Transfigured

If you have a Bible, we are making our way into Mark 9 tonight and this week we are going to be looking at the first 13 verses and let me just say, this is one of my favorite sections of Scripture in the entire Bible. These 13 verses and the verses that follow it that we will look at next week are just incredible. In Mark 9 we read of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration and if you don’t know what that word transfiguration means, don’t worry you will by the time we are done. For my middle school years, I went to a private Christian school and one of the days in our Bible class we were given the assignment to act out any story from the Bible that we wanted. And most kids picked out stories that pretty much everyone knew: Daniel and the lions den, David and Goliath, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but me and my two other classmates decided we wanted to push the envelope a little and pick something that probably no other middle school student had ever done or possibly ever heard of so we picked Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now why do I love this part of Scripture so much? Because in it we see a glimpse of both the Old and the New Testament. In it we see the Gospel. In it we see exactly who Jesus is and exactly what He offers. In these verses we really see a glimpse of what’s to come and throughout it all we see glory. So that is going to be our focus tonight, we are going to look at 3 types of glory: An Anticipated glory, the Fullness of Glory, and a Shared Glory. Let’s pray and then we will dive into Mark 9:1-13

Mark 9:1–13 NASB95

And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” For he did not know what to answer; for they became terrified. Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!” All at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus alone. As they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead. They seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant. They asked Him, saying, “Why is it that the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” And He said to them, “Elijah does first come and restore all things. And yet how is it written of the Son of Man that He will suffer many things and be treated with contempt? “But I say to you that Elijah has indeed come, and they did to him whatever they wished, just as it is written of him.”

Anticipated Glory

As you can see, we’ve got a lot going on in these verses so I think one of the most important things to do before we dive in is to talk about what the word transfigured or transfiguration means. In verse 2 we see that Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John so what does that mean because if we don’t know what it means, we won’t get the fulness of what is happening. In Greek, the word that is used is the word Metamorphoo which you can probably guess is where we get the English word, Metamorphosis which means to be changed or transformed. Transfigured sounds a lot like transformation right? So something about Jesus changes on this mountain and Mark tells us that not only does something about Jesus change, His clothes become radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them. In Matthew 17:2, Matthew includes the detail that Christ’s “face shone like the sun” and this is an important detail for us to note and it is because this reflects something very similar that happened at a different mountain thousands of years before this moment. In these verses we see two very well known individuals from the Old Testament come to this mountain to speak with Jesus and according to Luke’s account these two men come with an agenda. Who are the two people that appear with Jesus on the mountain? Moses and Elijah. What are they there to do? Well in Luke 9:30–31 Luke writes, “And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Moses and Elijah are there with the purpose of speaking to Jesus about His death and resurrection by why was it specifically those two men? We’ve talked a little bit about these two guys in the past but why is it that out of all of the saints in the Old Testament, why do we see so many references to Moses and Elijah? Why not Abraham? Why not Isaiah? Why not Noah or Jeremiah? It’s because these two men were representative of the entire Jewish religion and the entirety of the Old Testament. Elijah is the prophet that represents the prophetic section of the Old Testament and Moses is obviously the person that represents the Law or first five books of the Old Testament. We see a continuity between the Old and the New. But that’s not the only reason Moses and Elijah are there. Part of it comes down to the anticipated glory that they looked ahead to in their own day. Each of these men experienced their own mountain top moment before this that showcased the glory of God. In one of my favorite sections of Scripture in Exodus 33, Moses is speaking to the Lord on Mount Sinai and this is following the people of Israel rebelling against the Lord while Moses is receiving the Law and the whole golden calf incident and Moses is discouraged. He needs to know that God will not abandon Him or His people so Moses asks God to do something. In Exodus 33:18-23 we read:

Exodus 33:18–23 NASB95

Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” Then the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. “Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”

We see man’s problem in these verses. Man cannot stand before the face of God and to see Him in all of His glory and live. God answers Moses’ request and He does it by putting him behind a rock and He allows Moses to just see Him walk away because Moses cannot see the face of God and live. As Moses converses with God, his very person begins to reflect the fact that he has been in God’s presence. In Exodus 34:29–30 we see something a little familiar: “It came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” Where else have we seen the face of someone shining after having an experience on a mountaintop? With Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration! So, what about Elijah’s mountain moment? In 1 Kings 19, Elijah has fled from Queen Jezebel, he’s accepted that it would be better if he would just die but God doesn’t let his prophet off the hook that easily. God still has a mission for Elijah to accomplish. The Lord sends Elijah to a cave which is in Mount Horeb and you might remember the story. The Lord passes by Elijah and there is a strong wind that breaks the rocks into pieces bu the Lord is not in the wind, then there is an earthquake but God isn’t in the earthquake, then God sends fire but God is not in the fire, but then after the fire there is a still, small voice and there is the presence of God. These men saw a representation and anticipated glory. These men had a foretaste of glory at those moments but in Mark 9 they see the fullness of glory.

Fullness of Glory

Before we even get to that though, what do we mean when we talk about the glory of God? Because sometimes it can be such a vague term that we apply it to just about anything. Well a few years ago when I preached on the transfiguration I described the glory of God in this way: it is the manifestation of all that God is and all that God does in the ultimate expression of His perfections. As Jesus speaks to Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, the ultimate expression of all of His perfections is seen by Peter, James, and John. In Jesus, we see not another Moses, not another Elijah, we don’t see simply another prophet or king though He is definitely those things. In Jesus we see the fullness of God’s glory pouring out because He is God! Hebrews 1:3 says of Him: “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” I love how Tim Keller describes the Mount of Transfiguration. Keller says, “There’s a mountain, a voice out of a cloud- and even Moses makes an appearance. Is this Mount Sinai all over again? No, because there’s a head-snapping twist. Moses had reflected the glory of God as the moon reflects the light of the sun. But Jesus produces the unsurpassable glory of God; it emanates from Him. Jesus does not point to the glory of God as Elijah, Moses, and every other prophet has done; Jesus IS the glory of God in human form.” In Jesus we see that He is not just another prophet in a line of prophets or another priest in a line of priests. We see that Jesus is everything and more than what all the other saints of the Old Testament were pointing ahead to. In this moment we see Jesus offering that which was impossible to possess solely by good works and we see how Jesus stands above and beyond every other religion. In every other religion you see someone that is either simply reflecting or pointing to the glory of the god of that religion or the god is a distant god that does not bring that glory in a personal way to others. Jesus does not just possess the glory of God, He brings the glory of God to us. That which we were unable to come near to due to our sinful state, He brings to us. What Jesus offers, we cannot get from anywhere else. As Moses and Elijah speak to Jesus about what He is going to accomplish in Jerusalem, we are reminded of the fact that what He came to accomplish, we are powerless to accomplish on our own. All of Scripture points to the fact that we need a redeemer. All of Scripture points to the fact that only God can rescue His people. All of Scripture points to the reality that the world is full of sin and man is full of sin and only God can rescue from the consequences of those sins. The Gospel is not a new message that is found in the New Testament, it is the the message of the entire Bible! G.C. Berkouwer said, “It is true of the Old Testament, no less than of the New, that the person and work of the Redeemer are inseparably united. And page after page witnesses to the fact that salvation cannot arise from human flesh and blood but only by an opening of the heavens and the descent of God. It is he who must act to save and salvation will be his work alone. Salvation is not from man, not even the Israelitish man, but from the mercy of God. In that message the contours of the absolute salvation become visible—a salvation coming to the fore squarely centered in the message of God’s spotless sanctity; it is the message that his people, once saved, will live in his presence, and that he will remove their sins as a vapor and make their scarlet sins as white as snow.” In the Mount of Transfiguration, we see the glory of the Redeemer and we also see the mercy and grace of the savior. While the Mount of Transfiguration is full of things that we could not imagine and things that seem similar to other moments in Scripture but there is something that happens in this moment that Moses, Elijah, and so many others could not have even imagined in their own lifetimes. What happens to Peter, James, and John that did not happen to Moses and Elijah? They see the face of the glory of God and instead of dropping dead on the spot, they live to tell the tale. That never happened before! What does this show us? It shows us that in many ways, Christ’s glory is a shared glory in the way that His people will see His glory!

Shared Glory

There is so much in this passage that we didn’t have time to look at and that includes Peter’s panicked response in verses 4 and 5 but what I want you to notice is that these three disciples were able to see the glory of God in Jesus Christ and were not killed for what they saw or killed for their fear and brashness. Instead, the glory of God and the voice of God comes and declares His love for the Son and tells us what we must do. We must listen to Christ! Because it is only through Christ where we can share in the glory and as we see in the ongoing lives of these apostles, there is a glimpse of resurrection glory that is to come. They see the glory of Christ and they walk and talk with Christ! This is something that every believer will possess one day! That which we have really longed for all of our lives will finally happen! We will experience true glory and true worship! C.S. Lewis said, “The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last then our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy but the truest index of our real situation. At present we are outside of the world, the wrong side of the door but all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.” In these verses we see the answer to every longing heart. We see that which was missing all our lives and we see that which is offered to us: Absolute love and acceptance not on the basis of our own glory and righteousness but entirely because of His glory and righteousness. Are you ready to take part in this glory? Are you ready to experience and share in the glory of God because God is the ultimate prize. He is the ultimate possession. He is that which you have longed for and He is that which makes our lives worth it. He is the only thing that makes our lives worth it! You were created to glorify Him. You were created to magnify the name of Jesus and to worship Him forever. Are you doing that now? We’ll end with this quote from Jonathan Edwards: “God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.” Let’s pray.