A Terrifying Glimpse of Glory, Part 1

Today from Chuck Swindoll. In the middle of His earthly ministry, a few of the disciples witnessed Jesus take on a glorious appearance like nothing they'd ever witnessed before. Standing high atop a mountain, they saw Jesus overcome with radiant light. The theological term scholars chose for this moment is transfiguration. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Matthew chapter 17 where we find a fascinating account of this miraculous transformation. Over the next few days Chuck will explain how this stunning event revealed God's awesome nature.

Chuck titled his message, A Terrifying Glimpse of Glory. All right, we are working our way through Matthew's Gospel and we've come to one of the most significant, albeit brief moments in the training of the Twelve and in the earthly ministry of Jesus. Let's talk a little bit about the transfiguration, which is what this passage is on about. Try your best to kind of shift that out of your mind and let's just let this section of Scripture speak to us as if for the first time.

We're hearing this. So turn to Matthew 16. I'll look at the last two verses of that chapter and then the first 13 verses.

I think they go together, so we'll bypass the chapter break and act like it isn't even there as we move from Matthew 16 27 down through 17 13. And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. Peter's appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as light. Suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus. Peter exclaimed, Lord, it's wonderful for us to be here. If you want, I'll make three shelters as memorials, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. But even as he spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice from the cloud said, this is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy.

Listen to him. The disciples were terrified and fell face down on the ground. Then Jesus came over and touched them. Get up, he said.

Don't be afraid. And when they looked up, Moses and Elijah were gone and they saw only Jesus. As they went back down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, don't tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. Then his disciples asked him, why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes? Jesus replied, Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready. But I tell you, Elijah has already come.

But he wasn't recognized. And they chose to abuse him. And in the same way, they will also make the Son of Man suffer. Then the disciples realized he was talking about John the Baptist. Our hope is that this passage will blend together in a way that we understand what transpired as recorded in the narrative and how it speaks to us on this very day. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now let's listen to the message Chuck titled, A Terrifying Glimpse of Glory. I didn't know what the word glory meant. And it bugged me because I had just sung about it for over an hour. But now here I was sitting in the middle of the backseat of our 47 Chevy in Houston on a cold, rainy winter night in early December. As our family making our way home back to East Houston, having just sung in the First Methodist Church, the magnificent oratorio of George Frederick Handel, Messiah. Understand that my mother sang beautiful soprano, my sister had a lovely contralto voice, my brother beautiful bass, and I pitched in a little tenor. We had gone, it sounded like a country western group, doesn't it? But we had gone through the process of trying out for the choir that sang there every year and we had all passed.

My dad called himself our designated driver. So he drove as we did the performances, there were about four or five of them as I recall, singing under the renowned Walter Jenkins, who led the entire orchestra, 200 voice choir, and massive pipe organ without a piece of music in front of him. Long since memorized it, all the score.

So he knew what he was doing. If you know the piece, you know that it begins with a lyrical tenor recitative, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. And it comes out of Isaiah 40, and then he moves into the aria, every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the crooked places straight and the rough places plain. Beautiful beginning to this magnum opus of Handel. And then Dr. Jenkins had the choir stand, and here I stood, I was about 15, standing alongside real singers. And then he began as he brought the baton down, and the glory, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. I'll never forget, I've never sung in a group like this, and I'm like, oh. And I got real quiet and I just mouthed it so they could sing.

And I couldn't hold back the tears, I'll be honest with you. But there was this glory that was a major part of that first choral, choral, and I didn't know what it meant. So I said, my sister's sitting here, my brother's sitting here, and Daddy's driving, I said, Daddy, what is glory? And he quickly used the famous father words, there are only three of them, but they're perfect.

Ask your mother. So, I said, Mom, what is glory? And her answer was, like many mothers, when we get home, I want you to get the dictionary, and I want you to look up the word glory.

And by the way, when I did, I realized later in my life, that's the first time I ever became acquainted with truly a theological word. Magnificent word. Webster states that glory is great honor, praise, or distinction given by common consent. It goes on, adoration, praise, and thanksgiving offered in worship, majestic beauty, splendor, resplendence.

It gets better, doesn't it? Resplendence. Well, over a decade later, I found myself sitting in the classroom at Dallas Seminary, beginning my studies as a young theological student, and we came across Psalm 19, where the heavens declare the glory of God. Without a sound, without a voice, neither is ever heard, and it's heard around the world. And I learned that the glory of the heavens represents general revelation.

Learn a little theology here. Regardless of your geography, culture, language, regardless of your religion or lack of such, the heavens declare the resplendence, the magnificence, the majestic beauty of their Creator. You look up at any place around this earth and you realize there is someone who has put all of that in place. It could not have just happened. It speaks without a word. The stars make no sound. The moon, the sun, all of those planets, they're there in their unique orbit, and without a word, their voice is not heard, and yet the heavens announce the Creator God is here in all of His glory.

He made it all. I learned when I got into the depths of the New Testament language that the word in the New Testament for glory is doxo. We get our word doxology from it. It means bright, shining radiance of brilliant light when applied to a person. Clothed in majestic splendor would be another way of putting it. Walter Chalmers Smith captures it in the closing, one of the closing verses of his wonderful hymn, Immortal Invisible. O praise we would render, O help us to see, Tis only the splendor of light hideth thee. That's the glory of God. The Shekinah that burned from heaven into the holiest place was the glory of God filling this holiest place on the earth in the tabernacle. The Hebrew word I learned later is kavod, kavod.

It means heavy, which is a hippie word for wow, or hey, that's profound. But seriously, it has in mind the profound totality of God's nature, character, and attributes. That is his glory.

Now, hard to get our arms around all of that. We almost need it personified. And that is why we're grateful, so grateful, for this magnificent transfiguration. Jesus speaks of this, I believe, at the end of the 16th chapter of Matthew, when he says that the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds. This is obviously a reference to that time when he will come yet future. When he will come and establish his kingdom and fulfill the promises to Israel, set up his rule and reign, and then he adds a verse that can be confusing if you link it with that rather than the transfiguration. Look at the next verse. And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

Look at that. We could render that in his kingly splendor or in his glory. Now if you make that only the second Advent, it doesn't make sense because all of the disciples died before he would come, it's still future to our day. So I believe it fits best to think of it as what follows. You are, you're going to live to see glory appear before your very eyes. I would suggest he had his transfiguration in mind and they are about to witness it.

But before we go there, just a little more information that I think will help. Because our focus on Jesus is almost always on his earthly being. As a man, conceived, birthed, reared, trained at home, worked alongside Joseph in the carpenter shop, and around the age of 30 was baptized and began his ministry which went on for those three, three and a half years, during which time he healed the sick and he cast out demons and he performed miracles and walked on water and on and on and on, the list goes. But he also slept and ate and talked and walked and looked just like another Jewish adult. It's his humanity. It is easy to forget when it's focused on only the humanity of Jesus that he is also undiminished deity. While at the same time, true humanity. True natures that do not mix but remain in one person forever. That's why he's known as the God-man. Undiminished deity, true humanity in one person. The disciples are walking with the one they could easily think of as simply true humanity.

Of course, they've seen miracles that only God could do and they've heard words only God could have said and act carried out that only God could have carried out, but it is easy when you are walking with someone, eating with them, sleeping beside them, becoming very familiar with them that you forget there is that other nature. So Jesus decides, now is the time for them to see evidence of my full person, which is what the transfiguration is all about. Now the glory becomes manifested, displayed.

Let's see how it unfolds as we get into chapter 17. Follow along. Six days later, Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. They were in Caesarea Philippi, the mountain nearest that would be Mount Hermon, further north. I rather suspect it was there rather than Mount Tabor, as some teach.

I believe he went up the slope of Hermon. Notice it was for the purpose of being alone. I want to highlight throughout my message the value of time alone, time of silence, time to drink in the full scene, which could not have been done in the busy streets with the crowds and all down where they had been. So he deliberately takes these three with him.

They go up the mountainside to be alone. Watch closely, just as the men did. As the men watched, meaning Peter, James and John, notice it came without an announcement. He is transformed before their eyes. As the men watched, Jesus' appearance was transformed. Metamorpho is the word. We got a word metamorphosis from it.

It means to change into another form, just simply defined that way. He changed into another form. Still a man, but now his face shone like the sun, and his clothing became as white as light. Remember earlier the comment about the effulgence, the resplendence of God's light-like presence?

Here, this one who has walked with them, talked with them, been teaching and training them, now emerges in this glowing, glowing presence. And if that isn't enough, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus. Now if I figure correctly, Moses had been dead about 1400 years. Elijah has been dead about 900 years, which helps reassure all of us that though we may pass through death, we continue to live. Death only in the sense of our earthly bodies perish, but our eternal insides, our eternal spirits, so live on. So Moses and Elijah come and now appear alongside him.

I don't want to rush through this. I want you to see him as he is transformed in your mind. We have artist renderings of Jesus when he walked this earth, many of them from ancient days, where the only way they knew to do it, to reveal the two natures, was to put a halo over him. You've seen them, pictures like that, or to put a glow around him. They're trying to depict both natures, many of them, and here there is no depiction.

This is reality. He shines brightly and his clothing is blinding in brightness. I mean if there's ever a moment to stand and let the wonder in, it's now.

Now. But of course, when you're addicted to talking, as one of them was, you've got to say something. So Peter exclaimed, Lord it's wonderful for us to be here, if you want I'll make three shacks. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, just to put it on a street level talk.

It comes across like that. Now you know, what we need is more information. First of all, we read that Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are talking, but we're not told what they said to each other.

What were they talking about? You can't know from Matthew's account, so you need to correlate, you need to look for a parallel passage in another of the Gospel writers that covers the same event and fills in what Matthew doesn't mention. Ah, I found it. There's a parallel in Mark 9 and in Luke 9. So with me, go back there, or go ahead to there, find Mark 9, hold your place, we'll come there second. First, let's look at Luke 9, and locate verse 31. They were glorious to see, meaning Jesus, Elijah, and Moses.

They're the they. And they were speaking, here we go, Matthew didn't tell us this, Luke does. They were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem. They're talking about what's laying, what's, he's just ahead. See, when you're in that eternal state, everything is in one panoramic view, you see it all.

That's another subject. I knew if I said that, you'd go, what? And then you want to go there, but we won't go there right now some other time, but they knew what's coming. And so they're talking with Jesus about what's coming when it gets to Jerusalem, namely, his arrest, the trials, the death, the resurrection, they're talking about all of this. If you came our way late in the program, we're just getting started with Chuck Swindoll's message called A Terrifying Glimpse of Glory.

This is Insight for Living, and to learn more about this ministry, or to see what resources are available for today's topic, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Learning more about Jesus doesn't stop here, and so we encourage you to spend personal time in God's Word, discovering new things on your own. To help you dig deeper into the book of Matthew, I'll remind you that Chuck wrote a full-length commentary. And if you're looking to get better acquainted with the real Jesus, the one that writers like Matthew described, then we highly recommend adding these two volumes to your personal collection.

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That's insight.org. Join us again tomorrow when Chuck Swindoll describes a terrifying glimpse of glory, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, A Terrifying Glimpse of Glory, was copyrighted in 2016 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.