The Life of All Lives - Our Saviour Jesus - 7
The Transfiguration of Christ
In this study we turn to what is perhaps one of the most obscure events in the life of Christ. Even the name the Bible gives it seems to shroud it in mystery: the ‘transfiguration’. Whilst the descriptions given by the evangelists tell us something of what happened, we are still left wondering what was the meaning of it all.
Taking Luke’s account as our source, the facts are these: Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain in order to pray. While he was praying, ‘the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning’.
Moses and Elijah then appeared ‘in glorious splendour’, talking with Jesus. Only Luke tells us what they were talking about – it was ‘his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem’. Peter, ever the spokesman and ever impetuous, blurted out the suggestion that they should erect three shelters – one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
A cloud then enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud declared: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”
Now I have deliberately omitted a small detail that Luke gives us, but as with many small details it is important. In fact, it gives us a vital clue as to the significance of the whole event. Luke begins his account of the transfiguration with the words, “About eight days after Jesus said this…”
About eight days after he said what?
Well, it was eight days after he had spoken with the disciples and asked them, “Who do you say I am?” which led to Peter’s great confession, “You are the Christ of God.” Jesus immediately began to tell the disciples that he had to suffer many things and be rejected, and must be killed, and that on the third day he would be raised to life.
In this conversation, two crucial truths were established – two truths that the disciples found extremely difficult to hold together. First, there was the fact of his deity, confessed by Peter. Second, there was the necessity of his death, spoken to by Jesus himself. We should not criticise them for their slowness to take it in – you and I would have been no different had we been in their shoes.
On the mount of transfiguration, the three disciples were enabled to see how these two seemingly irreconcilable things – deity and death – could both be true. Jesus was seen in the splendour of his deity speaking about his departure, his exodus, that was about to take place but from which the disciples recoiled.
What does Scripture mean when it says that Jesus was ‘transfigured’? The original Greek word is metamorphosis, which means a change of form. Persons and objects have two essential elements: form, and substance. Form is the appearance of a thing; substance is what it is made of. At the transfiguration, Jesus’ form was changed, but not his substance. Indeed, he underwent a change of form, of appearance, which was intended to reveal to the disciples the truth about his substance – that is, that he was fully divine.
I want to lift three points from the account of the transfiguration that may be helpful to you in your daily Christian life.
The first is the fact – again only recorded by Luke – that Peter and his companions were very sleepy.
We are not told why this was so. Maybe it was the exertion of climbing the mountain, followed by the attempt at prayer that made their eyes heavy with sleep. Have you ever tried to pray after a hard day at work? Moreover, it was not to be the last momentous occasion on which these three disciples fell asleep. As Jesus wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane with his impending ordeal, the disciples repeatedly fell asleep.
The sleepiness of the disciples did not reflect their lack of interest in what was taking place or any lack of commitment to Christ. Rather, it was a reflection of the fact that, as Jesus said in the Garden, “the spirit is willing but the body is weak.”
Secondly, we note Peter’s suggestion that three shelters should be constructed. Luke tells us that he didn’t know what he was saying. He said it with the best of intentions, but without real thought. Peter’s suggestion put Jesus in the same category as Moses and Elijah, when the glory they had was only what they derived from Christ.
It also betrayed a very human tendency to want to make monuments of moments in our spiritual experience that are past. There is nothing wrong in savouring such experiences, but isn’t it easy to start living in the past and spend our days looking always backwards and never forwards?
Perhaps this is a danger with the common practice of Christians ‘giving their testimony’ – that is, recounting the manner and circumstances of their conversion. Which is more important: the fact that I had a conversion experience at a particular moment in the past; or the fact that I am living for Christ today, and showing clear evidence of a work of grace in my life now? We are all prone to this urge to build monuments, and we need to be careful to get the balance right.
Finally, Luke tells us that a cloud enveloped them, and from the cloud the voice was heard. From within the cloud, God the Father said, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”
What can we learn from this?
Well, we are prone to thinking that it would be so much better if we could have some kind of special vision or revelation of the kind the disciples had. Surely our faith would be firmer and our spiritual life enhanced if we could?
However, it is significant that the revelation that “This is my Son” came when the cloud obscured the disciples’ natural vision. The timing illustrates a persistent Biblical emphasis on hearing as against seeing.
If you had been on the mountain with them, what would have made more impression on you – what you saw, or what you heard?
Well, Peter recalled this transfiguration experience in 1 Peter chapter 1:18: “We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” It was what he heard that seems to have had more impact.
This should deter us from chasing after special visions and experiences, and encourage us to ‘preach the word’, since that is God’s appointed way of bringing men and women to faith. As Paul said in Romans 10:17, “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”