes from time to time. They heard only that Moses and Elijah were conversing with Jesus concerning His going out of this life, concerning the consummation of His ministry, which was to be fulfilled at Jerusalem and take place through suffering and death. And sometimes, when they roused themselves for a few moments, the disciples caught sight of the glory of their Master and of the two prophets that were standing with Him.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Eight days after Jesus tells his disciples that some would not die before they saw the kingdom of God, Jesus goes up the mountain to pray with Peter, James, and John, who all fall asleep while Jesus is changed to a dazzling appearance.
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these words
This refers to what Jesus said to his disciples in the preceding verses.
translationWords
Jesus
Peter
John (the apostle)
James (son of Zebedee)
pray
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 9:28-36 At the transfiguration, Jesus’ true glory was unveiled…
9:28-36 At the transfiguration, Jesus’ true glory was unveiled for three disciples to witness, confirming Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ. Moses and Elijah confirmed that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah.
9:28 About eight days later: Mark says “after six days,” referring to full days, while Luke includes parts of days. • Peter, John, and James were the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples (see also 8:51; Mark 14:32-33). • a mountain: The site of the transfiguration is traditionally regarded as Mount Tabor in southern Galilee. Some have suggested Mount Hermon, which is closer to Caesarea Philippi, where Peter’s confession (Luke 9:18-27) took place.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.