The Transfiguration of Jesus - Part 1

Audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. Once on Top Experience, listen as David introduces his message, The Transfiguration of Jesus. Again, on Monday, we're going to talk about the essence of the transfiguration of Jesus. Most of us are familiar with the miracles of Jesus, and from the wedding of Cana to the glorious ascension of Jesus into heaven, all of these things occurred in the life of Christ. But the transfiguration is often forgotten, though it brought together the two great miracle workers of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, and the miracle worker of the new, who was also the Son of God.

For these three to occupy the same time and the same space together is one of the greatest miracles in the Bible and of all of history. We're not going to pass over it. We're going to talk about it today and then again on Monday. Let me just get this out of the way at the beginning of our Friday edition. You need to go to church on Sunday. I hope your church is regathering.

We are regathered in every which way we can be as much as is possible, and God is honoring that. We have many, many people coming to church and many others who are on their way back in just a short time. If you're able to be in church, if you have a church that's open, I hope you're there. The Bible says not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is. Don't be in that group, the manner of some. Go to church.

That's my encouragement to you. God will take care of you if you do that. I can't wait to tell you about the transfiguration, so let's just start that right now. Bible's open to Mark chapter 9. Heart's open to the teaching of the Word of God. Let's study the Scripture together. Now open your Bibles to the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark.

Mark chapter 9. This Bible that we read and that we study is not just a bunch of individual books, but it is one story that begins with the first chapter in the book of Genesis and the story of creation and continues all the way through the Bible until we get to the very end and the setting up of the kingdom of God and the eternal state. There is a thread that runs through the Bible from Genesis all the way to Revelation to hold it together. It is one story over many ages and on many pages written over a period of about 1400 years and 40 different human authors having a part in it. It is still one story with a great deal of integrity and when we read it as one story, we really begin to understand it. It's the story of God's love for us and his provision for us in a Redeemer and that is the theme through the whole book. But this one story is made up of many stories and each story within the big story is in itself an exciting adventure for us when we read and study it. That is especially true in the life of our Lord. If you were to open a theology book and look for an outline of our Lord's life, you would read something like this, his birth, his baptism, his temptation, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, and his second coming. That is what they would say.

In essence, that would be true. Those would be the main stopping points and the main sections that you would study on the life of Christ. But there is one event that took place in his life that is amazingly almost omitted from all of the discussions. One incident in Jesus' life of which we have very little understanding and I ask a bunch of people, have you ever heard a whole message on this and almost every one of them said no. The transfiguration of Jesus is recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

It is referenced in the New Testament by John, later by Peter, and I believe that it is the most important event to occur in Jesus' life between his birth and his death. The transfiguration drama is told in the New Testament through seven characters, two of the most important personalities of the Old Testament, three of the most prominent disciples of the New Testament, God the Father in heaven and God the Son on the earth. The transfiguration takes place on a high mountain.

The main character is clothed in clouds and white apparel. A conversation takes place between people that actually live centuries apart. As we follow Mark's account of this event, we cannot help but feel as we begin to understand it more that we should take our shoes off because we're walking on holy ground. Perhaps one of the reasons why we don't talk about it very much is because it is such an awesome holy moment. The message begins in the last verse of the eighth chapter. This is one of those places in the Bible where the chapter division is unfortunate. How many of you know the chapter divisions in the Bible are not inspired? Somebody put those in after the Bible was written to break up the content so that it would be easier to read, and in most places the chapter divisions are pretty good.

Sometimes they're not so good. This is one of those places where they should have just left it go, and one of the reasons you know that is when you come to the beginning of a new chapter and the first word is and maybe they should have left that alone. But it's really interesting because in the last verse of chapter eight, Jesus is talking about his coming glory. He says, For whosoever is ashamed of me and my words and this adulterous and sinful generation of him, the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with his holy angels. And then verse one of chapter nine, And he said to them, Assuredly, I say that there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God present with power. Now that statement has created a lot of interesting discussion over the years among theologians. Interestingly enough, that statement introduces the story of the transfiguration in all three of the gospels where the record occurs.

Jesus said, There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the glory and the power of the Lord. Six days after Jesus made this promise, it is fulfilled for three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, as they are allowed to see the glory of the resurrected Christ. The message concerning the transfiguration is followed in the text by a bit of a discussion of the mountain of the transfiguration.

Now after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves. Henry Drummond, the Scottish preacher of another generation makes an interesting evaluation about mountains. He said, God never created mountains for people to live on the top of them.

He made them for people to go and stand on the top of them and look around and then go back down where life happens. If you study the Bible, you discover that you can almost outline the Bible on the basis of mountains. In fact, it would be interesting as you read the Bible, whenever you see a mountain, just draw a little mountain in the edge of your Bible. For instance, God met on a mountain with Abraham and Isaac. God met on a mountain with Moses on Mount Sinai. God met Elijah on Mount Horeb. He gave up his son for us on Mount Calvary. It was from a mountain that he ascended to heaven, and it's to a mountain that he's coming back someday. The very fact that the transfiguration takes place on a mountain should get our attention. This is probably an important event.

We should take note of this. The mountain where this remarkable event takes place is, without question, Mount Hermon, the most beautiful and conspicuous mountain in all of Palestine. Mount Hermon is the tallest of the mountains.

It rises some 9,000 feet above sea level, almost 12,000 feet above the Jordan Valley. The climb to the top of Mount Hermon would have taken Jesus and his three disciples almost an entire day. Even in the heat of the summer, you can see the snow on the top of Mount Hermon all the way to Jerusalem. Luke tells us that Jesus took these three men to the mountain in order to pray. He also adds that when they arrived at the top of the mountain, they were heavy with sleep. The message concerning the transfiguration and the mountain, notice, thirdly, the men who witnessed the transfiguration. After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves. The Lord Jesus chose his three closest earthly friends, Peter, James, and John. They were the first to be called disciples by Jesus, and they are the first three names you will find on all the lists of the 12 in the New Testament. It was these three disciples that Jesus took with him when he raised Jairus' daughter from the dead. During the coming dark hours that precedes his crucifixion, it will be these three same men that Jesus takes with him a little deeper into the garden and asks them to pray. Reading back over the previous events in the book of Mark as we have studied them together, especially for Peter, I believe Jesus chose these three men for a couple of reasons. First of all, because of their capacity to receive truth. Do you know that God tells us in his Word that he gives us truth based on our capacity to receive it?

Now stop and think about it. Peter, James, and John all have their names on a book in the New Testament. They received the truth. The things that God taught them, they received it and they recorded it and they reproduced it so that we have it today. I also believe that Jesus chose these three men because they had taken more seriously perhaps his conditions for discipleship, which are listed for us in the eighth chapter. Remember Jesus said, if you are going to follow me, you will have to take up your cross and deny yourself and follow me. Jesus predicted that he was going to Jerusalem and suffer and die and be resurrected. The disciples were very concerned about that. As you remember, Peter rebuked Jesus for saying it and said, no, you can't do that, Jesus. That's not right for you. Jesus said to Peter, you're not thinking God things.

You're thinking man things. However you want to look at it, Peter, James, and John were discouraged with where they were in their walk with the Lord and the Lord wanted to encourage them. He is going to give them an opportunity to see beyond the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to the risen glorified body of Christ. He's going to give them a view of the stars so that they will never forget in the dark days ahead what is really promised to those who know Jesus. Peter, James, and John are going to be given the opportunity to look past the cross, past the empty grave, and view the risen glorified Savior.

They won't understand it completely, but they will never forget it. In fact, more than half a century later when John the apostle was writing his gospel, he wrote these words, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John could not forget that day. He said, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we, we, Peter, James, and John, we beheld his glory. Peter also was so taken by this that in 2 Peter 1, he writes, we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses to his majesty.

When did that happen? On the mountain. So this event where Peter, James, and John got to go up to the mountain with Jesus was so important to them, made such an impact on them that decades later they were still writing about the glory and the majesty of the Lord that they saw on the mountain that day. That brings us to the miracles of the transfiguration, and the question is, what is the transfiguration? It's a biblical word.

It's not a word we should dodge, but what does it mean? Well, there are two miracles really that take place on the mountain, and let's look at the first one, the miracle of Christ's appearance. At the end of verse 2, and he was transfigured before them.

His clothes became shining, exceedingly white like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Now Luke tells us that Peter, James, and John had been sleeping, and actually Luke's words are, and when they were fully awake, Jesus was transfigured before them. The word transfigured is a word which means to be changed in an outward way because of an inwardness. It's the actual opposite of the word masquerade.

Masquerade is something on the outside that covers up the reality behind it. Transfiguration is an opportunity to literally see what's inside. It's the inside of the reality of a person being manifest for all to see. Jesus did not change in his nature. His nature just became visible to all who were standing with him that day, and as the result of his transformation, the scripture says his clothing became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach it.

The word transfiguration describes a change on the outside that comes from the inside. For a brief moment, those three men who were on the mountain with him saw the veil of Jesus' humanity lifted and his true essence was allowed to shine through. The glory, which was always in the depth of who Jesus was, rose to the surface for that one time, and it was the only time in his earthly life that ever happened. His clothing began to glow white.

It is dazzling or glittering as the word is sometimes translated. Luke says it is as bright as a flash of lightning. Matthew records that his face shone like the sun. I read a paragraph by Frederick Buechner describing this moment in these riveting words.

Listen to this. It is as strange a scene as there is in all of the gospels. Without even the voice from the cloud to explain it, the disciples no doubt knew what they were witnessing. It was Jesus of Nazareth, all right, the man they'd tramped many a dusty miles with whose mother and brothers they knew, the one they'd seen as hungry and tired and footsore like they had been. But at the same time, it was also the Messiah, the Christ in his glory. It was the holiness of the man shining through the humanness of the man. His face saw a fire.

They were almost blinded by the light. On that day, the real Jesus, the essence of who Jesus was, was allowed to be seen by those three men. You see, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he did not cease to be God. He was God in the body. He was God taking flesh upon himself. The Bible says he tasted flesh, became a part of us, and through his whole earthly life, he never ever arbitrarily used his deity to his own advantage. The Bible says that he voluntarily limited himself from demonstrating that he was God.

He walked around as a man. He suffered the things you and I, and he never ever, you know, in a moment when he was under pressure, you know, almost said, I want you to see who I am, and then revealed himself. Only once did he do it, and it was on the Mount of Transfiguration. And on that day, a day never to be forgotten by those who were there, the Lord Jesus revealed himself to his disciples. That was the first miracle. But if you read the story carefully, you will discover that there was the miracle of Christ's appearance and the miracle of his associates. It says in verse 4, and Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. All of a sudden, in the light that surrounded Jesus, Peter, James, and John looked again, and Jesus was standing there with two other people. Elijah, who'd been gone for 900 years, and Moses, who'd been gone for 1400 years, are standing there having a conversation with Jesus in the light that surrounded him. And we might ask why Elijah and Moses? I want to think why couldn't have Jeremiah gotten in on that?

That doesn't seem right. Why Elijah and Moses? Why were they chosen? Why not Abraham or Ezekiel?

And of course, only God knows the ultimate answer to that question, but here are some thoughts about it. First of all, both Moses and Elijah had already seen a little taste of the glory of God in the Old Testament on a mountain. Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Horeb, they had seen a little of the glory of God.

So this was a kind of a reprise, if you will, of them. Both Moses and Elijah had made famous departures from this earth. The Bible says that when Moses died, God buried him and didn't tell anybody where the grave was. Somebody said God kissed him on Mount Pisgah, and nobody knows where he is to this day. Somebody said, well, why would God do that? I don't know all the reasons, except he sure did shut down a concession stand in Israel, didn't he? Can you imagine going to Israel and one day the tour takes you to the burial place of Moses?

I don't know all the reasons for that. The other side of it is that Elijah went to heaven in a chariot of fire. So in essence, Moses illustrates what happens when you go to heaven by means of death, and Elijah illustrates what happens when you go to heaven by means of the rapture. Moses was the great lawgiver. Elijah was the great prophet. Oftentimes when you read about the Old Testament in the Scriptures, they talk about the law and the prophets in a general statement, and here are the two key figures from the law and the prophets. Moses was the founder of Israel's life, and Elijah was the restorer of Israel's life. Together, Moses and Elijah picture the continuity and the completeness of the Old Testament, and Moses and Elijah are standing together with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John have just awakened. They see this incredible sight.

Can you get into this? Can you see it in your mind's eye? Now that brings us to the misunderstanding of the Transfiguration, and one of the most strange and interesting moments in the Bible.

Let me just put it this way. If you were there, if you were Peter, James, and John, and you're on the mountain, and all of a sudden you see Jesus and his glory is revealed, and then you look again and you hear Moses and Elijah having a conversation with Jesus and you're spellbound, wouldn't you think that would be a moment when you wouldn't know what to say and you would just be silent? Not Peter. Peter's got to say something. The Bible says, listen to this, but Peter answered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here, and let us make three tabernacles, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. Now notice what it says, because he did not know what to say.

Do you know there are some people who talk because they have something to say, and there are others who talk because they have to say something? Peter was the latter. Peter was that way, wasn't he? He just always seemed to say the wrong thing, and oftentimes at the wrong time or the right time it doesn't make any difference. He was like so many of us.

He didn't stop to think before he spoke, and he was reprimanded in a very firm way. More about the Transfiguration on Monday. I hope you'll be with us then as we continue walking through the verses of the book of Mark, this last section of Mark in search of the Savior. So have a great weekend, will you? I already reminded you you need to go to church. Turning Point Television is available over the weekend. You will find us if you look, and we're always doing the same thing, teaching the Word of God, encouraging the people of God, and we thank you for joining us both today and throughout the week.

We'll see you on Monday. The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church where Dr. David Jeremiah serves as Senior Pastor. Let us know how Turning Point keeps you spiritually strong. Write to us at Turning Point, Post Office Box 3838, San Diego, CA 92163. Or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org. Ask for your copy of O.S. Hawkins' new book, The Bible Code, finding Jesus in every book in the Bible.

It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New King James Version, filled with hopeful notes and articles by Dr. Jeremiah. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hooke Fleet. Join us Monday as we continue the series in search of the Savior. That's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us, go to vision.org.au.