…Jesus took with Him, Peter and James, and John his brother…to a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them…His face shone like the sun…His clothes became…as light…there appeared…Moses and Elijah…and a Voice from the cloud said, “This is My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”
Matthew 17:1-5
Of Jesus’ Disciples, there was an “inner circle” who were closer to their Lord than the other Disciples. In our verses today, we see an occasion when Jesus took this “inner circle” up a mountain and revealed His Divine Glory, normally hidden by Jesus’ earthly body. Jesus’ transfiguration showed these Disciples the true, Divine Being who was wrapped in humanness. Scripture tells us that God the Son laid aside (veiled) His glory to humble Himself to become like His creatures in order to demonstrate the kind of sinless life that only the Holy One of God could live and to die an atoning death as a propitiation to God the Father for the sins of the many He would save. The Apostle John writes of this transfiguration in John 1:14. As Jesus revealed His glory, we must understand that Scripture tells us “no man can see God and live.” So, Jesus’ transfiguration was in such a way as to not destroy these Disciples yet, reveal to them the glory of Jesus hidden by His earthly body. They were so mesmerized by this event, and the Voice of God the Father, that they fell on their faces in awesome fear, a normal human reaction to Divine presence throughout Holy Scripture, and Jesus had to touch them to bring them back to “reality” as it were. On the way down from Jesus’ transfiguration, Jesus instructed these Disciples to say nothing of what they had seen until He was raised from the dead. John wrote of this and other events “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). To be a Christian, one must believe Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God the Father and, belief must be demonstrated by bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Source: S C Ball February 3, 2023
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