Moses and Elijah

I want you to understand. That the light That the disciples see in Christ is not a reflection. It is a light that is coming. from inside of him. bursting through the shell of his body.

and of his garments. as the glory of his deity now explodes on the scene. And when they see this. What's their reaction? It's the same reaction all of us would have They were terrified.

This week, we have met people who encountered Jesus face to face during his earthly ministry. Most of them had brief encounters with him. That wasn't the case, though, for the disciples. they enjoyed a long relationship with Jesus. Today, we'll look at Peter, James, and John as they observe the Transfiguration.

If that wasn't incredible enough, two others appeared with Jesus. Let's join RC Sproll now.

Well, I'm going to throw another curve today, and that is we're going to look at Jesus coming face to face with two figures. from the Old Testament, and those persons are Moses And Elijah.

Now before we look at this text. Let's just consider the significance that it is these two men. who meet Jesus face to face. In the New Testament. There is significance.

in their appearance. Because Moses, as the mediator of the old covenant, is most famous for, and noted for, the giving of what? The giving of the law. Whenever we see portraits of Moses or sculpture, we usually see him. Holding the tablets of stone.

He's the lawgiver of the Old Testament. and the role of Elijah. In the Old Testament is to stand. At the front. of a long line of men who are called of God and endowed charismatically with the gift and the calling of that of a prophet.

And the scriptures so frequently say In summarizing all of the testimony of the Old Testament, the reference will be to what? to the law and to the prophets. The law and the prophets, John tells us, ruled until John. And so with the appearance of Moses and Elijah. In the New Testament, we see the appearance, the confluence, the coming together of the Old Testament law and of the prophets of the Old Testament with the Messiah.

Who was to come? Whose coming is foreshadowed and promised both in the law and in the prophets. What a fantastic. moment in human history this is. where this intersection takes place in time and space.

where the law and the prophets come face to face. with the Messiah. I'm talking about that aspect. In Jesus' life. That is called The transfiguration.

The transfiguration is recorded in more than one gospel, and today I'm going to read. First of all, the record of it that is found in the Gospel according to Saint Mark. Mark has his treatment of the Transfiguration in chapter 9, beginning at verse 1. We read this, and he said to them, Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death. until they see the kingdom of God present with power.

Now after six days Jesus took Peter James and John and led them up on a high mountain apart from themselves, And he was transfigured before them. The first thing we have to note is where this takes place in the life of Jesus. Jesus had carried on a public ministry for quite some time. And he had ridden the waves of popularity where he ascended like a meteor to tremendous fame and popularity in the land. But there was an increasing, growing hostility emerging at this time.

And near the end of his ministry, in a sense, Jesus and his disciples went on a retreat. They went far to the north, to Galilee. And there, while they were at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus gathered his inner circle, Peter, James, and John, around himself and sort of took the pulse of what was going on. And it was there that he asked the question, who do men say that I am? And he got the response, some say that you're a prophet and so on.

And he said, well, who do you think that I am? And it was on that occasion that Peter gave the great confession, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. You know the story how that then Jesus blessed Peter and said, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jonah, and thou shalt be called Petros, the rock, and upon this rock will I build my church, and so on. But then in the next episode that takes place. Jesus explains to his disciples that it's time to leave this place of retreat.

and journey back to Jerusalem, where Jesus tells his disciples that when he gets back to Jerusalem, he is going to be betrayed and be delivered up to the authorities and that he is going to suffer and die. And when he says that, this same Simon Peter, who had just moments before said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God, now says, No, no, no, no, God forbid that you should go to Jerusalem. We're not going to stand for that, and so on. Jesus, who just so recently had said, Thou art Petros the rock, now he says, Get thee behind me, Satan, and has to rebuke Peter for his poor confession at this point.

So when Mark tells us after six days. He's setting this in the historical narrative where six days after Jesus had informed his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem to die. And they set out on that journey. Probably. The most frightened disappointed group of men in all of human history.

trudging along. Following after Jesus, as he sets his face like a flint towards Jerusalem. As they are trying to bear up under this horrible news that he has given to them, that he is about to die. How like it is of God in the midst of that kind of moment. To burst through the veil of humiliation.

And give his people a taste of glory. The record of the transfiguration, frankly, is one of my favorite passages in all of the New Testament. A few years ago, I wrote a book called. The glory of Christ. And that book focused on those moments in Jesus' earthly ministry, When, as it were, his divine nature peeked around the veil.

That was concealed. in terms of his deity. Normally, Jesus traveled incognito. willingly embracing his role as the suffering servant. In the midst of humiliation, hiding his glory from the naked vision of mortal men.

But on rare occasions, the glory would break through. And it was a delightful experience for me to write a whole book just focusing on those moments. Where the glory broke through. And there's no moment more glorious, I think, during the earthly ministry of Jesus than this one that is called the Transfiguration. Again, we look at the text of Mark chapter 9.

After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John, his inner core. and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves, and he was transfigured before them.

Now, that word transfigure is not a word that is commonplace in our vocabulary. In fact, the Greek word would probably be more communicable to us than the English word, because the Greek word is the word from which we get the English word metamorphosis. And the word metamorphosis, I think, is more familiar to us than the word transfigure. When do you ever hear the word transfigure? Except when you're singing the battle hymn of the Republic, you know, with a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me.

And even then, we have no idea what it means that we are transfigured. But let's look at a metamorphosis. A metamorphosis is something that takes place when the caterpillar becomes. the butterfly. Ovid, the Roman poet, wrote a whole book.

by the title Metamorphosis. And metamorphosis has to do with a change. A form. Morphology is the science of forms. And so the Greek word here in this text has to do with a sudden.

Dramatic Visible transformation, transformation, that is a going across or a changing of the forms. Of Jesus himself. Before their very eyes, suddenly, Jesus' form. Changes. His figure It changes.

Into what? His clothes became shining. Exceedingly white like snow. Such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Wow.

The first appearance here is of a transformation in Jesus' physical appearance in his clothes and in his face. We are told that now, suddenly, the refulgent glory of God begins to shine. Whenever Scripture speaks of the glory of God, it speaks of that glory in terms of a shining. And it speaks of it in terms of a dazzling, blazing light. that is so bright.

It would hurt the eyes to look at it directly. And here, as the author of the New Testament seeks to somehow find in his finite arsenal of vocabulary words a way to describe this ineffable experience of glory, he says that the whiteness of the garments of Jesus became whiter than any fooler or whiter than any launderer can make. I remember when I was a child, I Grew up, they didn't have television. We had radio, and when we would be home sick in the summertime, Have to listen to the soap operas all afternoon, and they were called soap operas because the sponsors of these programs were soap manufacturing companies. And I would listen to the jingles of the commercials.

D-U-Z, D-U-Z, put those in your washing machine. See your clothes come out so great. D-U-Z does everything. Rinso white, Rinso Blue. And you would hear all of these programs day after day after day with these ads.

Well, the one that that intrigued me as a child was this one soap called Tide. Tides in dirts out, T-I-D-E tide. See, that was the way we'd sing that little commercial. But it seemed like every year. Tied.

would come out. with a new, improved version. And they always advertise new and improved. Tide. And I started to wonder about that after a while.

I said, now, if this is eight years in a row that we're getting new and approved hide, I wonder what that product was like eight years ago. It must have been terrible. And then one of them, I don't know if it was Tyde or whoever, finally came up with the slogan that they made their clothes come out. whiter. Then white.

And I thought, now this is the nadir of Madison Avenue, distortion of the sanctity of truth, because surely there is nothing whiter than God. White. White without any hint of color. White without the slightest hue of gray. White without the most minute mar or imperfection.

A white that is absolutely pure. Oh, if you want to catch a vision of that, read Herman Melville's classic chapter in Moby Dick on the whiteness of the whale. which was his symbolic description of the character of God Himself. But before the very eyes of the disciples, suddenly they see his clothes. lose their drabness.

The gray, the black. The soil disappears, and there is a whiteness that is so pure, that is so dazzling, that is so bright that it begins to shine like the sun in its strength. And now this light is flowing out of Jesus.

Now, remember. In the Old Testament, when Moses went to the mountain, To meet with God. And when he spoke with God at Sinai. He asked for the big one. He said, you know, God, it was great to see the Exodus and the burning bush and all those things, but let me see what every human eye has burned to see.

Let me see your face. And God said, No, Moses. No man can see my face and live But I'll tell you what I'll do. Carve out a little niche, a little hollow place in the rock, and I'll place you securely in that cleft in the rock, and I will pass by, and I will allow you a momentary glimpse of my backward parts, literally in the Hebrew, the hindquarters of Yahweh. But my face shall not be seen.

And the scriptures tell us that the glory of God passed by that cleft in the rock, and Moses had a momentary, instantaneous glance at the refraction of God's glory. And when he came down from the mountain. His face was shining. with such intensity that it frightened the people. Moses' face.

Moses' face was shining. And the shining that was coming from Moses' face. was the result of the reflection of God's glory. from a sidewards glance. at his backward part.

I want you to understand. that the light That the disciples see in Christ is not a reflection. It is a light that is coming. From inside of him. Bursting through the shell of his body.

and of his garments. as the glory of his deity now. explodes on the scene. And when they see this. What's their reaction?

It's the same reaction all of us would have They were terrified. And we read in verse four. And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it's good for us to be here. Let's make three tabernacles: one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.

Because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. Peter didn't know what was going on. All of a sudden, there's this transfiguration. All of a sudden, there's this dazzling whiteness and this brightness of the strength of Christ's glory. And then, to add astonishment upon astonishment, suddenly who appears but Moses and Elijah.

And the disciples are watching as Moses and Elijah ignore them and are involved in deep, earnest conversation with Christ. The Bible doesn't tell us everything that is spoken between them, but you know what was being said. Moses and Elijah come to the Messiah. And they say, go to Jerusalem. It is your destiny.

And we have borne witness to you. And we stand with you, and God in heaven has sent us to come. to confirm that to you. The law and the prophets are standing there. discussing The mission of Christ.

with him. And as the scriptures say, the disciples are very much afraid. And now, to make matters worse, what happens? A cloud came. and overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the clouds saying This is my beloved son.

Hear him. Suddenly, when they had looked around. they saw no one any more. But only Jesus with themselves. What kind of a cloud was this?

What kind of a cloud do we always associate with the presence of God, but the Shekinah glory? And this cloud of glory comes now. And encompasses Christ and encompasses Elijah and encompasses Moses. Perhaps it had come to transport Elijah and Moses back to heaven, just as Elijah once had been translated and had gone on the chariots of fire into the heavenly places. And just as the Shekinah glory cloud came again to escort Christ in his ascension into glory and the promise that Jesus made that at the last day when he would return to this world, he would return with the clouds of glory.

So the Shekinah cloud. That indicates the visible presence of God Himself and His exalted majesty now overshadows it. If the vision of Christ's transformation wasn't enough and the appearance of Moses and Elijah wasn't enough, now here comes the cloud. And that's not the end yet. And as the cloud envelops them, they hear audibly the voice of God from heaven.

Think of it. Only three times in all the New Testament is it spoken of God that he spoke audibly from heaven. And on every occasion when God spoke. The message was substantially the same. Remember at the baptism?

This is my beloved son. In whom I am well pleased. And now While the disciples are cowering on the ground and hiding their faces and in absolute terror with this phenomenon that's taking place. They hear the voice of God. And what does God say?

This is my Beloved son, Him listen to him. They didn't want to hear him. They didn't want to listen to him. They didn't like what he was telling them, that he was going to Jerusalem to die. And to reinforce Jesus' teaching to these men.

Came the testimony of Moses, the testimony of Elijah, and finally the audible word of God Himself. This is my son. Here. Him. Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?

or you didn't want to leave it at such a spiritual high. He just wanted to tarry, enjoy it. revel in it. Peter had that experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. He says, This is time for a celebration.

Let's make a booth, and we're going to make a house, a little house for Elijah, a little house for Moses, a little house for Jesus, and we're all going to stay up here and have a bless me party for the rest of our days. Isn't it sad? But in that moment of transfiguration. where the glory of Christ bursts through And God's voice itself is heard from on high. that the disciples themselves were still thinking strictly in terms of glory.

and not in terms of suffering. They still had not come to peace with the mission of Christ. They forgot where they were headed. And they were reluctant to go to Jerusalem. They wanted to stay on the mountain.

They didn't want to be involved in ministry. They didn't have to work out the concerns of the church or the ministry of redemption or a ministry of compassion. They wanted religion. for what it would do for them.

So that they could bask. in spiritual joy and delight On this mountain without any intrusion. of duty. But the purpose of the mountaintop experience for them is the same as the mountaintop experience is for us, to send us out of the church. and into the world.

To be participants in the death and in the humiliation of Christ. And may each of us hear and heed the words of Jesus as we find them recorded for us in the pages of Scripture. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Wednesday. Mm. The series we've been featuring this week is Face to Face with Jesus.

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Well, not all the people that Jesus encountered during his earthly ministry were on his side. Not all welcomed him with open arms. Tomorrow we will meet the man who handed Jesus over to be crucified. and unwittingly asked Jesus one of the most important questions in history. What is truth?

Here's a preview. Jesus said, for this reason. Have I come into the world? to bear witness To the truth. My mission is to bring truth.

To speak the truth. to act the truth, to do the truth. and to tell the truth. If ever The church needed to hear that afresh. It's today.

Because we live in a time where the agenda of the church is focused on everything but the truth. Why? Because truth inevitably divides. Truth causes controversy. Anytime the truth of God is proclaimed clearly.

No matter how gently? No matter how winsomely, no matter how charitably. When the word of God is clearly proclaimed. Hell itself rises up in fury. and controversy comes.

I hope you'll join us Thursday here. on Renewing Your Mind.