What is the Mount of Transfiguration?

A word indicating the change which took place in the appearance of Jesus in the vision on the holy mount. The Lord, speaking to His disciples prior to the transfiguration, said that some should see "the Son of man coming in his kingdom;" "the kingdom of God come with power;" and Matthew records that Christ "was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light." Peter says he was an eyewitness of His majesty. It was therefore a short glimpse of the Lord Jesus invested with glory, as He is now on high, and as he will be in His kingdom. The law and the prophets were represented by Moses and Elias; but when Peter proposed to make three tabernacles, he was silenced by a voice from heaven, saying "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him." Matt. 17:1-8; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28; 2 Peter 1:16. The same Greek word is applied to the Christian as being 'transformed' in Rom. 12:2, and as being 'changed' in 2 Cor. 3:18: metamorphosed.

Early writers fixed on Mount Tabor as the Mount of Transfiguration; but it is more probable that it was on some part of Mount Hermon, which would have been more private. The Lord was also in that locality.

The Lord Jesus had taken with Him Peter, James, and John, and brought them up into a high mountain, apart, in order to exhibit in their view a sample of His future glory, that thus their spirits might be fortified against the trying scenes through which both He and they had yet to pass.

What a company! The Son of God, in white and glistering raiment: Moses, type of those who sleep in Jesus; Elias, type of the raptured saints; and Peter, James, and John, who have been styled the pillars of the New Testament Church! Now it is evident that our Lord designed to prepare His apostles for the scene of His sufferings by showing them a specimen of the glory that should follow. He saw the cross, with all its accompanying horrors, in the distance before Him.

Three of those who stood there that day saw a picture of the establishment of the kingdom. The Lord did not say "all standing here," but "some." If you turn to Peter's second epistle you will be assured that the interpretation I have given of this is the truth. "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount" (2 Peter 1:16-18). Peter here gives the explanation of what he saw on the holy mount. And what was it? They were "eyewitnesses of his majesty;" in other words, the Lord's words were fulfilled, that some of them should not taste of death till they saw the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. It was a little miniature view and foreshadowing of the coming kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord was rejected, but He was coming back to this earth to establish His kingdom, and He chose to show to those favoured three a picture of that kingdom.

First, then, we find that when the Lord had taken Peter, James, and John his brother, and had brought them up into an high mountain apart, He "was transfigured before them, and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." (Matt. 17:1-2.) Without entering at this time into the special character of this scene, its relation to the period at which our blessed Lord had arrived in His ministry in the midst of Israel, or its dispensational significance, we may, in a few words, consider what this transfiguration was in regard to Himself personally. When He ascended the mountain in company with His disciples, He was, to all outward appearance, but a man amongst men. To the carnal eye there was nothing to distinguish Him from Peter, James, or John. Whatever those whose eyes were anointed saw, or we have since learned from the Scriptures by the teaching of the Spirit of God, there was nothing to indicate any difference between the body which God had prepared for Him and the "earthen vessels" of His disciples. But while on the mount this wondrous change (termed transfiguration) occurred. What, then, was its nature? May we not say, that it was His essential purity or holiness breaking forth and transfusing the vessel in which it was enshrined, so that He stood before His disciples as a being of light? For "His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." This vessel — His body — shrouded at other times these rays of His beauty and glory, but now, permitted to stream out unhinderedly, they penetrated through and irradiated both His body and His garments, so that He was actually and livingly glorified before their eyes.

If this were so, Christ, as He was in His transfiguration, is the presentation of what believers will be when they are glorified with Him. Hence, indeed, Moses and Elias, since they appeared in glory when they talked with Him (Luke 9:30-31), typify saints in this condition; and herein lies the significant connection in the use of the word on which we are commenting. Christ on the mount shows us what His people will be when He comes to receive them unto Himself; but then this mighty change is morally commenced in them while here. Thus, in Rom. 12:2, the apostle says, "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed (transfigured) by the renewing of your mind," etc. This Scripture shows that our transfiguration must commence from within; for the apostle enjoins nonconformity to the world, and transfiguration by the renewing of our mind. Confining our attention to this single point, the question may well be put, But how is this to be accomplished? Passing now to 2 Cor. 3:18, the answer is found. There we see Christ, not on the mount, but glorified at the right hand of God. All the glory of God shines forth from His face, and His face, unlike that of Moses when he talked with the children of Israel, is unveiled. Moreover, all believers are brought into that place where they can gaze on that glory. "We all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord." Then we learn the further thing, that it is by beholding we "are changed (transfigured) into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." This is the moral effect of having Christ in glory before our souls. He is the standard or model; and we, while beholding, are through the power of the Spirit gradually transfigured on towards the likeness of Him on whom we gaze. We say "on towards," because while here in the body we can never be completely conformed to the glorified Christ. It is therefore a gradual moral transfiguration; every ray of His glory that falls upon our souls being made, through the operation of the Holy Ghost, to have this effect.

But let us be absolutely clear that with our Lord Jesus Christ there never was any suggestion of metamorphose: a change in His essential being, as being very God. Before ever He came to our sad world, He subsisted in the very form of God. He never needed to be changed to be like God, as we are changed to be like Himself. But this same word is used of His transfiguration in Matt. 17:2 and Mark 9:2, in describing the change that came to the body He had taken when He became a Man. I think this is because it was a sample, — an anticipative assumption, — of that resurrection body which is permanent and everlasting.

And now the Lord adds, "But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." You may say, What did Jesus mean by that? I think the answer is in the next verse: "And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray." Observe that. This is the fifth time in Luke's Gospel that Jesus is seen praying. "And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering." Matthew puts it thus: "He was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light." By His side you see were Moses and Elias. "There be some standing here," He says, "which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God," or, as Matthew has it, "till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." It is the same thing. The Lord has not yet come in manifest majesty and glory, as King of kings, and Lord of lords, but He will thus come as the Son of Man, and no doubt here He gives His beloved disciples a miniature picture of the coming kingdom. If you have any doubt as to that interpretation, you will have all doubt dispelled if you listen to what one of the eyewitnesses says, for you must observe that the Lord had three men with Him that wondrous night, and they were eye-witnesses of His glory. Moses and Elias were His companions in that glory. That is what you and I are going to be, my Christian friend. Peter, James, and John were eye-witnesses, and that is what Peter refers to in his Second Epistle, when he says: "Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount" (2 Peter 1:15-18).

That is what Peter is speaking about. He had been there, he was an eyewitness. God had given to the Lord Jesus and to these three chosen witnesses, this view on that hill (we do not know which mountain it was; Christian tradition says it was Mt. Tabor, but nobody knows), which is called here the "holy mount". And what happened? The Lord Jesus was transfigured, His garments became white as light, and His whole outward appearance was changed - clothed with heavenly glory. That was the first thing - a glorified Man. Though in weakness down here, God showed Him to the disciples as He is now in heaven - the glorified Man.

He and the other apostles had not followed cunningly devised fables when they made known the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. They had been eye witnesses of His majesty. But where and how? He speaks of the scene on the holy mount, when the Lord Jesus Christ was transfigured before them, when they heard the voice of the Father from the excellent glory. He stood upon that mount clothed with the glory of the Father; with Him Moses and Elijah, the one who had died, the other who went to heaven without dying. It was a foregleam of His coming glory and a fulfillment of the promise given in the last verse of Matthew 16. As He stood upon that mountain, so He will appear in His glory on earth again, bringing His saints with Him. It is His visible and glorious appearing to which Peter refers, and which was foreshadowed in the transfiguration, and not that coming promised to His own in John 14:1-3, to take them into the Father's house. "We have also a more sure word of prophecy" should be rendered, "We have the word of prophecy made more sure." The Word of prophecy is, of course, in the Old Testament. But is not this sure enough? Why should it be made more sure? It must be understood in the sense of attesting, or confirming the word of prophecy. The transfiguration confirmed the prophecies in the Old Testament. The prophets describe such a scene like the transfiguration, when the Son of Man comes from heaven in power and glory; hence the word of prophecy has been confirmed, made more sure, by the scene on the holy mount. Let it be stated again that the Old Testament prophetic Word does not reveal that coming for His saints, which is for the Church "that blessed Hope." When Paul speaks of it in 1 Corinthians 15 he speaks of it as a mystery; it was hidden in former ages (1 Cor. 15:51). Yet in the verse before us Peter alludes to it when he speaks of the morning star.

The scene to which Peter alludes is narrated in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9. In these chapters the Lord had been unfolding to the disciples the truth of His rejection. "I am going to suffer and be cast out," He says, "and he who follows me, must expect to share the same fate." But He is coming back again with three-fold glory. His glory as Son of God which He had from all eternity, His glory as the Messiah, King of the Jews — and His glory as Son of Man, according to Psalm 8. Then after telling His disciples of His rejection, He says, "There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God," and He shows to them on the mount of transfiguration a little miniature picture of the kingdom, and it is to this Peter alludes in this epistle. He had seen this wonderful picture, the Messiah, Moses the lawgiver, and Elias the reformer on that mount, and his heart was full. "Oh," he said, "let us perpetuate this scene." That was the thought in his mind, but that was putting the Messiah, the lawgiver, and the reformer on the same level, and God could not have that, and the voice comes, as Peter says, "from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." It is to be noticed that in the Gospels, God added the words, "Hear him." Peter needed these words then, as he was lowering his Master, while uplifting Moses and Elias. He learned his lesson, however, and here, in quoting the Father's words, he omits "Hear him." The truth was that by this time he had learned that no other voice but Jesus' was to be listened to.

Miraculously also Elijah and Moses appear, speaking with the Lord. This presents a striking picture of true heavenly side of the kingdom; the Lord Himself the glorious Center, Elijah representing the saints who have been caught up to heaven without dying (2 Kings 2:11), and Moses representing those who have died and been raised again, though Moses had not personally been raised. In what body he appeared we do not know, Peter, James and John illustrate the earthly side of the coming kingdom.