Matt. 17:1-9
In the midst of His service of humiliation, our Lord was transfigured for a short time. It was not like Moses whose face shone from his nearness to the divine Presence. Our Lord was with His own here below. A week before, He prepared them for seeing the Son of man coming in His kingdom. After it, He takes with Him Peter, James, and John, and brings them up into a high mountain apart. "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." It is a miniature of His kingdom wherein will be the risen and changed saints, with others in their natural bodies, and the Lord the center of all.
It would seem that the divine aim of having Moses and Elijah there was to mark the surpassing glory of the Lord before whom the chief representative of the law and the most honored of the prophets gave place and vanished away. The personal glory of Jesus is most conspicuous, as elsewhere in this gospel. He is Son of God and Son of man.
Peter counted it a great thing to see his Master with saints so renowned and glorious. "Lord," said he to Jesus, "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." He made the natural but grave mistake of equalizing all three. Yet he who had only so short a time before confessed his Master to be not only the Messiah, but the Son of the living God, ought not to have so erred. It is so easy to forget what flesh and blood never truly knows, that which is revealed by the Father; then, too, he could not bear to think of His going to Jerusalem, suffering many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and being killed, but raised the third day.
Here it was not the withering rebuke of the Lord who knew that all blessing for man and glory for God, in a ruined world, hung on His rejection (Matt. 16:21-23). It was the Father's voice out of the excellent glory. "While 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." The Father then displayed His jealousy for the honor of His Son. He would not allow the lawgiver or the law restorer to be put on such a level. They were servants and to be honored in the place He set them. But His beloved Son!—there were His delights. And if Christ went down in love to suffer as man, and as man to be exalted, the glory of the eternal Son was precious beyond all thought of man in His Father's eyes.
It is the Son whom we are to hear. See how the great truth is attested in the epistle to the Hebrews, both in chapter 1:2, and in chapter 12:25. Equally explicit is John 5:25 for quickening, and John 10 for every day—and not only for the sheep led out of the Jewish fold, but for other sheep, Gentiles, not of this fold.
When the disciples heard the Father's voice, they fell on their faces and were sore afraid. They were still far from knowing His love, but He, who brought it in His own Person, was at hand to strengthen their hearts. "And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid." Not less, now, but more does Jesus cause His word to come home in the power of redemption to those that believe. And the God who sent Him would fill us with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope in the power of the Holy Spirit.