The Transfiguration: Have We Missed the Point?
(MATTHEW 17:1-8; MARK 9:2-8; LUKE 9:28-36)

How wonderful was the transfiguration; in view of three of his disciples, Peter, James and John, Jesus was transfigured and met with two, similarly glorified giants of the faith, Moses and Elijah. The two men spoke with Jesus about his ‘exodus’, his departure via crucifixion which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem, to which he had set his face (Lk 9:51). The disciples had the added witness of the Father’s voice confirming that Jesus was, indeed, his beloved Son. That is how we have always understood the transfiguration, but have we missed something? This article suggests that we have missed something, and not just something; if correct, we have missed the main point of that amazing event.^[i]

The proposition here is that the reason for Moses and Elijah’s appearance was not primarily to encourage Jesus towards the cross. They may have done that but given that darkest of deeds that he was facing, even those great men could not provide the level of encouragement he needed. The task given to Moses and Elijah was to greet Jesus and, perhaps, to open up the topic (of which Jesus was already aware – e.g. Mt 16:21; Mk 8:31; Lk 9:21-22). Without negating all that those men represented in the Law and the Prophets, however, they were, essentially, the welcoming committee; their task was to usher Jesus in to the only One who could encourage him sufficiently, the One who from all eternity planned that he should go to the cross, his heavenly Father.

Jesus invited his inner three disciples to witness what was designed for them to see. What they did see – not only Jesus glorified but Moses and Elijah glorified with him – and what they heard, the voice of the Father, would have buoyed their witness and carried them through much suffering in their lives and ministries (2 Pet 1:16-18).

Being transfigured and tasting something of the glory which he had with the Father before the foundation of the world (cf. Jn 17:5) certainly would have been a help but, again, that was not the primary purpose for Jesus being glorified. Rather, he was transfigured to clothe him appropriately to go before his Father “…who dwells in unapproachable light’ (1 Tim 6:16).

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

If we understand Eden, the garden of God (Ez 28:13), not just as a productive plot but the sanctuary of the Lord, the place he provided so that those he made in his own image could meet and fellowship with him, then it must have been a holy place, radiating with the glory (i.e., the holiness} of God (cf. the tabernacle [Ex 40:34-38] and Solomon’s temple [1 Ki 8:10-11]). In that case, Adam had to be sanctified before he could dwell in the garden/ sanctuary. Made outside of the garden (i.e., to the west of it – Gen 2:8), Adam was clean (in the biblical sense – Lev 10:10) and without sin or fault. However, clean was not sufficient to dwell with the Lord, he needed to be holy, but only God is holy. To enable him to enter Eden, then, the Lord breathed into him the breath of life (Gen 2:7; cf. Jn 20:22). This was not just air, if it was that at all, but the Holy Spirit (Heb. And Gk., Spirit=breath=wind.^[ii] Receiving the Spirit, Adam was sanctified and the suggestion here is that he was clothed with glory (as per the transfiguration). Only after this was he placed in the garden (Gen 2:8).^[iii]

When Moses asked to see the glory of the Lord, the Lord – no doubt the pre-incarnate Son – told Moses that no one could see his face and live (Ex 33:18-20). No one could look on the fullness of his glory, his holiness made visible, and survive it. We know that after Moses was allowed to see the tail end of the Lord’s glory, his skin shone (Ex 34:29). It may be that something of the Lord’s glory flowed over to the prophet; it is more likely, however, that Moses was granted the glory he needed so that he could safely see what he did of the Lord’s glory, receding as it was (Ex 33:21-23).

For the faithful who remain to see the Lord when he returns in glory (Mk 13:26), they will need to be glorified to meet him. To be confronted with the Lord in glory and not share his glory would be terrifying (Rev 6:12-17). In his first letter, John says that when the Lord appears, those who are children of the Father will see him (the Son) ‘as he is’ (i.e., in glory). How is it that they will be able to do that? They will be able to do that because they ‘shall be like him’ (1 Jn 3:2); they, too, will be glorified, ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ (1 Cor 15:51-53; Phil 3:20-21).

They will continue in that glory into eternity as they dwell with the glorified Son (Rev 1:12-16) and ‘the Father of lights’ (Jas 1:17).

The point of this is that to come into the presence of the Holy One, one has to be holy (Heb 12:14) and, as creatures, we need the God who is holy to provide that.^[iv] If we return to the transfiguration, even the Son of God could not be presented to the Father without being clothed in glory. He may have been without sin but he came ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Rom 8:3) and the likeness of sinful flesh was not appropriate to go before the Father (cf. the man lacking the wedding garment – Mt 22:11-14).

The transfiguration, then, as wonderful an experience as it was for the disciples to witness, as useful as a reminder of his glory that it was for Jesus and as encouraging as those two giants of the faith may have been, the occasion was not primarily for those purposes. It was to make Jesus presentable so that, facing the horror of the cross, he could go in to the Father and receive the encouragement he needed to face it unflinchingly,^[v] encouragement only the Father could provide.^[vi]

EVIDENCE FROM THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

The sequence of events must have been something like the following.

Jesus took Peter, James and John to the top of a hill to witness what he knew was about to take place. Having reached the summit, Jesus was praying alone in anticipation of the imminent encounter and, as he did so, he was transfigured (Mt 17:2; Mk 9:2-3; Lk 9:29). With the disciples watching on, Moses and Elijah ‘appeared to them’ (Mt 17:3; Mk 9:4; Lk 9:30-31). The two men materialised; they stepped from the heavenly realms into this physical world^[vii].  The disciples were terrified as they were confronted with the radiant holiness of God but, wanting to be useful, Peter offered their services to assemble some makeshift dwellings (Mt 17:4; Mk 9:5-6; Lk 9:33).

We must note here that it was as Jesus, Moses and Elijah were conversing together that the bright cloud appeared; not until after they had been speaking did it come and overshadow them (Mt 17:3-5; Mk 9:4-7; Lk 9:31-34).

That much was amazing and could have provided some encouragement before the ancient pair stepped back into the unseen spheres and Jesus’ glory faded. But the cloud which was apparently unnecessary for the appearing of Moses and Elijah and, surely, unnecessary for their disappearing (cf. Lk 24:30-31), came and embraced the whole party. The cloud represented the coming of the fourth (or seventh if we include the disciples) and main character, the Father.^[viii]  The voice from the cloud (Mt 17:5; Mk 9:7; Lk 9:35) did not necessarily mean that the Father was only meters away but it certainly revealed whom Jesus had entered the cloud to see. 

Luke indicates that they all entered the cloud (Lk 9:34) but if that were so, the three disciples would have remained at its outer edges. Again, in Luke, just before the cloud arrived, we are told, ‘…the men were parting from him’ (Lk 9:33). Was that the three men parting from Peter (and the others) or Moses and Elijah parting from Jesus? If it was the former, the Old Testament saints were escorting Jesus into the cloud and so, to the Father. If the latter, the two were either preceding Jesus, perhaps to ‘announce’ him to his Father (not that the Father would have needed any introduction) or leaving him as he went before the Father alone.

At that moment, to the disciples at the fringes of the cloud, the Father spoke from the cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen One, listen to him” (Lk 9:35). From this point, after falling on their faces terrified, the disciples slept (Mt 17:6); no doubt it was a God-induced slumber (cf. the guards of Mt 28:2-4; Acts 5:17-23 and 12:5-19).

How long they slept they would not have known. What was happening in the heavenlies was according to a different time scheme but the disciples dozed for as long as it took for Jesus to complete his audience with the Father, to return to the mountain top (possibly escorted), for the cloud to be withdrawn, for Moses and Elijah to exit and for Jesus’ glory to fade.

When it was appropriate (he may have spent more time in prayer), Jesus woke the disciples (Mt 17:7). Because it was a divinely induced sleep it seemed to them to have taken no time at all and so they were surprised when they looked up and all was as it had been before Jesus was transfigured (Mt 17:8; Mk 9:8; Lk 9:36).

SUPPORT FROM EYEWITNESSES (2 PET 1:16-18)

In his second letter, Peter reported that ‘…we were eyewitnesses of this (Jesus’) majesty’ (2 Pet 1:16). The use of ‘we’ here is significant. By the time he wrote (probably mid to late 64), Peter knew his own time was short (2 Pet 1:14) and James was long dead, he was executed by Herod Agrippa in AD44 (Acts 12:1-2). The ‘we’, then, must have meant him (Peter) and John. Were the two apostles working in collaboration at that time? If so, it was known to his readers.

What is particularly significant in Peter’s account is that he did not mention Moses and Elijah. If the main reason for the transfiguration was for Jesus to meet and be encouraged by those two men, the apostle was strangely silent about it. Not mentioning them suggests that their appearance was not what the event was about. Peter may not have recorded that Jesus was taken in to see the Father but he does – to the exclusion of Moses and Elijah – mention that Jesus ‘…received honour and glory from God the Father’ and that the Father audibly bore witness to his Son. Peter’s silence must be accounted for.

Clearly, the transfiguration was primarily about Jesus and his Father.

CONCLUSION

As encouraging as our understanding of the transfiguration has been with Jesus encountering Moses and Elijah, what he required was more than a conversation with those great men. Only the Father could give him the love, the comfort and the resolve that was necessary. Having received all that he needed from the Father, Jesus, laying aside his glory again (cf. Phil 2:5-8), descended from the mountain, strengthened and emboldened to continue to the cross.

Kym Smith has worked in Adelaide as a parish priest and as chaplain in both school and hospital settings. Now retired, he is enjoying more time investigating a variety of biblical and theological issues and publishing his findings.

 Footnotes

^[i] If what I am suggesting that we have missed is correct, then from the earliest times we have missed what the transfiguration was all about. Because it is such a major matter and makes so much sense of the event, the fact that the commentaries (at least the ones I have looked at) are silent on it can only mean that we have not seen it

^[ii] Humanity was made to be in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit; it is part of what it is to be made in the image of God.

^[iii] Eve, having been sanctified in Adam, was also clothed in glory (i.e., our primal parents’ nakedness in the garden/sanctuary was not the nakedness they later experienced, as have all who followed – Gen 2:25; cf. 2 Cor 5:1-5). The truth of this ‘garment’ of glory is reinforced by the fact that when Adam and Eve rejected the holiness given to them, when they listened to another voice and embraced evil (Gen 3:1-6), God withdrew from them his Holy Spirit and, with that, stripped away the glory. Now, in their dread-full nakedness, they tried to cover themselves but fig leaves were no substitute for the glory of God (Gen 3:7). Without that glory, without holiness, they could not remain in the garden/sanctuary and were expelled (Gen 3:22-24).

^[iv] By God’s grace, we who are in Christ have already been sanctified but what we are speaking about here is not where we stand by faith but actually standing in the visible presence of the God of glory.

^[v] It is often said that Jesus did ‘flinch’ in Gethsemane, that he was hoping for some way other than the cross when he asked his Father to ‘remove this cup from me’ (Lk 22:42). But not so; in the garden his soul was “…very sorrowful, even to death” (Mk 14:34). With the weight of the sin of the world crushing him, his concern was that he would die in the garden and not reach the cross; it was that ‘cup’ (‘hour’ in Mk 14:35) that Jesus wanted removed. His prayer was answered, the agony was not reduced but an angel was sent from heaven to strengthen him through it (Lk 22:43-44, see also Heb 5:7).

^[vi] Was the Lord’s caution to Moses (Ex 33:20) applicable for the Lord himself appearing un-glorified before the Father?

^[vii] Not that the spiritual/heavenly realms are not substantial for those who dwell there: note in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 the ‘buildings’ they inhabit compared with the ‘tents’ in which we of this age dwell (see also 2 Cor 12:2-3). Though not yet ascended and glorified, Jesus would also step from the unseen realms into the seen in his post-resurrection appearances (e.g. Jn 20:19, 26).

^[viii] The bright cloud must have been hiding the Father or, at least, an open entrance into the realms of glory and so, to the Father. A cloud often revealed as it concealed the glory of the Lord, declaring that the Lord was present (e.g. Ex 34:5; 40:34-38; 1 Ki 8:10-11; Acts 1:9).