"Hear ye him." God is well-pleased with none in Christ
man subject to passions. But Christ is a son, and in Him God was always well pleased. Moses and Elias were sometimes instruments of reconciliation between God and Israel. Moses was a great intercessor, and Elias was a great reformer. But in Christ God is reconciling the world. His intercession is more prevalent than that of Moses, and His reformation more effectual than that of Elias. This repetition of the same voice that came from heaven at His baptism was no vain repetition, but, like the doubling of Pharaoh's dream, was to show that the thing was established. It was spoken at His baptism because then He was entering upon His temptations and His public ministry; and now it was repeated because He was entering upon His sufferings, which are to be dated from this moment forward. Now, and not before, He began to foretell them. Immediately after His transfiguration it is said (see Luke ix. 51) that the time was come that He should be received up: This, therefore, was then repeated to arm Him against the terror, and the disciples against the offence, of the cross.
7. WHAT THE GOSPEL DEMANDS "Hear ye him." God is well-pleased with none in Christ but those that hear Him. It is not enough to give Him a hearing, but we must hear Him, and believe Him, as the great Prophet and Teacher. Hear Him, and be ruled by Him, as the great Prince and Lawgiver. Hear Him, and heed Him. Whoever would know the mind of God must hearken to Jesus Christ, for by Him God has in these last days spoken unto us.
Christ now appeared in glory, and the more we see of Christ's glory, the more cause we shall see to hearken to Him. The disciples were gazing on that glory of His, which they saw. They are therefore bid, not to look at Him, but to hear Him. We walk by faith which comes by hearing, not by sight (2 Cor. v. 7). Moses and Elias were now with Him, the law and the prophets. Hitherto it was said '(Hear him"' (Luke xvi. 29). The disciples were ready to equal them with Christ, when they must have tabernacles for them, as well as for Him. They had been talking with Christ, and probably the disciples were very desirous to know what they said, and to hear something more from them. 'No,' says God, "'hear Him, and that is enough," Him and not Moses and Elias who were present and whose silence gave consent to this voice: they had nothing to Transfiguration 225 say to the contrary. Whatever interest they had in the world as prophets, they were willing to see it all transferred to Christ, "that in all things he might have the pre-eminence''. "Be not troubled that Moses and Elias make a short stay with you; hear Christ and you will not want them."
Great Themes of the Bible
SERMON OUTLINE
TRANSFIGURATION
THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE 'TRANSFIGURATION (a) The Time (6) The Place (c) 'The Witnesses THE REVELATION OF CHRIST'S GLORY
II.
(a) The Meaning of the Transfiguration (6) The Manner of the Transfiguration (i) ''His face did shine as the sun"' (ii) "His raiment was white as the light"
CHRIST's COMPANIONS ON THE HOLY Mount (a) Moses and Elijah (5) Peter, James and John
III.
(i) The delight they had in this converse (ii) The desire they had to continue this converse THE FATHER'S 'TESTIMONY TO THE SON
IV.
(a) The Declaration of the Father: 'This is My Beloved
Son" (b) The Duty of the Believer: "Hear Ye Him"
UNCLEANNESS
I. MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIPS To BOOK of Leviticus is concerned to a great extent with the causes of uncleanness and the methods of purification. We take but a single instance of this, the relationships of marriage (Lev. xviit. 6f.). Relations are to love one another and are to have free and familiar converse with each other, but it must be with all purity. The less it is suspected of evil by others, the more care ought the persons themselves to take, that '"'Satan do not take advantage against them'', for he is a very subtle enemy and seeks all occasions against us.
The relationships forbidden are most of them plainly described. It is generally laid down as a rule that what relations of a man's own he is bound up from marrying with, the same relations of his wife he is likewise forbidden to marry with, for ''they two are one''. The law which forbids marrying a brother's wife had an exception peculiar to the Jewish state, that if a man died without issue his brother or next of kin should marry the widow and raise up seed to the deceased (Deut. xxv. 5). This was done for reasons which held good only in that commonwealth. Therefore now that those reasons cease, the exception ceases.
That article (Lev. xviii. 18) which forbids a man to "take a wife to her sister"? supposes a connivance at polygamy, as some other laws then did. It forbids a man marrying two sisters, as Jacob did.
In these relationships we need a law against unnatural lusts, sodomy, and bestiality—sins not to be named or thought of without the utmost abhorrence imaginable. Other sins level men with the beasts, but these sink them much lower. That ever there should have been occasion for making these laws, and that since they are published they should ever have been broken, is the perpetual reproach and scandal of the human nature. Giving men up to these vile affections was many times the punishment of their idolatries (Rom. 1. 24).
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