Luke 9:28-36 | Two Sons in One: The Transfiguration of Christ, Part 1 of 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (78)

Timber, Tough and Tender

I recently rediscovered a show I hadn’t seen in a while: Alone.  It’s a show where people go out into the wilderness and try to survive by themselves as long as possible, and the last person standing wins.  At the beginning you’re introduced to the ten contestants and you get to know some of their backgrounds.  My favorite contestant in the most recent season was a guy named “Timber.”  He’s a smallish, unassuming, regular looking guy from Indiana.  But as the season goes along, you learn that he’s super smart and knows a ton about how to survive in the wilderness.  You learn that he’s one tough cookie but also has a tender and big heart for his family and for serving the less fortunate around the world.  You also learn that his life was radically changed by the love of God.

When you first meet Timber, you don’t know all this and you may not think much of him.  But as the show unfolds, you realize there’s more to him than meets the eye.

More than Meets the Eye

And so it is with Jesus.  Many people think that Jesus was a good teacher, healer, miracle worker, or the  founder of a religion.  Many believers like to think of him as meek and mild, as a compassionate friend who’ll always be by their side.  And indeed he is.

But there’s more to Jesus than meets the eye.  Even the first followers of Jesus struggled to understand who he is.  After Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples ask, “Who is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” (Lk. 8:25)  People who didn’t like Jesus, the religious leaders, after Jesus healed someone and forgave their sins, said, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies?  Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (5:21) Other people like Herod were curious about Jesus because they’d heard about his miracles.  Herod was told that some say Jesus is a resurrected John the Baptist or prophet or Elijah (9:7-9).  Popular opinion about Jesus was all over the place.

Jesus was seen by many people, but the most important things about him were missed.  This is why Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (9:20)  And Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, “The Christ of God” (v. 20).  Finally, the disciples were starting to get it.

As you may remember, when we left off our study of Luke’s Gospel, right after Peter makes this confession, Jesus tells his disciples that he’s going to suffer and die (vv. 21-22).  Then he tells them to prepare for a life of self-denial if they still want to follow him (vv. 23-25).

Jesus’ disciples believe that he’s the Messiah, but then they’re told he’s going to die and they’re going to suffer.  These two things couldn’t compute in their brains.  How could the promised King who’s supposed to defeat their enemies come and be defeated?  And if he was the King, why do his followers need to prepare to suffer?  Jesus was an enigmatic figure, leaving his followers downright perplexed about who he was.

The Importance of the Transfiguration

This brings us to our text for today (9:28-36), and what’s called the transfiguration of Christ.  This event is often overlooked and its importance minimized.  We talk about Jesus’ miracles, teaching, healing, exorcisms, death, resurrection, ascension, and return one day.  But we don’t talk much about his transfiguration.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the event.  John doesn’t mention it, but he seems to refer to it when he says things like, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (Jn. 1:14).  And, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (v. 18).  And Peter mentions the event in his second letter (2 Pet. 1:16-18).

This event may not be talked about much nowadays, but it left an indelible mark on those who experienced it firsthand: Peter, James, and John.

The What of the Transfiguration

The event itself is very straightforward.  Jesus takes three of his disciples up a mountain where his figure is transformed: his face shines, his clothes turn bright white, Moses and Elijah appear with him, a cloud descends, and a voice from heaven declares that Jesus is God’s beloved Son.

But what is actually happening here?  It’s rather simple: Jesus’s true identity is being revealed.  As we’ve seen in Luke, people don’t know who Jesus is.  At the transfiguration, God shows and says, “This is who Jesus is.  He’s my Messiah and my Son.”

At the heart of the transfiguration is a revelation of Jesus’ double sonship.  Jesus is God’s earthly and heavenly Son.  We see two things at once: the future glory of the earthly and suffering messianic Son, and we see the preexistent glory of the heavenly and eternally begotten Son.[1]  I’m not saying that there are two Sons, but that, in Jesus, there are two natures.  This event is arguably the clearest picture we have of the two natures of Jesus.  He is truly God and truly man.  The transfiguration teaches us that there’s more than meets the eye with Jesus.

The transfiguration is an amazing event because it looks forward and looks backwards.  There’s anticipation and retrospection.  We see Jesus’ former and future glory.  In the transfiguration, Jesus receives a glory that was already his.  His glory as the Messiah is grounded in his glory as the eternally existing Son.  New Testament scholar Patrick Schreiner says it this way, “The transfiguration is both an indication of what is to come and an unveiling of what was – a preview of future glory and a sign of preexistence.”[2]  In the transfiguration, Jesus displays his inherent glory and receives glory from the Father (cf. Jn. 17:5).

Now that I’ve given you my conclusion about what this event is all about, I want to show you how I got there.  Following the outline of Schreiner’s book on the Transfiguration, I want to show you the double sonship of Jesus by looking at the setting, the signs, and the sayings in this text.  We’ll get through the setting today and look at the signs and sayings next week.

The Setting

First, let’s consider the setting of the transfiguration and see what it has to teach us.  The setting isn’t merely window dressing for the story but actually helps tell the story.  There are three parts of the setting I want us to look at and they’re all mentioned in verse 28: the timestamp, the mountain, and the witnesses.

The Timestamp

First, the timestamp.  Verse 28, “Now about eight days after these sayings…” (it’s six days in Matthew and Mark).  This timestamp is important because it reveals Jesus’ double sonship by linking him to several key texts in the Old Testament.

First, it links Jesus to the Son of Man figure from Daniel 7.  In verses 26-27, Jesus alludes to a passage in Daniel that talks about a Son of Man who’s given glory and a kingdom from God and worshipped by all people (7:13-14).  He says that some with him won’t die until they see this take place.  The timestamp signifies that what happens next is a fulfillment of that prediction.  In the transfiguration, the Son of Man receives glory and honor in the present as a preview of his later exaltation.

The second way the timestamp reveals Jesus’ double sonship is by linking Jesus to Moses who ascended Mount Sinai after six days in Exodus 24.  The glory cloud covered the mountain for six days, and on the seventh day Moses was called up to meet with God (Ex. 24:16-18).

Likewise, Jesus is called up a mountain, into a glory cloud, with three individuals, his face shines, a voice speaks, the witnesses are terrified, and when he comes down the mountain he finds a faithless generation.

The allusion to Moses on Mount Sinai is confirmed by Moses showing up and talking with Jesus (Lk. 9:30-31).  Only Luke records the minutes of the meeting between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  The topic of conversation was Jesus’ “departure,” literally his exodus.  Jesus will lead a new exodus of God’s people out of bondage and to a promised land.  Jesus is the new Moses.

But Jesus is also greater than Moses.  Like Peter, James, and John, Moses was a spectator of the glory of God.  He, like them, traveled up the mountain to meet with God.  Jesus, therefore, isn’t just a new Moses, but is himself the revelation of what Moses saw on the mountain – God himself.  Schreiner says, “Moses’ light was borrowed; Jesus’ glory was unborrowed.  Jesus is not a mirror of divine glory but the manifestation of it.  He is light from light, God from God.”[3]

The glory that settled on Mount Sinai also settles on the Mount of Transfiguration, and Moses finally sees clearly what he wanted to see long ago.

The third way the timestamp reveals Jesus’ double sonship is by reminding us of the creation narrative in Genesis.  God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day.  The eighth day of creation was understood by Jews as the beginning of the new creation.  This is why God commanded the boys to be circumcised on the eighth day (Gen. 17:12).

The eighth day came to signify a coming age, an eternal day not measured in hours, a day that never ends.  Eighth day imagery symbolized the renewal and recreation of the cosmos.

So it’s not an accident that Jesus was transfigured “about eight days” later.  His transfiguration was a trailer for the new creation, revealing God’s end-time purposes for his creation.  Schreiner says, “The same light that emanates from Jesus will transfigure the cosmos.”[4]

This is why Jesus says in verse 27 that some of the disciples will receive a preview of “the kingdom of God.”  The transfiguration is like an appetizer, preparing the disciples for the main course of the fulfillment of the garden story that began in Genesis and ends with radiant light in the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21:10-11).  The transfiguration has cosmological undertones: Jesus is the one who’ll bring in a new creation.

To summarize: the timestamp reveals Jesus’ double sonship, or that he’s both the Messiah and the eternal Son of God.  It links him to several key texts in the Old Testament, showing us that he’s the Son of Man from Daniel 7, the new and greater Moses who ascends the mountain, and the one who brings in the new creation.

The Mountain

Next, notice that the transfiguration took place “on the mountain” (v. 28).  What does this detail show us about the nature of this event?

We aren’t told what mountain, probably on purpose so that the mountain setting can serve as a symbol for all the mountains of the Bible.  So many big things happen on mountains in the Bible!  The Bible begins on a mountain, as the garden is described by Ezekiel as the holy mountain of God (28:13-14).  God starts over with Noah on Mount Ararat (Gen. 8:4).  God meets Abraham on Mount Moriah when he tells him to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen. 22:2, 14).  Moses finds the burning bush on Mount Horeb, also called Mount Sinai, and God promises to bring his people back to that mountain, and is the mountain where Moses meets God in the glory cloud (Ex. 3:1, 12, 19:18, 24:15).  The prophet Elijah also goes to Mount Horeb and hears from God (1 Kgs. 19:8-12).  On Mount Zion (likely the same mountain as Mount Moriah), Solomon dedicates the new temple (1 Kgs. 8), and is where God installs his king, his Son (Ps. 2:6-7).  Isaiah says that the mountain of the Lord will be the highest of the mountains and all the nations will come to it (2:2-3).  God brings Ezekiel to a high mountain and shows him the future temple (40:2; 43:12).  In Daniel, a stone strikes a statue and becomes a great mountain that fills the whole earth (2:35).  Micah, like Isaiah, prophesies that in the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established at the top of the mountains and many nations will come to it (4:1-2).

Mountains are a major part of God’s story for the world.  Why would God make mountains so important?  Because they’re places where heaven and earth meet.  This is why theophanies, or revelations of God, often occur on mountains.

Do you see how that shapes our understanding of what’s happening on the Mount of Transfiguration?  Jesus is both the one who goes up the mountain as a man and the one who comes down onto the mountain as God.  He’s the God-Man who ascends and descends.  The mountain is part of this event to show us that Jesus both brings us to God and is God himself.

The mountain location shows us that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah who leads God’s people up the mountain, that he’s the messianic Son.  But it also reveals Jesus as God’s eternal Son.  The disciples go up and see God.  They see heaven and earth meet.

On this mountain, God and humanity dwell together in Christ.  The mountain isn’t an inconsequential location marker but reveals the meaning of what’s happening here.

The Witnesses

The final part of the setting to see is the three witnesses.  In all three Gospel accounts, Jesus takes three spectators with him up the mountain: Peter, John, and James (v. 28).

Why does Jesus only take three disciples with him, and why these three?  Some say the others weren’t ready for this sort of revelation.  It seems better to say that Jesus took these three because they’d be uniquely involved in his death and so they could serve as witnesses.

In love, Jesus wanted to prepare his inner circle for the upcoming scandal of his death.  These three are the same ones Jesus took with him to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt. 26:37).  This means that Jesus took with him those who’d be with him in his darkest hour.  He wanted them to see the glory of his future kingdom before the darkness of his death came.  Schreiner says, “Jesus gave the greatest encouragement to those who would experience the greatest sorrow.”[5]

But they’re also there to serve as witnesses to the event so that it could be established by two or three witnesses.  Peter and John wrote about this event later (Jn. 1:14-18, 2 Pet. 1:17-18).

This event was unforgettable for these three men for many reasons, not least of which because it was terrifying (v. 34, Mt. 17:6, Mk. 9:4).  Matthew even says that when they heard the voice, “they fell face down to the ground” (17:6).  In the Old Testament, falling on your face happened when you saw God (eg. Gen. 17:3, 17).  The posture of the disciples tells us that they’re not merely in the presence of an anointed Messiah; they’re in the presence of God.

These three men, like Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu in Exodus (24:9), go up the mountain to witness the glory of God because they’ll be instrumental in carrying forward Jesus’ messianic work.  Their response, falling face down, indicates that they perceive Jesus as more than a mere Messiah, but as God himself.

The setting of the transfiguration by itself doesn’t prove that Jesus’s double sonship is being revealed, but the timestamp, mountain, and witnesses are highly suggestive.  Jesus’ double glory will be revealed more and more as the event unfolds.

Hope in Dark Times

It’s no accident that the transfiguration happens when it does.  People are confused about who Jesus is.  The disciples are just learning that Jesus will die and they don’t know what to do with that.  So, in grace, Jesus shows them his glory so that they know that the darkness doesn’t win.

There’s a simple yet profound point for us to take from this.  No matter what’s going on, no matter how much confusion or darkness we face, Jesus’ glory gives us hope in dark times.

Maybe you have a big decision to make, a broken relationship to address, sin that persists, financial strain, job insecurity, parenting and marriage struggles.  In all these things, there’s hope.  The glory of Jesus is available to you, and the glory of Jesus is our hope.

His glory shined brightly on the Mount of Transfiguration.  The good news is that we can share in this glory if we see his glory on another mountain, Golgotha, the hill Jesus died on.

We have to remember that the transfigured Jesus on the mountain is the same as the disfigured Jesus on the cross.  In the transfiguration, Jesus’ clothes are bright like lightning; at his crucifixion, they’re soaked in blood and divided among wicked men.  On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus is surrounded by Moses and Elijah; on Golgotha, he hangs between two criminals.  In the transfiguration, he’s enveloped in the cloud of God’s presence; on the cross, he experiences utter darkness.  In the transfiguration, he experiences the voice of his Father’s delight; on the cross, he’s forsaken by the Father for us.

The transfiguration shows us the double glory of Jesus that’s obvious for those looking on.  But on the cross, his glory shines in a way that’s hard to perceive at first, but once you understand that he climbed that mountain for you, it’s an utterly breathtaking view.  John Calvin says it this way:

“For in the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theater, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world.  The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross…If it be objected that nothing could be less glorious that Christ’s death…I reply that in that death we see a boundless glory which is concealed from the ungodly.”[6]

If you want to taste the glory of the transfiguration, you have to first see the glory of the cross.  Do you see the “boundless glory” of Jesus’ death for you?

[1]Patrick Schreiner, The Transfiguration of Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Reading (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024), 4.

[2]Ibid., 7, emphasis his.

[3]Ibid., 36.

[4]Ibid., 38.

[5]Ibid., 46.

[6]Quoted in Mike McKinley, Luke 1-12 For You (The Good Book Company, 2016), 137-8.