Matthew 17:1-8, 24-271And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. 3And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. 4Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. 5While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. 6And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. 7And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. 8And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. (Matthew 17:1‑8)
24And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? 25He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? 26Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. 27Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee. (Matthew 17:24‑27)
No man, after such a blessing as the Lord had just pronounced upon Peter, ever received a sterner rebuke. “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona,” so soon to be followed by, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” So serious the place of a Christian—of a believer at least! so true the One who watches over us in love! Whilst there is the fullest value even for that which nothing but His own grace had given, and the deepest encouragement, yet how stern and unsparing is the Lord in letting Peter see what his thoughts, what his feelings, were; what Peter’s heart was thinking about! And what was it that had drawn it out? Peter had owned the glory of His person. It was of God, God’s teaching, without question, and the Savior owned it at once; but that very Peter would turn Him away from the cross! Should that be? “Get thee behind me, Satan.” The Lord Jesus came to die, and to die, too, in all the depths of it. For as to all the externals of the cross, they were indeed—deep as they were—but the outward form of that which only God could estimate. They greatly err who look only to what man was the instrument of in the cross of Christ—most true, most real as it was. But here the Lord was particularly looking at the cross as rejection; yet the path of that rejection led straight into the glory in which He was coming by and by. And the Lord accordingly, in the beginning of the seventeenth chapter, would give a view of the glory, and amongst others, to the very disciple that would have stopped His way into, as Peter thought, a suffering that was unworthy, but in truth that which was the foundation of His glory. For we are not here to look at His glory as Son of God; there was no foundation for that, it was its own foundation. That was truly divine, essentially divine. But here it was conferred glory. It is the kingdom; it is what God has given. As it is said in another place, “Wherefore God hath highly exalted him,” so, by and by, He will be exalted in the kingdom; and the Lord would give a view of it that it might be not only a prophetical testimony, but, as the apostle Peter says, and he is the one that does say it, “We have the prophetic word more confirmed,” that is, we have what was said by the prophets shown out in a reality. It might he only one that passed away; but still to have the sight of all the great elements of the kingdom brought before them in this life was an immense support to faith, an immense cheer, especially to one who must have felt deeply the rebuke that His Master passed upon him.
So “after six days, Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them; and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter.” And this you know is the particular object that I have before me now—the dealings of the Lord with His servant, as manifesting His own grace and truth (no doubt bringing out the need of it on our part, bringing out weakness, wretchedness, pettiness, vanity, pride—the carnal mind in so many forms, but) the grace and truth of One that had unfeignedly met every failure of His servant; One therefore that would encourage our hearts and instruct us and strengthen us against the very same things in which he had broken down. Do we think we need it not? We are upon the very verge of similar failures. There is nothing that so surely brings a fall as the unbelief that does not believe it possible.
“Then answered Peter and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here.” And was not this then, a pious thought and sentiment? “If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.” It was a disciple’s way of magnifying his Master, but there is only one that is trustworthy—God’s way. It is not enough to have God’s end; we must learn God’s way. Now there was exactly where Peter’s haste betrayed his weakness, and where we are apt to fall precisely in the same way. “Let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.” He evidently thought it was no small honor for his Master—a man—though the Son of God. But he thought it no small honor for his Master to be on common ground with Moses and Elias, the head of the law, and, we may say, the chief of the prophets. Doubtless He was the Messiah. But were they not glorified? At once, “while he yet spake, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud.” For this was no ordinary cloud—not a dark one, which is an ordinary one—but a bright one: it was the cloud of Jehovah’s presence. “A voice out of the cloud said, This is my beloved Son.” It is not merely a question of the kingdom. The kingdom alone would always leave the soul, as the law would, with thoughts altogether short of what is due to Christ. If I look at the law, I think of duty, and I see the Lord merely as a fulfiller of duty. If I think of the kingdom, I see glory, but a glory that others share along with Him. But the Father would not permit it. He breaks the silence from above, and says, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
Now, it is not merely that the Father was thus maintaining the glory of the Lord Jesus at the very time when one who ought, most of all, to be exalting Him was really depreciating Him—most unintentionally, because there is no putting of the Lord with any other that would give Him His just place. The very thought of placing any, however excellent, on a level with the Lord Jesus is reprehensible. Certainly Moses and Elijah were most incomparable among (I will not say the sons of men, but) the children of God. Elijah that had gone up to heaven in a chariot of fire! Moses whom Jehovah had buried, about whose body even the archangel had fought with the devil! Certainly, the man that had been with God without food for forty days and nights, and the man that had closed his career on earth thus to be in heaven, these were men to speak of, if of any. But this very thing brings out the supreme glory of the Son; and this I will say, beloved friends, that a more instructive principle there cannot be. You will find, if you search, that almost all failure, both in doctrine and in conduct, is attributable to this—low thoughts of Christ. I do not mean now thoughts that are evil, thoughts that are untrue, but I mean that the power of faith is always the taking in and subjecting our souls to the glory of the Son of God. This is the faith that overcomes the world. It is not merely that He is the Christ, that He is the King of the coming kingdom. Perfectly true; but He is the Son, and if the kingdom brings in the heirs of the kingdom, and those that enjoy the kingdom, the Son brings in God, and God as He, the Son, knows Him, and as the Father knows the Son; and there is none that comprehends the Son but the Father. And it is remarkable He does not say, “To whomsoever the Father will reveal,” but, “Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal.” The Father does not reveal all He sees in the Son. And I am persuaded that the reason is this—t hat there is a depth in the very fact of the Son of God having taken manhood that transcends all possible knowledge, except of God the Father; that there is therefore a depth in it, and a secret, too, that He will not have broken. And there is where the prying mind of man loses itself. He desires to know that secret, and, consequently, unable to loose the knot, he cuts it in some violent method of his own mind—the source of all heresy. But I was not speaking of it merely in reference to heresy, but also as to the appreciation of Him day by day; for what a strength it is where His glory is before our eyes, and where each question that arises just exercises our hearts in answer to the Lord—Himself the answer to all difficulties—the Son of God!
Well now, that was where Peter failed. He thought to exalt and enhance the glory of Christ, but he was altogether beneath God’s thoughts.
“This is my beloved Son”; and how did He show it? He says, “In whom I am well pleased.” It is not merely He. Peter was thinking of his being so pleased with the Son that he would like Him to be with such wondrous men as Moses and Elias. It is, “In whom I am well pleased”; and why so? Why so? Just because He is His beloved Son; that is, it has not any connection with Peter at all, but with God Himself in this relationship out of all time, that is, infinite as God Himself is. “Hear ye him.”
And there comes in another point, beloved brethren, that I wish to trace, and that is that this is really what was about to be unfolded in the New Testament. What is the New Testament? The New Testament is the evolution—if I may say so—of this little word, “Hear ye him.” It is God unfolding the glory of the Son to us. All that He was, as revealed in the Gospels, the Epistles, or whatever part of the New Testament it may be, is precisely this very thing that was summed up in these few words, “Hear ye him.” That is, whatever might be the blessedness of Moses and Elias, of the law and the prophets, they have their place, but their best place was to bear witness of Him. And now it was not merely a witness of Him. It was Himself; He was come. And one, therefore, who had an adequate sense of the glory of the Son of God would not care to be listening to the servants about Him, now that he had an opportunity of hearing Himself. “Hear ye him.” Accordingly, “when the disciples heard it they fell on their faces and were sore afraid; and Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise, be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man, save Jesus only.” There it is, that the Father leaves, as it were, the disciples in the presence of Jesus only; and the greatest possible honor, and also the proof of the value of Moses and Elias was this, that they bring out the superior glory of the Son of God; they make way for it. They are finger-posts to direct to Him, but then there is no greater mistake than to be occupied with what merely directed to Him; it is Himself. The New Testament, then, is the revelation of that which the Father has to tell us of the Son—not all that He knows, but all that which is for His own glory in making known His Son to us.
The foot of the mountain showed a very different thing. There was the power of Satan, and such a power of Satan that baffled the disciples. We have this accordingly brought out very clearly in the man that they presented to the Lord. “I brought him to thy disciples,” said the poor father, “and they could not cure him.” And the Lord utters words of unusual severity. “O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I suffer you?”
My object is not to dwell upon any of these intervening portions. I just touch them as I pass along, but still it is most serious to observe this as we pass—the inability, and I do not know anything more characteristic of our weakness, and that more shows its character at this present moment than the same thing—the inability, not of Christ, but of the disciples, to avail themselves of Christ for what came before them. And why was it? What was connected with them then? Unjudged power of nature, confidence in self. “This kind cometh not out but by prayer and fasting.” “Prayer and fasting” is evidently used as expressive of the nothingness of man, but the nothingness of man that expects God and counts upon God. “How long,” said the Lord, “shall I suffer you, or be with you? How long shall I be with you?” Unbelief, and particularly in the disciples, is of all things the greatest pain to Christ. We often think of the unbelief of the world. There is another question nearer home. What do we think of our own faith? What have we to say about it; our power of bringing in Christ to solve every difficulty? I do not know a more distressing thing at the present moment than the mass of unsolved difficulties everywhere; and the very persons that make the difficulties most are the Lord’s own disciples. It is not merely evil. There is always power superior to evil, but when the disciples themselves fail to look to Christ, and have objects of their own that complicate the bringing in of Christ to meet the difficulty—oh, how sorrowful! The Lord gives it as a reason for leaving the world. There is but one comfort that I know, and that is that this is to us, or may be to us, so much the greater token that the Lord must soon undertake all Himself, because there is so little power to bring Him in. And if that be comfort in the thought of Christ, what a condemnation of our little self-judgment, and consequently of our oftener making difficulties than solving them!
Well the Lord is now seen in another point of view, but also Peter is seen too; and indeed, it is Peter who gives occasion for the Lord to show Himself in a new way, and in a new dealing with His servant. “And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute-money came to Peter and said, Doth not your Master pay tribute?” Now here again he was jealous for his Master. He was jealous for his Master when he thought it would be an excellent thing, and a most suitable, to make three tabernacles—tabernacles for Moses and Elias as well as for Him—a tabernacle for Him along with them. And so now he, as it were, said to the collector of tribute that his Master was much too good a Jew not to pay tribute. He said “Yes.” What does the Lord do? Before he says a word about it, the Lord lets Peter know that it was all known to Him. How little he had thought of that. How little the Godhead of Jesus had penetrated the soul even of the man that said, “Son of the living God.” How little he knew of his own confession! That is often the case. It is humbling if we think of ourselves, but at the same time it is a ground of encouragement and patience with other people. You must not expect people to know, though it is often a very startling thing how little we enter into the patience of our Master, and we are surprised that persons should so little understand, for instance, the very place where they are, the very worship into which they are brought, the very truth that they are supposed to live for. But here I find the same thing. Here I find that it is all full of it; but the fact is that we are not conscious ourselves that it is precisely in the same way that we break down, not perhaps in the same particular, but in the same principle. And you will observe that it is a very different thing to judge another’s trial where we are not ourselves tried at the same time. Wait till we are. We shall see how far we know how to bring Christ in ourselves. I do not say it to make light of such a thing. It is a very grievous thing, but it really is the grand secret: that is, the readiness to answer from self instead of from Christ, instead of from God’s side of Christ. We look at our side. Peter was jealous lest his Master should be thought not to pay the tribute. The Lord shows him He knew it all; He was God.
“Jesus prevented,” or “anticipated him” —that is the meaning, for of course this is in old English— “saying, What thinkest thou, Simon: of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own children or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers.” What an answer! Was the Lord a stranger?—for this is the temple tribute. Who was the Master of the temple? Was Jesus a stranger to him? “Of strangers” the kings of the earth take tribute. Of whom therefore does Jehovah take it? “Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.” Not the Son. No, He does not say the Son. He says what is infinitely better, at the very time when there had just been this overwhelming conviction on the mount. Peter in his zeal for his Master was after all depriving Him of His just title, forgetting His divine glory. How slowly we learn the lesson! “Then are the children free.” For this, beloved friends, is really what Christianity means, and what the Lord was to bring out still more clearly before long—that the grace that sent down the Son of God did not merely send down one to be a propitiation, or even to be life, but that we too might acquire a new relationship according to His—that we might know the place of the children of God. “Then are the children free.” He does not merely, therefore, claim it for Himself. He did not need. But He asserts it for those that are His. How astonishing to Peter! He had forgotten it; he had no thought of it. Yet was he born of God, and he was slowly learning what it meant; about to learn it far more blessedly soon when the hindrances should be taken away by the grace of Christ, and the place of deliverance was about to dawn upon his heart.
“Notwithstanding,” said He, “lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money.” The last place in the world to find, except for God! And that is the very thing He showed—that it was One who had the power of God as well as the knowledge of God; that it was One who was very God, although He was here a man upon the earth. Let Peter’s soul be filled with this. How his heart would turn back to it another day! know it far better when he looked back upon it, when he read it as the word of God, than when it was merely passing then before his eyes! There is no greater mistake than to suppose that if we had been living in the time of our Lord we should have understood our Lord’s words better than now. The very reverse. The written word in this, as in other respects, has a higher place than the spoken word. Just as the written word has a mightier testimony, so also the written word has a permanent place of correcting our thoughts, of deepening even what is true as well as correcting what is mistaken, and the Spirit of God is pre-eminently with it. Hence, therefore, I do not hesitate to say that, far from being worse off, we are better. Peter himself was better off when Peter was not merely regarding the words he had listened to, but when he read them as inspired of God for his use and ours.
Well here, then, I say, we have just the very same thing: that is, we have human thoughts of Christ corrected by divine, and at the same time in the doing of this a marvelous outburst of the divine glory that shone upon Peter’s soul more fully than had ever been the case before. We have had, then, the kingdom. Here we have what much more belongs to Christian relationship—the children.
[W. K.]
(To be continued)