It has been questioned whether we are to receive the account of the Saviour's Transfiguration as a historic fact, or not. We hold it to be nothing less than literal truth, just as it is written. How could three different men have exactly the same dream at the same time, and all be so perfectly deceived concerning it, as to tell it in their most serious writings as a matter of historical fact? And what authority is there for receiving that as a dream which the record says did not appear to the witnesses until after they were entirely awake? "When they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him." Men do not usually dream with their eyes open, and in wakeful consciousness. Neither is this the state in which trance-visions occur. Three Evangelists have recorded the thing without a single word to show that it was any other than a narrative of real events which they were giving. Peter, in his second Epistle, also refers to it with the express asseveration, that nothing of the nature of fable had the least connection with it; but that it was a matter of fact to which he was an eye-witness. 2 Pet. i, 16–18. It is also part of the account that the three witnesses were standing upon their feet while they gazed upon the extraordinary scene; and that they were so terrified at a certain stage of the occurrences they were witnessing, that they were overcome, and fell upon their faces for very dread; which does not very well accord with the dreaming of dreams, and the seeing of mere scenic visions. Then again, if it was a mere dream of the three apostles, why did the Saviour speak to them so seriously about it, and charge them so particularly not to tell it until after his resurrection from the dead? Nay, more; if it was a mere matter of play upon the imaginations of the Apostles for their own particular confirmation, there are the still further difficulties; first, of harmonizing it with right principles of morality; and, second, of accounting for the very prominent and reiterated references to it in the New Testament. If they were deceived into a reception of a mere vision for historical fact, how are we to exculpate Christ from using delusion and fraud to confirm faith, or relieve the sacred histories from the suspicion of being, after all, a mere collection of fables and dreams? for there is not a fact or miracle in the Saviour's history that stands upon surer historic basis than this marvelous transfiguration.
One of the most illogical things in the world is this tinkering at acknowledged revelation. There is nothing more irrational than rationalism. If we are not to receive the Bible until we have first mended it, nor to admit its statements until we have rasped them into shape to meet our ideas of credibility, logical consistency would require that we refuse to admit it to be any revelation at all. We see no consistent landing-place between receiving it in its plain grammatical meaning, or putting it upon the same level with other books. And as we are satisfied that it is given by inspiration of God, we must also insist on what it relates as being that which its writers represent it to be. We therefore receive this account as true, and proceed to notice a few points concerning it.
I. THE PLACE.—There is much said in Scripture about mountains. Some of the most sublime of sacred scenes occurred on mountains. The Law was given from a mountain. The great sermon with which the Saviour ushered in the Christian system was delivered on a mountain. A great part of Christ's prayers were offered on mountains. He was transfigured on a mountain, crucified on something of a mountain, ascended to Heaven from a mountain, and, when he returns to earth, he will appear upon a mountain; for "his feet shall stand upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east."
There seems to be something in mountain scenery fitted to the sacred and divine. Mountains are nature's symbols of the majesty of God. They easily connect with his everlasting strength, purity, and glory. His dispensations for the good of man have, therefore, been largely connected with mountains. There is hardly a peak in all the region of the Holy Land, which has not become associated with something sacred. Moriah, Horeb, Sinai, Zion, Hermon, Tabor, Calvary, Olivet,—all are classic hills. Their summits are invested with a religious interest and sublimity as striking and durable as their own rocky elevations. From these high places, connecting so closely with Heaven, our imaginations thrill and bound in sublimer enthusiasm than did ever the fancy of the Greek from Parnassus, Ida, Pelion, or Olympus.
It is inferred from several particulars, that it was evening when the mountain was ascended. The quiet hour of nightfall is that which the Saviour ordinarily selected for retirement to the woods and mountains for devotion, and this is a season peculiarly fitted for solemn thought. Isaac took this time for his holy meditations. But notice,—
II. THE WITNESSES PRESENT.—Not all the disciples, but only "Peter, James, and John his brother." Christ omitted to take the others, not because they were not to know anything of the transfiguration, but because these three were the fittest to be the witnesses of it, as they also occupied a position of particular nearness to the Saviour. There were different grades and ranks among his followers in these respects. He was the center of different circles which widened upon each other, and to which different degrees of direct manifestation were apportioned. More was given to the twelve, than to his followers generally; and still more to the three, than to the twelve; and to Peter, perhaps, more than to the three. These differences were regulated, perhaps, by differences of natural character and adaptation, or by differences of moral worth and attainment, or by both. At any rate, Peter, James, and John were the Saviour's most immediate and confidential friends. To them he afforded privileges beyond all others, not out of mere capricious partiality, but as the best arrangement which he could make for the letting forth to the world of some of the great facts upon which Christianity is founded. They alone were present when the daughter of Jairus was raised. They alone beheld the agony of the garden. They alone were the witnesses of the transfiguration.
III. NOTICE WHAT OCCURRED.—The record says that "he was transfigured before them." His whole appearance was changed. There was the Master, in the midst of the darkness, but resplendent and glorious; quite altered from what he had before been seen. He was transfigured—changed in form—as Matthew says, metamorphosed. "The fashion of his countenance was altered; his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment became white, shining, exceeding white, white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them, glistening, white as the light."
When Moses was in mount Sinai with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, his face also became luminous in his near communion with God; but not so luminous and glorious as in this case. Not only the Saviour's face, but his whole person, and even his garments, streamed with light and glory. So transcendent and intense was the divine splendor that permeated and enveloped him, that the Evangelists seem to be at a loss for words and images to describe it. They seem to labor in the effort more than in anything else which they have put on record, and pile together the intensest terms and figures known to man, to express the glory which was there manifested in the person of their Master. They use the three literal terms, "white," "shining," "glistening."
But to the literal terms they add figurative illustrations. The Saviour's garments were not only "white," but "white as no fuller on earth could white them"—"exceeding white as snow." Nay, still more, from the earth the illustration rises to the sky. "His face did shine as the sun, and his garments were white as the light—divinely, miraculously white. A proof and picture this of the Saviour's high and peculiar relations to the eternal God, who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all. Never was there a being on earth that ever exhibited such glory as that which there shone through him.
IV. NOTICE WHEN THIS OCCURRED.—It was "as he prayed" that he was transfigured. Prayer was the habit of Christ. He ascended this mount on this occasion "to pray." And it is said that he did pray there. Upon that dark and solitary mount the Saviour knelt with the three favored ones. From that high altar, made sacred by his presence, his voice went up to his Father and our Father—to his God and our God. From among the rocks his fervent supplications ascended. And in answer to those prayers, and by means of them, this wonderful transfiguration came. Prayer is a transfiguring power.
V. NOTICE THE PERSONS WHO APPEARED WITH CHRIST.—However alone we may seem to be in our devotions, we are never alone. Beings of another world there join us. It was so here. "There appeared unto them Moses and Elias;" and the disciples "saw the two men that stood with him." They were not angels, but "men." They were not mere phantoms or scenic shadows, but real, living beings, for they "talked." And what is more, they were men who once lived in the flesh, with like passions with us, but who about a decade of centuries before had wholly disappeared from the earth. They were great men—men who distinguished themselves in serving God on earth, and who were accordingly lifted to peculiar honors in Heaven. One was Moses, that persevering man of God, who chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season"—the faithful leader, lawgiver, and deliverer of Israel, who had been dead for more than a thousand years. The other was the once persecuted Elijah, that fearless reprover of kings, and dauntless adversary of Baal, who, as a reward for his fidelity, about eight hundred years before had been caught up to Heaven in the chariot of God without ever tasting of death.
The appearance of these personages on this occasion is full of mystery. We can tell very little about it. But it is fraught with most important and consolatory suggestion. It shows that death is not the end of us—that there is another life—and that that life is one of consciousness and activity.
VI. NOTICE THE DESIGN OF THIS WONDERFUL OCCURRENCE.—All the objects contemplated by it we cannot now understand.
It evidently had important connections with Christ's own personal development into that perfectness of qualification for the mediatorship which was necessary. He "grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men," and there was also growth in his Christhood.
It was also meant to confirm his disciples, and to fortify them against the dangers they were in of having their confidence in his Messiahship destroyed by the sufferings upon which he was about to enter.
But it was more especially designed to be an earnest and model of Christ's future "coming and kingdom," when he shall come in his glory, and "shall sit upon the throne of his glory." This is to be gathered from the narrative itself. A week before it occurred, he told his disciples that "the Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father, with his angels or messengers with him;" and that there were some standing there when he made the declaration who "should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom." This coming in his kingdom, which some of the disciples were to live to see, is not the final advent; for the disciples are all dead, and the final advent is still future. Neither is it the destruction of Jerusalem; for but one of the apostles lived to see that catastrophe, and the Son of man did not then come in his kingdom. And yet some of the disciples were to have ocular demonstration of the Son of man's coming in his kingdom before tasting of death. Search through apostolic history as we will, we shall find nothing but the transfiguration to which the Saviour's words will apply.
That, then, was, in some sense, the coming of the Son of man in his kingdom. It was not, indeed, the coming itself, but it was an earnest and picture of it.59
It was the coming of the Son of man in his kingdom, as the bread and wine in the Eucharist are Christ's body and blood. Peter says "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" are not "cunningly-devised fables." He declares that he was certified of their reality by the testimony of his own senses. "We were 'eye-witnesses,' says he, 'when we were with him in the holy mount.'" We thus have clear inspired testimony that the scene of the transfiguration was a demonstrative exhibition of the coming of Jesus in his kingdom. Hence, whatever we find in the descriptions of that scene, we may confidently expect to be realized in that "world to come whereof we speak." As Christ appeared in that glorious scene, so he will appear when he returns to this world. As he was then personally present as the Son of man, so he will be personally present in the millennial kingdom. And as he was there attended by different classes of persons, so will his glorious kingdom consist of similar classes. The first will be the saints who had fallen asleep, then raised up, and joined to their ever-living Head, represented by Moses. The second class will be the saints who "are alive and remain" to that time, who then "shall be caught up together with "the resurrected saints," to "be ever with the Lord" without dying at all, as represented by Elijah.
How full of light, comfort, and hope are these Scriptures! What joys and wonders they set before us as the fruit of the Saviour's interposition for our redemption! Let us cherish these things, and firmly believe them. For this hope maketh not ashamed.
And what a blessed thing is prayer! What glory and bliss it brought to Jesus and his three disciples on this occasion! How near and close it brought the majesty of the Divine presence! How it made Jesus overflow with the brightness of indwelling Godhead! How it opened the heavens, disclosed to mortal view some of its inhabitants, and rendered audible the conversations of the saints in glory, and the words of the great God himself! How it made the disciples thrill with delight for which Peter was willing to abandon everything, and stay there in the cold, bleak mountain forever! Nor is there one in all this world, who is earnest and persevering in his prayers, but shall thereby in time be transfigured into the same celestial radiance with Jesus, and see him in his glory, and hear the redeemed conversing together along the eternal hills, and rejoice forever in the light of God and the Lamb.—Prophetic Times.