A sight more marvelous than any miracle, a scene more impressive and august than any other vision on earth, a living miniature of the future kingdom more instructive, vivid and glorious than any prophecy could present was there given to saintly eyes and ears, that it might be divinely recorded and strengthen the hearts of the faithful.
What drew out the display of His glory in the kingdom before the time of its establishment was to strengthen His own in taking up the cross and following the Master, for the disciples, like the unbelieving brethren, like Christendom too, looked for progress and triumph and overlooked faith and love put to the proof in suffering with Christ, the pattern of all holy endurance. Hence the Lord told them plainly of His own sufferings and the glories after these.
As there was so much to try the disciples in His yet-to-be-deepened humiliation, what could be more gracious on His part, or more suited to their need, than to grant chosen ones of the twelve, who were to be alone with Him in His anguish, to be also with Him beholding so unexampled a foretaste! For here were the great elements of the coming kingdom.
It is the exalted Man, made both Lord and Christ after man crucified and slew Him. Here He is seen as He will reign in power that all shall see, with the dead saints raised and the living changed, answering to the two glorified men. There will be also the righteous in their natural bodies, like the three honored disciples made free of the blissful vision. [22]