The Transfiguration of Christ

Mark 9:2-13
Gregory Perry | Sunday, October 04, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Gregory Perry

The disciples of Jesus were in serious need of encouragement. They had earlier beheld awe-inspiring miracles of their Master. With their own eyes, they had seen him walk on water. They had witnessed him heal a deaf and mute man. They had twice handed out the food when Jesus fed very large crowds with very little food through his miracles of multiplication. And most recently they were eyewitnesses to his giving sight to a blind man.

Yet after all this, they came to the realization that indeed Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus pointed out that when the apostle Peter makes this good and true confession, that it was revealed to him not by man, but it was revealed “by my Father in heaven.”

But then it all seemed to go downhill from there, and quickly. Jesus immediately began to speak plainly about the fact that he must suffer and be rejected, and that he must be killed. Confused by how this fit into the fact that Jesus is the Son of the Living God who possessed all authority and power, Peter imprudently began to rebuke Jesus the Lord. And he was met with a most stern reprimand of Jesus: “Get behind me, Satan!”

But the disheartening words did not end there. Jesus went on to exhort his disciples that they must deny themselves, they must take up their cross and follow him. Furthermore, he tells them that whoever wants to save his life must lose it, but whoever loses his life for him will save it. In other words, Jesus calls them to a discipleship unto death.

At this point, the disciples are bewildered and certainly frightened about what this all means, and they are deeply discouraged. It is when the disciples are in this disconcerted state that Jesus chooses to display to them the greatest revelation of his glory. So we will look from our text this morning at three points. We will see, first, the transfiguration of Christ; second, the response of Peter; and third, the affirmation of the Father.

1. The Transfiguration of Christ (vv. 2–4)

Jesus takes these three apostles—Peter, James, and John—up to a high mountain. Most scholars think it is Mount Hermon. All the twelve apostles were key witnesses to the ministry of Jesus, but these three were especially privileged. Christ also chose these three to be the exclusive witnesses to his raising the dead daughter of Jairus to life. And Jesus also chose only them to accompany him in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest.

Luke tells us that Jesus took these three up the mountain to pray (Luke 9:28). It was also a time to get away from the hustle and bustle of the crowd and just to be with Jesus. It was like what we do at our church retreats. We get away from the noise and meet with God and his people.

Little did these three disciples know that they were about to have an unparalleled mountaintop experience. What happens next falls under the category of the ineffable and indescribable. We read, “There [Jesus] was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.” The Luke account adds that the appearance of his face changed (Luke 9:29). In Matthew we read that his face shone like the sun (Matt. 17:2).

Essentially what you have here is a revelation of Jesus in his glory. This glorification of Jesus was the revelation of his divine nature. For a brief moment, his human nature is peeled back, and they saw a glimpse of his divinity. Instead of saying to his disciples, “I am God,” Jesus showed his deity to them by his transfiguration.

In this transfiguration, God the Father clothed his Son in glory. Sinclair Ferguson puts it this way. He says, “It was as though they caught a glimpse of all that Jesus would be when his kingdom finally came. He was transfigured. His glory was seen. His power and kingly majesty were momentarily visible. It was a foretaste of that day when his kingdom would come with power in his resurrection. It was a foretaste too of the day of his final glory.”

We see the glorified, risen Lord Jesus similarly described when he appears to the apostle John on the island of Patmos in the book of Revelation. We read in Revelation 1:16, “His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.”

In verse 9 of our text, Jesus orders these disciples not to tell anyone about this glimpse of his glory until after his resurrection. And, indeed, both John and Peter wrote about this glorious transfiguration years later. In John 1:14, it is more implicit. The apostle John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Then he says, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full and grace and truth.” And more explicitly Peter says in 2 Peter 1:16–18, “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.”

The doctrine that the transfiguration particularly teaches is that Jesus is no mere man. This Messiah is divine. The Son of God is nothing less than the true and living God, the Second Person of the holy Trinity. This truth contradicts all those who purport to hold Jesus in high regard but deny his essential deity, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses, who, like the ancient Arians, hold that Jesus was nothing more than God’s first-created being. And even orthodox Jews and Muslims will both credit Jesus with being a prophet, but they count it as the worst of blasphemies to maintain that he is God.

If Jesus is the best man in the world, and even a God-sent prophet, but nothing else, something less than God, than we as Christians are to be most pitied. We are helpless and lost, and we remain, along with everyone else, dead in our transgressions and sins. For if Jesus is not God, then he could not pay the infinite debt that we owe when we sin against the infinite, all holy God. Without a divine Redeemer paying for our sins, we will have to pay our sin ourselves. And we can only pay for our sin in an eternal hell. That is what hell is: an eternal paying for your sin.

The other aspect of the transfiguration of Jesus is that Moses and Elijah, two legendary figures in the history of Israel, appeared and were speaking with Jesus. Moses had been dead for over fourteen hundred years, and Elijah for about nine hundred. We are not told that Moses and Elijah were transfigured because, unlike Jesus, they were not God. Rather, Moses and Elijah serve as representatives for all of the Old Testament history. Moses stands for the Law and Elijah represents the Prophets. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, he has come not to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17). “The Law and the Prophets” is a way of referring to the whole Old Testament revelation. For all the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. Moses and Elijah, along with all other prophets, looked forward to the coming of this Messiah. According to Luke 9, what Jesus particularly spoke to Moses and Elijah about was his coming departure. In other words, he spoke them about his imminent death. By his death, Jesus fulfilled everything to which the law pointed. He was the fulfillment of the sacrificial system revealed to Moses. He is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world.

Jesus fulfilled every Messianic prophecy that was spoken about him. He is the Seed of the woman, who would crush the head of the serpent. He is the Son of David, come to establish the eternal kingdom. And he is the Suffering Servant, who was to be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.

We are not now seeing the glorified Lord face to face, as these disciples did. But we too will have this beatific vision, and we will see him in all his glory on that great day. We read about this in the Scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 13:12 the apostle Paul says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” In 1 John 3:2 the apostle John, who himself saw Jesus in his glory, speaks about this beatific vision: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

Moreover, not only will we see Jesus in his glory on that day, but we can also see him in his glory even now through the eyes of faith. For it is not that Jesus will someday be glorified. No, he is glorified now. That is what John said: “We shall see him as he is.” We should pray for the Holy Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we would better know this glorious one who is risen from the dead and is even now seated at the Father’s right hand in the heavenly realms, “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21).

So now having caught a glimpse of the glory of Jesus in his transfiguration, let us move on to look at the response of Peter.

2. The Response of Peter

First, we should learn from Peter’s response that we do not always need to have something to say. We are told parenthetically that Peter did not know what to say (v. 6). One commentator called Peter a man who always had something to say, even when there was nothing to be said.

The Greek text literally says, “In answering, Peter said to Jesus.” In other words, Peter answers, even though no one had asked him any questions to which he needed to respond. Peter would do well to heed the sage advice of the Lord’s brother in James 1:19: “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak.” We too would do well to heed such counsel.

If there ever were a time for silence, this was it. Peter should have followed the example of Job who, when the glory of God was dramatically revealed to him and God demanded from him a response, Job humbly stated, “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more” (Job 40:4–5).

But what did Peter understand about Jesus? His understanding of who Jesus was is confused, at best. Peter had earlier made the good confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. But then minutes later, as we heard last week, he rebuked this Jesus for predicting his own death. And how Peter responds here also shows his own lack of understanding. In verse 5 we read, “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’”

Notice Peter addresses Jesus here as “Rabbi,” the Jewish term for “teacher.” Now, “Rabbi” was certainly not meant to be used by Peter as a derisive title. After all, “Rabbi” was a title of real respect in the Jewish world. But is “Rabbi” really the most appropriate title to what is now being revealed? It seems like the most appropriate response, or at least the more appropriate response to this stunning revelation of the glory of Jesus, would be what Thomas said when he saw the resurrected Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” To put it in perspective, even the Pharisees and unbelievers occasionally called Jesus “Rabbi.” In fact, Judas called Jesus “Rabbi” right before his treacherous kiss of betrayal in Gethsemane.

Peter goes on to remark, “It is good for us to be here.” I don’t want to nitpick Peter here, but Peter is the master of pointing out the obvious. Of course, it was good for them to be there as witnesses of the transfiguration. That is why Jesus had arranged it so. Jesus does not need Peter’s approval for his plan, nor does he need our approval for his plan. It is good for us to remember that.

Peter’s next unhelpful contribution is this idea: “Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Now, to Peter’s credit, he did not suggest that they build four shelters or six shelters and include himself and the other disciples. At least he showed some humility by not putting himself on their level. Nevertheless, this suggestion is still misguided. Peter realizes that he and the other two disciples are not worthy to have a shelter with Jesus, but neither are Moses and Elijah. As great as they may be, they also do not belong on the same level with Jesus. In his aim to honor Elijah and Moses, Peter is actually inadvertently denigrating Jesus. Moses and Elijah were present on the mountain to worship the Lord and learn from him. They were not there for the disciples to marvel at Moses and Elijah. They were there to marvel at Jesus. They were there to witness the One about whom they had prophesied. They were not lords; they were witnesses to the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Peter’s suggestion for them to build three shelters also indicates his desire to stay on the mountaintop. This is not a bad desire in and of itself. It is good to want to dwell with Jesus and these two great prophets. But the problem with this idea is that it is not God’s will for them to stay on the mountain. God does not want us to remain on the mountaintop. This is the flaw of having a sort of monastic mentality, where we want to escape from the world just to be with God. We can wrongly take up this mentality even in our church life. The mountaintop experiences that we have, whether it be on a retreat or even every Sunday at our church services, are experiences given by God in order to equip us for daily life. We meet here on Sundays to be equipped and prepared for the rest of our coming week. We are not of the world, but we are to be in the world, shining as light. We cannot be the light of the world and the salt of the earth by remaining on the mountain.

I am not saying that the spiritual experiences that God gives us are to be left on the mountain. Rather, they are to strengthen us as we re-enter our regular life. Christ commissions all of us to go into the world and make disciples of all nations. God wants us engaged in daily life in this world. (GWP) And this world is full of trouble. Have you noticed that? Jesus says, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.” This is demonstrated by the fact that when Jesus and the disciples come back down from the Mount of Transfiguration, they come back to a messy squabble having broken out because the other disciples cannot heal a boy with an evil spirit.

Peter may have also wanted to build these shelters to avoid the inevitable suffering to come. After all, Jesus was apparently speaking to Moses and Elijah about his coming sufferings. Seeing Jesus glorified surely brings out the desire to enter into glory now and just skip this whole plan of suffering. Peter appears to be looking for a way for Jesus and possibly them to avoid the cross. This is how Peter got in trouble before with Jesus, reprimanding him for speaking about Christ’s death.

So we can picture him thinking, “This glorious kingdom of God has now arrived. There is now surely no longer any need for shame and suffering.” Remember, just a few days earlier, Peter audaciously rebuked Jesus for speaking about his imminent suffering and death. And we are all prone to want to avoid suffering. We would rather go straight to glory. But in God’s plan, there is no crown without a cross. The path to glory is always littered with temporary troubles and disappointments. But in all these things God is working for the good of his people even now, and he is teaching us even now to rely on him. Though now we have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials, we greatly rejoice because we know that these trials have come so that our faith may be refined by fire and may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Pet. 1:7).

We should also make the observation that the Lord does not even bother to answer the foolhardy Peter. Instead, the Father gives his own memorable response. That leads to our third point: The affirmation of the Father, particularly in verse 7.

3. The Affirmation of the Father (v. 7)

God the Father brings correction and clarity to Peter’s misguided suggestion. And he is even bringing clarity to his good confession that he made earlier of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the living God. This reminds us that we all can concoct our own funny ideas about God—who he is and what he wills. But the only thing that ultimately matters is that there is truth that God reveals about himself. Sitting back in our armchairs and pontificating about what we think God should be like and what he should do is worthless, especially given that fallen man actively suppresses the truth of God by his wickedness. God is not what we make him out to be. He is not the product of our wish fulfillment. The postmodern dogma of the relativity of truth is a mindless sham meant to undercut all truth claims and help us all to get along as we live in our own make-believe world. No, God is absolute truth, and we know this absolute truth as he makes himself known clearly in his word. Sola Scriptura means Scripture alone must be our final standard in discovering God’s truth. What we are to believe and how we are to live are made known to us through God’s revealed word.

The first thing we see in the God the Father’s self-revelation is that a cloud appeared and enveloped them. Throughout the Old Testament, the cloud serves as a symbol of God’s presence. It is his shekinah glory. We see this throughout the Old Testament. For example, in Exodus 13 we read about the pillar of cloud in the desert that led the Israelites through the desert. In Exodus 33 we read of the cloud of his presence that passed before Moses. In Exodus 40 we read of the cloud of his presence that filled the tabernacle. Later on in 1 Kings 8, the same cloud fills the temple. In Ezekiel 8 and 9, we read about the cloud that rises between the cherubim in the temple.

What is often overlooked in this experience on the Mount of Transfiguration is that this same cloud of God’s glorious presence appears on the mountaintop. The three disciples on the mountain were caught up in the shekinah glory. This is a blessed prophecy of what is to come for every believer. We too will one day be caught up in this cloud. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 the apostle Paul says this: “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

Pastor Mathew pointed out in his sermon on the transfiguration how this knowledge of the glory of Jesus should affect us in our daily life. He said, “The transfiguration gave to Jesus and to the disciples and also to us now a foretaste of the joy and glory that awaits those who obey God.” And listen to what this understanding can do to us: “This understanding of the transfiguration helped the disciples face the hardships of days ahead. And it is this understanding of the glory that is to come which ought to motivate us to persevere as we take up our cross and follow Christ.” To whatever degree we experience joy in God’s presence now, especially when God pours out his Spirit upon us, it is but a foretaste of our eternal pleasures that we will experience at God’s right hand in heaven forever.

Then the audible voice of the Father is heard from the cloud saying, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” This is not a new revelation. In fact, God the Father said nearly the same thing as Jesus was being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.  The Father repeats what he said earlier about Jesus being his Son whom he loves because it is of utmost importance in understanding who Jesus truly is.

Jesus asked the question earlier, “Who do you say that I am?” And God the Father gives the most clear answer: “This is my Son, whom I love.” Jesus is God’s own Son. He is the one and only Son of God. He is God’s Son from all eternity.

We also are God’s children, but only in so far as we are vitally united to Christ by faith and adopted into God’s family through the one and only Son. Peter is glorying in seeing these two great Old Testament figures with Jesus, but it is as if God is shouting to Peter, “Peter, focus your attention on Jesus the Son—not Elijah and not even Moses. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. For he alone is the one thing needful. He alone is your Redeemer and Shepherd. He alone is Lord.” In fact, Jesus is Lord and Savior of both Elijah and Moses.

And Moses and Elijah fade into the background. Indeed, they disappear entirely from sight. It says in verse 8, “Suddenly, when [the disciples] looked around [after hearing the voice of the Father], they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.” Only Jesus is the one and only Son whom the Father loves from all eternity.

Having made the indicative statement that Jesus is his Son, the Father then gives an imperative command. He says, “Listen to him!” This is the addendum to what the voice of the Father said at the time of Jesus’ baptism. He adds this as a response to Peter in particular. God is saying that instead of bellowing out to Jesus, “What do you think we should do?” Peter should just shut up and listen to him.

“Listen” means not just to hear what he says, but to hear and do. Listen to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one we are to follow. He is the one we are to obey immediately, exactly, and with joy. Jesus as the Word-become-flesh is God’s full and final revelation of himself. Jesus is the ultimate expression of truth. We read this in the first verses of the book of Hebrews: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe” (Heb. 1:1–2). Listening to Jesus is not just listening to him when he speaks to us audibly in the flesh, or when we hear the Father speaking from the cloud. We need to tune our ears to hear God’s voice in Scripture. His word written in the Bible is as clear and powerful as any word we might hear from the heavens.

When the apostle Peter in 2 Peter 1 tells of hearing the voice from the Majestic Glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, he goes on to say, “We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” Then he says, “And we have [heard] the word of the prophets made more certain.” He is speaking about the Scriptures. He is speaking about the Bible. “We have [heard] the word of the prophets . . . and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:18–19).

In other words, we must listen to God’s word revealed in Scripture, especially as personally illuminated to us by the Holy Spirit. The word of God is living and active, and the living God speaks to us as we read the Bible in our daily devotions. We should expect to hear from him as we read his word. He is speaking, and we must listen to him.

God also regularly speaks to us through the preaching of his word. The God-called, equipped, and sent minister acts as God’s mouthpiece to convey what God has to speak to his people. Paul commended the Thessalonians because when they received the word of God that he preached to them which they heard from him, they accepted it not as the words of men but as he says, “as it actually is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13). The Lord speaks to us through the preaching of his word, and we must listen to him.

And God speaks to us particularly through delegated authorities that he has established in our lives. He has set up parents, pastors, teachers at school, state officials, bosses at work. He set these people up to direct us in the way that we should go. Especially when we are going astray, God will often use these delegates to speak to us. God speaks to us through these delegated authorities that he has set up in our lives, and we must listen to him.

But how do we listen to him? To truly listen to the Lord Jesus Christ through whatever means he speaks, we must do the following three things.

First, we must hear what he says. We must not be so quick to open our mouths and tell God what he should do. Even in our prayers, we need to be quick to listen to how God is directing us. We need to get rid of all the other noise and listen to hear what he says. We will not hear if we are not listening expectantly for him to speak to us. We need to go through life with the heart attitude of the boy Samuel who said, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” We can never do God’s will if we do not first listen in order to know and understand what his will is.

Second, we must act on what he says. Knowing what he is saying is not enough. It only makes us responsible enough for doing it. James put it this way in James 1:22: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” We must then faithfully act on what he says. As Jesus himself said in John 13:17, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” We need to do as he directs. When he convicts us of our sin, any sin in our lives, we must respond by confessing our sin and repenting of it. Just knowing that it is your sin is not doing anything about it.

Finally, we must persevere in carrying out whatever commitments we have made as a response to the word that comes.  Persevere in doing. Too often, we think that we have responded to God’s word by responding just in the moment. No, when God says, “Steal no longer,” it does not mean, “Do not steal today but go back to stealing tomorrow.” No, temporal change resulting from a transient fit of repentance is nothing but false repentance. If we examine our lives, we see that we do this far too much. We are convicted about something, we repent of it, and yet two weeks later we are back doing the same thing. It is really just a continuing in your sins.

We need to be fourth-soil hearers to persevere even when trouble and persecution come, and even when tempted by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of riches. For as we listen to our Lord Jesus Christ and commit to doing what he says, and then continue to carry out these God-guided commitments that we have made, only then will we produce a crop yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what is sown. Only then will we one day go to be with him in glory.