Transfiguration of Our Lord (1886)

Matthew 17:1-9 We first recognize that the Transfiguration of Christ must be of particular importance for the faithful from the fact that three Evangelists, Matthew, Mark (chapter 9), and Luke (chapter 9) tell the story with the same detail and also Peter in this Sunday's epistle (2 Peter 1:16:21) mentions it as a particularly wonderful revelation of the Son of God. The early church has also shown this by the choice of this reading as an annual pericope and with great care put this reading at the end of Epiphanytide and for the transistion to the Passion; while telling those the revelation of the glory of the Son of God, it also casts a comforting light on the mysterious darkness of His death on the cross and thereby proclaims the certain subsequent victorious resurrection. So then let us also with heartfelt desire consider this wonderful history according to its process and its saving power. The glorious transfiguration of Jesus Christ on the mountain; 1. its wonderful course of events; a. Time, place, and witnesses of the Transfiguration; . Time, "after six days", after Peter had posited the glorious confession: "You are Christ, Son of the living God", after which Christ had proclaimed His suffering and death; concerning the time of day, it was probably evening or at night, because at first they returned the next day from the mountain; this would also explain why the disciples were completely asleep; at any rate, the darkness of night could shine much more majestically in the glory of His transfiguration; . as place a mountain is mentioned, probably Tabor, which was the highest mountain in Galilee, where the Lord Himself lingered just then; the witnesses are .men, namely the three aforementioned apostles, which Christ elsewhere distinguished, by making them as witnesses of the raising of Jairus' daughter and His deep suffering in Gethsemane, Peter, who took such great offense in Christ's passion, James, the first apostle-martyr, and John, the powerful teacher and defender of the divinity of Christ1; .heavenly witnesses, Moses and Elijah in transfigured bodies, with the Lord talking about His passion, as the representatives of the Old Covenant, in whose place Christ established the New Covenant; b. the Transfiguration itself2, . Mark: "His clothes were bright and very white, like snow, that no dyer on earth can make so white"; Luke: "The form of His face became different and His garment was white and glistened"; the apostle takes the sun with its radiance as a picture for help, in order to make the glory of the Transfiguration somewhat graphic, that shone through not only His body, but even His clothes; but it is only a faint image, for the glory God itself it was that appeared here in Christ and certainly goes beyond all human understanding. Another faint

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John 1:14. Matthew 17:2.

image thereof is Moses' radiant face. Christ has cast off the form of a servant and shown His disciples a glimpse of His "divine form"; . the glorious testimony of the Father3; 2. its blessed fruit and power, a. the revelation of His eternal divinity that was concealed by the form of a servant, but here through the majestic transfiguration, as confirmed by God's glorious testimony against the scandal of His suffering and death on the cross; that is why Peter says in the Sunday's epistle that he had a firm Word in the testimony of Christ, confirmed by God Himself and attested by the fact; b. the confirming of the resurrection of the body and eternal life; the appearance of Moses and Elijah confirms this in the transfigured body and heavenly glory that is manifest in Christ and is from that blessed world, which is what Peter calls full of delight: "It is good to be here" etc.4; c. Jesus confirmed as the one teacher of sanctifying truth: "Hear Him." 5 O.H.

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Matthew 17:5. Matthew 17:4. 5 Deuteronomy 18:19: "I myself will call him to account."