And Peter answering said to Jesus, Lord, it is good we should be here. If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles for thee one, and for Moses one, and one for Elias.
Peter had just confessed Jesus as the Son of the living God. Now he sees his Master shine with Moses and Elijah, and he speaks words that God Himself corrects.
Two other Gospel writers add that Peter did not know what he was saying. (The commentators quote an older translation: "tabernacles" where the ESV has "tents.")
As the scene of glory burst on him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here: if you will, let us make here three tabernacles; one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Luke adds, "not knowing what he said"; while Mark reads that "he did not know what to say, for they were terrified." This shows how dangerous it is for a believer to speak. He must first be sure he has the Lord's mind in what he says.
Peter offers the Lord and the two visitors the same thing.
Peter counted it a great thing to see His Master with saints so renowned and glorious. ... He made the natural but fatal mistake of equalising all three. Yet only a short time before, he had confessed His Master to be not only the Messiah, but the Son of the living God. He ought not to have gone so wrong.
The three accounts record Peter addressing Jesus differently, and Matthew preserves the highest of the three titles.
In the account of the Transfiguration, Mark 9:5 has "Rabbi," Matt. 17:4 "Lord," Luke 9:33 "Master." It is easy to see that for these a mere difference of translation may arise.
Peter meant his plan as an honour to Jesus.
It was sheer forgetfulness of the personal dignity of Jesus. "Let us make three tabernacles," one for his Master and the other two for His servants, Moses and Elijah. Would he, then, put his Master, the Lord of all, on the same level with the head of the law and the chief of the prophets? Peter thought this would be great honour for Him! He was altogether astray. The root of all wrong is depreciation of Jesus. The power for all that is good is faith in His glory. Thus Peter, in a human way, seeking to honour Jesus, in reality lowers Him.
In the chapter before, Peter had objected to the Lord's death. His suggestion here reaches for the same result by a different route.
Behind Peter's words lurked another thought. It was the very same attempt to keep the Lord from obeying to the point of death on the cross. That attempt appeared in the temptations in the wilderness. It hid in Peter's "God be favourable to You." Here it comes once more. Peter would have a Christ in glory and the state of the kingdom there without the cross, and he is even willing with his two companions to work for it, for he says, "Let us make here three tabernacles."
A tent is for staying. The Lord's own announcement pointed the other way.
Instead of deeply admiring the Lord Himself, he says, "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Then he adds his own proposal: "if you will, let us make three tabernacles." Are we not also too quick to propose what we should do for the Lord? In such a case, man's natural desires will come to the fore, for a present kingdom with man exalted. The Lord had before spoken of His death, not of dwelling in tabernacles.
Three tents would mean three centres.
So God rebuked the thought of Peter to make three tabernacles — "One for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." There was only One whom they should honour in this way. He alone is the centre of His people: "This is My beloved Son, hear Him." Do you think no man could ever be made a rival centre where God intends unity? Then read the first chapter of 1 Corinthians: "Each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ," which the apostle rebukes with: "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"
Peter's delight was real, but the vision had a purpose beyond it.
Peter was full of joy in the presence of this glory, and he wanted to stay there. Such was the delight his soul was taking in the scene. This may give us some idea of the blessedness of Israel and the nations in the kingdom of the Son of Man, when this glory of His appears. But all this was merely incidental. The single purpose of the vision was to show the church her portion in the glory.
- Good — Peter was right that the scene was good. He was wrong to speak without the Lord's mind.
- Level — his three tents put Moses and Elijah alongside the Son of God. Lowering Jesus is the root of all wrong.
- Shortcut — tents on the mountain meant the kingdom now: glory without the cross.
- Centre — three tents make three centres. God's people have only One, and rival centres split the church.
- Purpose — the vision was not a place to settle. It was a preview of the church's portion in the glory.
While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and lo, a voice out of the cloud, saying, *This* is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight hear him.
Peter had just offered to build three shelters — one each for Jesus, Moses and Elijah — when the Father cut him off mid-sentence. What follows is one of the few times God spoke aloud on earth, and every word is about His Son.
Peter's suggestion put the Son on the same level as two servants. The answer came from above, not from Jesus:
This was not the crushing rebuke of the Lord, who knew that in a ruined world all blessing for man and all glory for God hung on His being rejected. It was the Father's voice out of the excellent glory. The Father then displayed His jealousy for the honour of His Son. He would not allow the law-giver or the law-restorer to stand on such a level. They were servants, to be honoured in the place He gave them. But His beloved Son! — there were His delights.
These men knew that cloud at once:
"There came a bright cloud and overshadowed them" — the well-known sign of God's presence, which had led Israel through the desert long ago and lived in the sanctuary — "and behold a Voice out of the cloud which said: This is My beloved Son; in whom I am well pleased; hear Him." No wonder that "when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified." In fact, the Most Holy Place stood open before them. They were standing where only the high priest could stand, and only once a year, with incense to cover him and the blood of atonement. And they were ordinary men, with no sacrifice in their hand and no incense to cover them.
Yet the cloud did not shut them out. It covered them, and the voice came from inside it:
Now Peter and the others had entered into the cloud; and so we get the wonderful fact that saints may stand in the glory the voice comes from, and there, in that glory, share the Father's delight in His beloved Son. God calls us not only into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ, but into fellowship with the Father. The Father lets us share His own satisfaction in His beloved Son.
The Father does not announce Him by the title Israel was waiting for:
It is not, This is your Messiah — He was that, of course, but He brings out the grand New Testament revelation of Jesus. He reveals Him as His own beloved Son, and His unqualified delight in Him.
Notice how the Father words it:
As one has said, "the Father does not say, This is the Son whom you ought to adore and admire, but He tells us His own thoughts about Him." We are not simply reminded that Christ is our Beloved, as the bride in the Song of Songs can say, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His." We hear the Father saying, "This is My Beloved."
Older translations render the ESV's "with whom I am well pleased; listen to him" as "in whom I am well pleased; hear him." The Father had said the same words once before, at the Jordan. Hearing them twice shows a pleasure that never shifted with the Son's circumstances:
And that same voice, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," sounds a second time. It was heard on the holy mountain as it was on the bank of the Jordan — on the day of the transfiguration as at the baptism. The transfiguration was a pledge and picture of the Kingdom, as the baptism was His entry on His ministry and witness. But the same delight stirs in the heart of the Father, where the Son lay. It stirs whether God's eye follows Him along the lonely path of Jesus the Servant in a defiled world, or sees Him on the heights as King of glory in the coming kingdom.
The Father added two words this time that He had not spoken at the Jordan. He added them the moment Peter tried to level the Son with the servants:
He did not say "hear him" at the baptism of Jesus by John. He took it for granted, so to speak, that once He had proclaimed Him Son of God, everybody would listen to Him. But when Peter would put the Saviour on the same level with the Lawgiver and the Reformer, the Father steps in at once and sweeps Moses and Elijah off the scene. Do not forget this. Moses is gone, for the law could not save you: Elijah's day is gone by, for reformation could not meet your case.
This is not contempt for the older witnesses. It is a matter of proportion:
The dignity of the others is not denied, nor their due position slighted. To assert the glory of the sun in the heavens is in no way to despise the stars. God set Moses in his place, and Elias in another, as He saw fit; but what were they compared with His Son?
The voice flattened them. The hand that lifted them belonged to the very One the voice had named:
They were far from knowing yet His love; but He, who brought it in His own person, was at hand to strengthen their hearts. "And Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise, and be not afraid."... Can you say that you have heard the voice of Jesus by faith, and that you are "not afraid"? This is His will, not only for the three who then heard, but for all that believe the gospel of God.
- Hear — the Son is not one voice among three; He is the one voice to be heard.
- Hear whom — not "your Messiah," but "My beloved Son": the Father is telling us His own thoughts about Him, not calling us to admire.
- Hear always — the same words at the Jordan and on the mountain show one unchanging delight.
- Hear from inside — the cloud once kept Israel outside. Now it covers the disciples, and they hear the Father's delight from within the glory.
- Hear Him alone — the law could not save you and reform could not meet your case, so Moses and Elijah are swept from the scene.
And the disciples hearing [it] fell upon their faces, and were greatly terrified.
Peter had just offered to build three shelters on the mountain, and the Father's voice answered him out of the bright cloud. Why did the sound of the Father praising His Son leave these three men face-down and afraid?
The fear did not come out of nowhere. One commentator traces it back to what Peter had just said. The voice was a correction, and the cloud deepened the alarm.
Peter's hasty, shallow, and irreverent proposal drew out the lesson "listen to Him." He wanted to make three shelters here, one for the Lord, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For, as Mark adds, and Luke too, he did not know what to answer, because he was frightened, as the others were too. Their fear could only be increased by the bright cloud (the tent of God's presence) that overshadowed them. They entered it, and out of it the Father's voice said in gracious rebuke, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." Moses and Elijah disappeared.
Why such fear at a voice of approval? One writer answers by naming where these men were standing, and what they did not have in their hands.
No wonder that "when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified." It was, in fact, the holiest of all unveiled. Only the high priest might stand where they stood, once a year, and only with covering incense and atoning blood. And they were only men of the people. They had no sacrifice in their hand and no covering incense. Yet the glorious Presence was truly here — the Presence that had long been absent from the temple, and had never appeared since the captivity in Babylon. He whom none could see and live had drawn near to them. They heard His voice, as the people had heard it long ago, when in their fear they prayed that they might never hear it again.
The same writer compares this moment with the shaking mountain where the law was given. He marks what has changed.
Yet everything else was changed from the time of the shaking mountain. What was proclaimed to them now was not the Law — a law that brought only the knowledge of sin, and was indeed its "strength" (1 Cor. 15:56). This Voice pointed them only to the Son of God. Peter had just confessed Him as exactly that, their own gracious Master. The Voice put Him in His rightful place, and separated Him from all their misconceptions.
Falling on the face was not only collapse. One writer reads it as an act of worship too.
I suppose "they fall on their face" would imply they paid homage. They recognised they were in the presence of the glory that required homage, and they feared greatly.
Commentators differ on what state the disciples were in. One sees homage. Another says they could not yet share what they saw.
The disciples, confused by what they heard, fall on their faces and are greatly afraid. There was no communion with it yet. For the present they enter into it only slightly, though it was afterwards recalled to them by the Spirit of God.
The same writer treats their dread as a fear the Lord was there to answer. Then he turns the question on the reader.
When the disciples heard the Father's voice, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid. They were far from knowing His love yet; but He, who brought it in His own person, was at hand to strengthen their hearts... Can you say that you have heard the voice of Jesus by faith, and that you are "not afraid"? This is His will, not only for the three who then heard, but for all who believe the gospel of God. Perfect love casts out the fear that has torment, and creates the fear of reverence.
- Cause. Peter offered to shelter three equals. The Father answered by naming one beloved Son, and the men who wanted to stay fell down instead.
- Exposure. They stood where only the high priest could stand, one day a year, with blood and incense — and they had neither. The cloud showed them where they were.
- Contrast. What spoke from that cloud was not the law that gives the knowledge of sin, but a voice pointing to the Son alone.
- Posture. Falling on the face is dread and homage in one motion; they knew the glory before them called for worship.
- Cure. They feared because they did not yet know His love. The same love that met them there casts out the fear that torments and leaves the fear that reveres.