The Transfiguration - Matthew 17:1-13
July 31, 2011

In the past few weeks we've discussed the roles Jesus plays in our life as a prophet, priest, and king. In doing so, we've mentioned that His reasons for fulfilling such offices is to transform His church into a prophetic people, a royal priesthood, and a kingly nation as a testament, praise, and illustration of His glory.

But in addition to these reasons, Christ fulfills these offices for the purpose of doing something far more theological and far more detrimental to you and I in regards to our heavenly statuses: through the fulfilling and satisfying of these offices, Christ achieves three powerful things, as our text reveals:

1. Christ fulfills the law of Moses and satisfies the prophecies of Elijah
2. Christ is transfigured

First, Christ fulfills the law of Moses and satisfies the prophecies of Elijah:
In our text, we have this striking image of Jesus revealing, for the first time, a greater glimpse of his glorious nature and divinity -- his face begins to shine like the sun and his clothes become as white as light.

And in His moment of utmost glory, the voice of God arrives and declares onto Jesus' intimate followers that He is well pleased with His Son and that these followers ought to follow and listen to Jesus.

At the same time, we have the presence of two important Biblical characters: Moses and Elijah -- each character emphasizing a very poignant portion of the Bible. For Moses, Bible-readers will immediately associate him to the Law. For Elijah, Bible-readers will immediately associate him to Prophecy.

In other words, Moses and Elijah depict the way of life for all of Israel up until this moment in time and Peter does a great job illustrating what that way of life is like: Peter's immediate response to this cosmic and divine event is to say that it is good for him to be there and that he ought to erect three tents of worship.

A simpler way to understand the cognition of Peter would be to say that he responds to the presence of God by doing what the law has commanded (consecrating yourself to the Lord to be holy) and doing so ritually for the hope of the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies.
Peter, like most devout Jews of this time, was focused on abiding by the law and living in diligent anticipation of prophetic fulfillments made in the OT.

Yet here, God declares in a most divine way that Peter is not to listen to the law, nor is he to listen and hope in the prophets and prophecies -- he isn't to listen to Moses and he isn't to have faith in Elijah; rather, he is to find the fulfillment of both in Jesus.

This might be a lesson many of us already know but it is a lesson that ought to be heeded over and over again: Because of the work of Christ upon the cross, the very laws that condemned you to hell were satisfied so that any power the law had to condemn you and to place guilt upon you has been relinquished; however, this doesn't mean that you are set free from the law -- you have been freed from the guilt of the law and the power of the law in order to fulfill the law through the freedom gained in Christ Jesus.

And this freedom is to be used to naturally and joyfully heed the law during the time we await the fulfillment of the ultimate prophecy -- not merely the messianic prophecy. This ultimate fulfillment involves your eternal salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven as Sons of God.

What this means is that some of you might be struggling with guilt -- you sin and beat yourself up over the sins you commit; however, you have to remember: someone has already been beaten up because of your sin and this someone has also been crucified for your sins so that you can be free from the guilt of sin. That someone, of course, is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Others of you might have gone to the other extreme and simply don’t get guilty anymore when you sin. Well maybe you need to beat yourself up a little bit -- Paul says in one of his letters that he beats his body down in order to discipline it for the sake of knowing Christ in His suffering. So if you're not or you haven't beaten yourself down in a while for a sin you still commit today without much anguish and contrition, perhaps it is time for you to reevaluate your commitment to Christ in lieu of Paul's challenges.

This also means that what you hope for today is not enough less you are hoping for and hoping in the ultimate fulfillment of the ultimate prophecy: Heaven. This means that despite the tendency of many of us to disregard our future hope and to become lost in the temporal nature of things here-and-now, we ought to and we need to be hoping that much more in the eternal hopes in Jesus Christ.

While some of you may hope for a new job, a new circumstance, finishing school, moving forward in life, etc. your ultimate hope and your greatest hope needs to be in Christ and Christ alone.
You can do this in dealing with people: Jesus says that your aid to a fellow brother or sister in Christ is like aid to Himself -- what do you think it means then if you curse your fellow brother or sister? Indeed, a heart that hopes in Christ versus personal gain is a heart that is committed to aiding and building others up, not sacrificing them for personal gain.

You can do this in dealing with endeavors: Most of you here are students and therefore on a movement towards a future -- yet this future is one that you are crafting on your own, through a diploma and/or through the education you are receiving. If this is the case, then you will ruthlessly protect and preserve this future at any cost -- sometimes, even at the cost of a church or your walk with Christ; I've seen this first-hand from business-owning parents, neglecting their children and neglecting their church.

However a heart hoping in Christ is one that sees the ephemeral nature of such an endeavor and the insignificance this future possesses in light of an eternity spent in heaven -- this heart is willing to work with others, take time away from vocation, and to spend more time investing in family and friends on behalf of their ultimate hope found in Jesus Christ.

You can do this especially during hardship: When struggles and hardship come your way, you have two choices (while the unbelieving world only has one): believe in yourself and how you can change the circumstances or believe in Christ and His redemption of all things to Himself.

If you lose someone close to you, if your family goes through a hard time, if someone you love becomes ill -- all these things find little solace when considered temporally but when you place your faith in the ultimate prophetic fulfillment through the ultimate prophet, Jesus Christ, you realize that in Heaven, these issues no longer exist and, if anything, have been perfectly resolved.

This now brings us to our second point from the passage: Jesus was transfigured. As Jesus was transfigured, despite Peter's first response of works like OT Israel, Peter and the disciples' ultimate response was two-fold and quite different: (1) in verse 6, it says the disciples were full of fear and fell to the ground -- this means they submitted to the voice and command of God. Then, (2) in verse 13, it says that through this entire interaction, they understood a profound and divine truth.

In other words, the transfiguration of Christ transfigured the disciples. And what is most profound about this idea is that the word used here for "transfiguration" is metamorphoō which is where we get the word metamorphosis; however, more importantly, this word is used by Paul in a famous verse found in Romans 12:2 when he says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will."

How did Peter and the disciples become transformed? By the transformation of Christ. How do you and I become transformed, as Paul commissions us to do? By the transformation of Christ -- we are to share in His transformation.

In other words, this entire scenario here, in all its epic nature, is designed for you and for me to experience a transfiguration for ourselves: a transformation of a life that is not bound to the guilt and power of the law and a transformation that is not bound by limited prophecies and hopes in a mysterious future.

Instead, Christ is beckoning His church to undergo a transformation of peace and hope -- peace from the law through His redemption and hope for a glorious future through His elective love.

In Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of his Chronicles of Narnia series, C.S. Lewis writes about how the youngest boy, Edmund, lusts after a great treasure that lays rest in a dragon lair. Long story short, his lust for the treasure starts turning him into a dragon. As Edmund' condition worsens, he begins growing scales of a dragon and only Aslan the king can save him. This is the portion of the story wherein Aslan cures Edmund:

Then the lion said . . . "You will have to let me undress you." I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. . . .
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt—and there it was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again.

Transformation is essential to the Christian life as we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God -- and continue to sin. But more important than transformation's importance is its continual necessity -- we ought to be transforming and reforming, not merely transformed.

How many of you have reached a place in your life where you are no longer transforming? You find that your are wearing the same skin that you've been wearing for years and it is impenetrable -- if that sounds like you, then it sounds like you have the callous scales of a dragon.

And the unfortunate truth is that this callousness has consumed some of us to the point where we no longer feel the necessity to become radically transformed; we just exist and we just are -- but what we are isn't what we used to be: like Edmund, many of us have become dragons who needs the help of the king to become transformed.

In our text, Jesus specifically takes certain people with him to the top of the mountain -- why? Jesus already knows he is holy. He knows he is loved by God and is the fulfillment of the law and of all prophecies. But Peter doesn't. And these disciples don’t. And sometimes, you and I don't either.

Jesus' transfiguration is for you -- he reveals himself in this way so that you would be transformed and transfigured yourselves, by grace, through faith, apart from the law, apart from temporal prophecy, and in, through, and for His glory.