Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Mark

The Unveiled Son

Mark 9:2-8

 

It must have been very difficult for the Apostles to accept the news that Jesus was going to die.  And even more difficult was going through the reality of it, especially if your name was Peter. He had said, “I will never forsake You,” and yet he denies Christ three times. 

 

And Christ knew how difficult it was going to be so He prepares them for it. They are going to need the strength and endurance to get through it, so Jesus does something for them that only happens once in the New Testament.  He moves their faith to sight. 

 

And even though this event isn’t usually mentioned in any list of miracles, it is perhaps the single greatest miracle recorded on the pages of the New Testament prior to the resurrection. Let’s pick it up in verse 2.

 

Verses 2-8

 

Here we have the visible revelation of the nature of Christ as these three individuals are allowed to see that Jesus is God in the flesh.

 

Now as Jewish men, I am fairly confident that Peter, James and John knew how God had revealed Himself in visible form from time to time.  It always involved some kind of light. 

 

 

At the initiation of the priestly service in Leviticus 9, God appears in light. In Exodus verses 7 to 10, God appears to Israel as light. In Exodus 24 God appears to Moses as light. In Exodus chapter 40 verses 34 and 35, the tabernacle is completed and God appears in the Shekinah glory as light. At Kadesh-Barnea, you remember in Numbers chapter 14 where the children of Israel rebelled against God, again He appears in light.

 

A couple of chapters later in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers at the exposure of the sins of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, God again appear as light. Numbers 16, the same chapter, at the rebellion of Israel against Moses and Aaron, God appears. In Numbers chapter 20 God appears as light at Meribah where Israel was thirsty. And then when the temple was completed, it is recorded in 1 Kings chapter 8 verse 11 that the glory of God descended on the place. And God was there in His blazing glory in 2 Chronicles 7:1 when the first offering was made in the temple.

 

Habakkuk, the prophet, saw a future day of full glory when “The earth shall be filled with a knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

 

So at some point in the future, God’s glory will literally cover the planet. But until then, all we see and know of God’s glory is partial.  You remember that God said to Moses, “No man can see My face and live,” Exodus 33? “So I’ll show you My back parts.” Moses said, “If You don’t show me Your glory, I’m not going to lead this people.” God says, “I’ll show you My back parts.” Tucked him in a rock and gave him a small glimpse of His glory because the full glory would have consumed him.

Now just because the revelations and appearances of God’s glory are partial and veiled doesn’t mean they are less stunning or divine.  In fact, it magnifies the power and glory of His presence that it must be veiled to be viewed. 

 

And without exception, those appearances are reminders that God wants us to know Him and be involved within.  And I don’t think there is any place in Scripture where God reveals Himself as fully as He does here with Peter, James and John.

 

This is unlike any other experience anybody has ever had and it totally changed these men. Peter wrote, “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” He said, “We don’t follow cunningly devised fables when we speak unto you concerning Christ. We’re not giving you some kind of fairy story, some kind of deception. We’re not giving you some old wives tale here, we saw His majesty.”  When Peter? It was when we were with Him in the holy mount, 2 Peter 1:16 to 18.

 

John says, “What we write unto you concerning the Word of Life, we’ve seen, we’ve touched, our hands have handled. He’s been manifest to us.” John even says, that’s 1 John, in John 1:14, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of God.” We saw it!

 

Matthew records this, chapter 17. Luke records this, chapter 9. Mark records this because this is so very, very important.

 

Let me give it to you in four simple points. 

 

 

 

First,

 

 

verse 2

 

What happens in verses 2-8 is a description of what Jesus says in verse 1.  The promise was that some of the disciples and apostles would see His glory. They would see a preview of the Kingdom glory. They wouldn’t die before they saw it. In fact, it happened just six days later.

 

It would be Peter, James and John who were blessed to be there when it happened. These guys are the inner circle, His most intimate friends. James and John are brothers, Peter’s the leader. They’re very close to Christ.

 

So why did He take three? Deuteronomy says that truth is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses. Matthew 18:16 says when you’re dealing with people’s sins in the church, you confirm their response in the mouth of two or three witnesses.

 

In 2 Corinthians 13:1, Paul says, “When I come to you, the Corinthian church, and I’m going to deal with the people who are there, I’m not going to go willy-nilly through the church but I am going to confirm sin before I deal with it and it will be confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses.”

 

In 1 Timothy 5 it tells us that before an elder is rebuked, the sin of which he is accused bust be confirmed by two or three witnesses. 

 

So the proper number of eyewitnesses to confirm the truth, scripturally speaking, is three and in this case it is the three most trustworthy, most intimate of Christ’s followers.

 

So He brings them up into a high mountain by themselves. Which mountain was it? It was the Mount of Transfiguration but beyond that we don’t know for sure. 

 

We are only told it was a high mountain.  They are in Caesarea Philippi and the highest mountain of that area would be Mount Hermon so that is a possibility.  I guess if God had wanted us to know and it would have been significant, he would have told us.  I think he didn’t tell us to keep the Jews and Catholics from building shrines there. 

 

So wherever they were, Jesus and these three friends and followers are there by themselves and it happens.  The next phrase of verse 2 is perhaps the most understated and yet, most amazing thing human eyes have ever witnessed.  “He was transfigured before them.”

 

In one verb with no adverb or descriptive language included at all, we are told of the transfiguration of Jesus. Luke adds that it happened while Jesus was praying and the disciples were sleeping.  And before we get too critical of them, I would suggest they are emotionally drained from what jesus ahs been telling them.   

 

They’re devastated by news of death and having to bear a cross and die.  This is way more than they can handle and they just shut down and they sleep from sorrow.

And while they’re asleep and Jesus prays alone, He was transfigured before them. The word is the word from which we get our word metamorphosis. His physical appearance changed before their very eyes. 

 

Nothing changed on the inside.  After all, He’s God. But the outside changed. He literally morphed into something different.  The word is used four times in the New Testament and always means a radical transformation. It’s used here and in Matthew 17:2 to describe what happened to Jesus in the transfiguration. 

 

Then in Romans 12:2 it says as believers we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And in 2 Corinthians 3:18, that great verse, it says that if we gaze at the glory of the Lord, we will be transformed into His image from one level of glory to the next by the Holy Spirit. So we’re talking about a radical kind of transformation.

 

More specifics are found in verse 3

 

“His garments became radiant.” The description is of something like glitter reflecting back the blazing sun at high noon.  It is blazing white.   

 

And then Mark puts it in very practical, understandable terms.  He says, “His garments became radiant and exceeding white as no laundry can produce.” 

 

This is unbelievable whiteness.  Now Jesus had always possessed that glory but kept it veiled until this moment.  This is the glory that one day will be fully revealed,  but it had always been contained until now. 

Now these are Jewish men who knew their Old Testament. They knew that when God showed up, He showed up as light. And here stands Jesus shining like the sun.  He still has the appearance of a human, but the blazing glory of God is overwhelming his humanity to show His deity. 

 

And if that weren’t enough to take in, about that time Moses and Elijah show up! Let’s call that

 

 

Verse 4

 

Wouldn’t you like to have heard that conversation?  

What were they saying? I’ll tell you exactly what they were saying. You say, “How do you know what they were saying? I read it in my Bible!

 

I have never had a vision.  I married one, but I haven’t had one. I don’t have to rely on visions to know what’s going on.  I read my Bible. 

 

Luke 9:30-31

 

They’re talking about His death. I suppose the disciples might have thought they would be talking about the Kingdom and the glory and the overthrow of the Romans and the establishment of the Messiah’s throne over the whole earth. But they’re not.

 

They’re talking about His death because that’s what the transfiguration event is intended to communicate to the disciples.  Jesus is going to die and they’ll see it happen.  They’ll take His body down from a cross and place it in a tomb. 

But none of that will change or negate or end what they’re seeing on top of this mountain!

Here are Moses and Elijah talking about the death of the Messiah. Moses is the greatest leader in Israel’s history, rescuer of the nation from captivity, its greatest general.  He was the author of the Pentateuch, the agent by which God gave His holy Law. He’s the greatest.

 

If you’re going to have somebody give testimony to the fact that the Messiah needs to die, you couldn’t get a better witness than Moses, unless it was Elijah. He could stand with Moses because he fought against every violation of that law. He battled the nation’s idolatry and he battled it with great courage and words of judgment and he validated his preaching with miracles. There are only two miracle eras in the Old Testament, the time of Moses and the time of Elijah.

 

There was no law giver like Moses and there was no prophet like Elijah. Moses gave the Law, Elijah was His greatest guardian. Here are the most trustworthy eyewitnesses. No one could bring the apostles more assurance and confidence that the death of Jesus was in the plan than to hear it from Moses and Elijah, the very men that they look to as the heroes of the Old Testament faith.

 

So this is in the plan. And here they are, in glory, confirming the glory to come talking about Jesus’ death. So you have it all there. His death is a part of it, but His glory is coming. And they actually appear, I just read, “In glory,” in some form like Christ. That shouldn’t surprise you because we’re going to have a body like unto His glorious body. That was a glimpse there.

Well, Peter, of course, has to talk. And in verse 5 we see

 

 

Verse 5 

 

Now you would think after the last thing he said he would have kept his mouth shut when he rebuked the Lord for saying He was going to die and Jesus said, “Get behind Me, Satan.” That would scare the life out of me.

 

But he blurts out again, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.” Well I understand that. Matthew says he called Him Lord, Luke says he called Him Master. I think he went, “Lord, Master, Rabbi,” self-deprecating, you know, doing everything he could, picking every good word he could to not do what he did the previous time. Be as respectful as possible. “It’s good for us to be here.”

 

“I have a great idea. Let’s make three tabernacles. One for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Why did he say that? Verse 6, “He didn’t know what to answer for they became terrified.”

 

Obviously he was a Baptist!  He didn’t know what else to do, so he suggested they start a building program!  Can I make a suggestion? If you don’t know what to say, keep your  mouth shut! 

 

Holy fear is mixed with stunning, exhilarating wonder at the most divine and incomprehensible experience of their lives. But what’s running through his mind still is, this problem of suffering has got to go away. He’s not giving up on this. He’s a tenacious guy.

So his plan is this, let’s end all this here. We’ll make the tabernacles and we’ll finish off this deal right here and we’ll go right into the Kingdom, this is good...this is good.

 

Moses and Elijah are talking about the cross when Peter interrupts their conversation because he wants to establish the Kingdom on the spot.

 

He hates the idea of death. And the timing is perfect!  The timing of the Transfiguration is during the Feast of Tabernacles which commemorated God leading the Exodus from Egypt. What perfect timing. This is the time we commemorate the Exodus and Moses shows up!  You can’t get better cooperation than that! 

 

We’ve got Moses, we’ve got Elijah, we’ve got Jesus in glory, let’s just have the Exodus out of this corrupt life of bondage into the glorious Kingdom.  Forget all this talk about dying and crosses!

 

So you have the Son’s transformation, the saints association, and then the sleeper’s suggestion, bad suggestion, there’s one more thing,

 

 

Verse 7

 

Suddenly God showed up and took Moses and Elijah away.  “Then a cloud formed.” Guess who showed up? “A cloud formed overshadowing them,” Matthew 17:5 says, “A bright cloud and it engulfs Jesus, Moses and Elijah.” They’re engulfed. It symbolizes the Lord’s presence.

Luke says Jesus, Moses and Elijah entered the cloud. They’re all engulfed in the arrival of God. “Then a voice came out of the cloud.” Friends, this is the third witness. Moses is one, Elijah is two, here’s the third witness, “This is My beloved Son,” Luke adds that the voice said, “My chosen One.” Matthew adds, “In whom I am well pleased.” And here comes the Father’s testimony. He says this, “Listen to Him...Listen to Him.

 

Shut your mouth, Peter. That is a very direct rebuke. He has just been rebuked by Jesus and now he gets rebuked by God Himself. “Listen...listen,” listen to what? “Listen to what He has to say about His death. Listen to what He has to say about His death.”

 

The Kingdom will come in its time, listen to what He says about His death. The transfiguration, obviously, is a glimpse of glory, but its main point was to demonstrate that the glory is later and the cross was now. When the disciples heard the voice, says Matthew 17:6, “They fell face down to the ground and were terrified, just flat.” I love this. “Jesus came to them, touched them, said, ‘Get up, don’t be afraid,’” and you go back to Mark, “Tender touch and verse 8 says, “And all at once they looked around, saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone.” Phew.

 

The preview of the Kingdom is gone. Kingdom’s not going to come. The only one left is Jesus and He’s not in glorious form anymore, it’s Jesus alone and He’s on the road to the cross and they will follow. That’s the plan and that’s the message the Apostles preached, didn’t they? They preached Christ, crucified and risen again.

 

Someday, according to Philippians we will appear ourselves in a body like unto His glorious body. Someday we’ll have that experience, but in the meantime, in the meantime, we suffer for the sake of the cross, we suffer for the sake of the gospel because it’s suffering, then glory. They had a hard time with the cross, as you can see. They eventually got the message, but it wasn’t easy and I imagine that when it was hard to handle the suffering, they remembered this experience, the glory will come, and they gave us their witness, “We beheld His glory...We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

 

I’m so thankful that the Lord did not skip the cross, aren’t you? For it was there that He made Him who knew no sin, sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.