The Transfiguration Of Christ
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST
LUKE 9:27-36
Now that Peter had confessed him as the Messiah, Jesus showed his close friends a glimpse of his glory.
The statement in the opening verse must be closely linked with the story which follows. The Transfiguration was the prelude to the return to Jerusalem, the Passion Week, Christ’s death and resurrection. So, in the truest sense, came “the kingdom of God”—not the consummation of all things, but the completion of God’s self-revelation in Christ.
Dire testing and temptation lay ahead, and as a climax to weeks of spiritual preparation in the villages round Caesarea Philippi, the Lord chose to strengthen three of his men for the trial which lay before them, and the tense weeks in which their leadership was to count for much. Hence the night journey up Mount Hermon, the beautiful 9,000 foot mountain which lies 14 miles north of Caesarea Philippi.
The temptation which threatened would inevitably be to doubt whether the victim of Roman and priest could be the Coming One. Hence the strange scene on the mountain which showed Christ first as the consummation of Old Testament history. Moses was the great law-giver, Elijah the first of the prophets. Both were associated in prophecy with the Messiah. (Deuteronomy 13:15-19; Malachi 3:1; 4:5-6). Minds alert for Old Testament reference, soaked from childhood in its imagery and thought, would be conscious of other parallels: the cloud indicating the divine presence (Exodus 40:34-35), the cloud of Sinai, the cloud of Carmel. They would remember that both Moses and Elijah had strange endings on the east of Jordan where they now were, and that Horeb was in the experience of both. Moses led the exodus. And the conversation, runs the Greek text literally, was concerning “the exodus which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Secondly the vision of John was confirmed, and Christ was shown to be the Beloved Son.
God sometimes fortifies the soul of those who are to face trial and testing for his sake with some special experience of grace, some deeper revelation of himself. It behoves us to remember in the darkness that which God taught us in the light. God’s method is often the rehearsal of familiar truth. Compare 7:22. Read something of Moses and Elijah again and try to imagine the impact on the minds of the three watchers.
Notes 9:27: three interpretations of this are suggested—the resurrection; the transfiguration; or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 which swept away the remnants of the old dispensation. 9:28: Matthew and Mark say six days; Luke’s eight days is on the Roman inclusive reckoning. 9:31: the same word, “exodus,” occurs in 2 Peter 1:15. 9:35: quoting Psalm 2:7 and Deuteronomy 18:15.