The verse which opens our chapter clearly belongs to the discourse at the end of chapter viii. Our Lord's promise was fulfilled on “the holy mount.” Some of those who stood as He spoke were permitted to see “the kingdom of God come with power.” The reference to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem is arbitrary and incongruous. The special form of the promise is worthy of note. In Matthew it is “the Son of man coming in his kingdom;” in Luke it is simply “the kingdom of God.” In the former, the personal title of the Lord, as the rejected but glorious man, and so coming in His kingdom, is made prominent; in the latter; it is the moral character, as usual, of that display which the chosen witnesses were privileged to behold—the kingdom of God, not of man. Mark, on the other hand, was led to speak of the kingdom of God coming with power. The same substantial truth appears in all; each presents it so as to suit the divine design of the gospels respectively. In our gospel the blessed Lord is ever the administrator in power of God's kingdom, and even here, in giving expression to this promised sample of the kingdom, hides His glory as much as possible, though in truth He could not be hid.
Let us remark, too, that those self-same witnesses He takes (ver. 2) and leads up “into an high mountain apart by themselves,” whom afterward (chap. 14) He takes with Him to Gethsemane. What a change from the glories of the one scene to the exceeding sorrow unto death of the other! Yet was the connection close, and the end of the Lord full of tenderness to His own: even as the mention of His rejection and death leads the way to the transfiguration in the three early gospels. What is there, indeed, so real as His sufferings and His glories? How blessed to know and rest on them both in the midst of the vain show of men!
Again, let it be observed that Mark says less of the personal change, and more as to His raiment, than either Matthew or Luke. “And he was transfigured before them; and his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.” He is ever the Servant-Son. As profound in His lowliness as He accepts with dignity what comes from above—dignity which manifests its source by a splendor which stains the pride of earthly glory. In Matthew there is no contrast with fuller on earth, but it is added most characteristically, that “His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light;” a most suited image of supreme glory for the great King. In Luke how wonderfully adapted is the description! “And as be prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.” None but he mentions the Lord thus bowing down before His Father at this very moment; even as he directs us to that which was more personal than any other in the mighty change that thereon ensued.
“And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to Jesus Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves.” Having already treated of the scene in Matthew, I will not dwell on the astonishing circumstance further than to remark, that the Lord discloses in this type of God's kingdom what popular theologians so dislike—earthly things mingled, though in no wise confounded, with heavenly things. (John 3) There are the glorified, in the persons of Moses and Elias; there are the men in their still unchanged natural bodies, Peter, James, and John; there is the central figure of the Lord, the Head of all things above and below. So it will be when the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is not any more a testimony of word from those who were eye-witnesses of His majesty, but made good and displayed in the day of the Lord.
It is mere irreverence to deride what will be by and by, or what was then beheld anticipatively, as “a mongrel state of things,” “an abhorred mixture of things totally inconsistent with each other.” If transient glimpses of glory, if passing visits of glorious beings have been vouchsafed from the beginning down to our Savior's days, is it that man can read in these no more than a tale that is told? Is there to them no confirmation from the holy mount of the prophetic word which declares that Jehovah's feet shall stand on Mount Olivet, not to dissolve all things as yet, but to be King over all the earth in that day when He shall come and all His saints with Him? (Comp. Zech. 14.) “And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her unto me in the earth: and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.” (Hosea “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” It is in vain to pervert this to the eternal state; it is as distinct from that final condition as from the present ways of God. For as the gathering of the Church is essentially eclectic, and in no sense a gathering of all things in heaven and earth into one, so eternity is after all dispensation (οἰκονννομία), administration, or stewardship, is over. The millennial reign, the kingdom of Christ, is the sole answer to this even as to the other Scriptures. “Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done in earth, as in heaven.”
To resume. In reporting to us the voice that spake from the cloud (ver. 7), Mark, like Luke, was led of the Spirit to omit the middle clause which Matthew gives us, the expression of the Father's complacency in the Son. But this really imparts special emphasis to Christ's title as Son, and the Father's will that they should hear Him; not now Moses and Elias, whom Peter's unintelligent haste had put on a level with Him. The divine utterance, too, is sealed by the sudden disappearance of those who represented the law and the prophets, Jesus only being left with the disciples.
“And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean.” If they knew the Scriptures and God's power of resurrection, as the Sadducees did not, certainly the rising from among the dead was as new to them as it is little understood yet by many disciples.
Hence the difficulties of learned men perplexed them. And they asked him, saying, Why say the scribes that Elias must first come? And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at naught. But I say unto you, that Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.” Our Lord does not dispute the truth pressed by the scribes; but as He points out His own approaching shame and suffering before He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels, so He shows a similar application of Elias' case in the person of John the Baptist, while the strict coming of Elias or Elijah awaits its fulfillment in the latter day. To faith the fore-runner is already come, as well as the Lord Himself. Unbelief must feel both by and by.