Reading:
Matthew 17:1-21
"For
we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made
known unto you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He
received from God the Father honour and glory, when there
came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This
is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. And this
voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were
with Him on the holy mount. And we have the word of
prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye
take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until
the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts" (2
Peter 1:16-19).
That
little clause in the hymn by M. E. Gates that we often
sing might be the title of our present meditations - 'men
whose eyes have seen the King'. Men whose eyes have seen
the King! As we, in that hymn, pray the Lord to send such
men, I am sure we all feel deeply and strongly that that
is the great need of our time. The world needs such men;
the Church needs them; and at all times when the Lord has
had such men, and has sent them forth, the need has been
met - His need and the need of others.
I think
it is the 'seeing of the King' that really sums up this
whole matter of the Transfiguration. That is why the Lord
took the three leaders from the twelve up the mountain,
in order that presently, with that vision made alive with
meaning and power by the Holy Spirit, they might go forth
as men who had seen the King. And what happened? We are
living today in the ever-growing value of that vision.
The Setting Of The Transfiguration
The very
setting in the Word, in both of the places in which the
Transfiguration is referred to, as we have read, is
significant and helpful. As you know, three of the four
Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke - record this matter of
the Transfiguration, indicating, surely, that with these
men this matter was of some particular importance. If
John did not actually record the event, I am not sure
that he passed it over, or did not have it in mind. We
may come to that as we go on. But you will recall that,
at the time of the Transfiguration, things were becoming
increasingly difficult for the Lord. The growing
hostility in all directions was pressing Him in, weighing
heavily upon His spirit, and making His ministry more and
more difficult, more and more limited. The shadow of the
Cross was lengthening on His path. It is of this very
matter that He now speaks frankly to His disciples for
the first time: He speaks frankly about the Cross. The
atmosphere was just charged with a sense of pending
crisis - something is going to happen. It was at that
time, in those conditions, that He took three from the
twelve into the mountain apart, and was transfigured
before them. It had a great relatedness to the situation
which was developing.
In the
case of the many years later, when Peter wrote about the
Transfiguration, we know from his letters something of
the situation. He begins his first letter by addressing
himself to the saints 'scattered throughout Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia' - scattered saints. Perhaps you know what it means to be of the
"scattered" people of the Lord, in distant
places, in lonely places; distance and loneliness
creating their own problems and heart-aches. How things
seem to ease up when we are together! There is such a
sense of fellowship, a sense of life and of joy, when we
are all together. These saints had perhaps known
something of the great 'togetherness' of Jerusalem or
elsewhere, but were now scattered, with all that that
means.
Peter
goes on to speak to them about the 'trial of their faith'
- 'the trial of your faith is more precious than of gold
that perisheth, though it be tried in the fire' (I Peter
1:7). These scattered saints were knowing something of
the 'fire' of tried faith. There is much more in his
letters indicating a not too helpful situation for the
people of God. The key-note to his letters is 'grace';
they needed to know grace. There was opposition; there
was persecution; there were false prophets, false
teachers. And, in that situation, Peter wrote and
introduced this matter of the transfiguration.
This is
significant. There is something for the people of God in
this great matter in days of difficulty and adversity:
indeed, what they and we all need at such times is a new
vision of the King. That, amongst other things, is what
the Lord Jesus meant for that little band of men. The
three were commanded to say nothing about it for the time
being, until He was risen from the dead. Someone has used
his imagination in that connection, as to how difficult
it was for these three men to hold their tongues, and say
nothing about it, even to the others; but then, when He
was risen, how gladly and eagerly they told the others
and everybody of this wonderful experience. It goes to
the heart of everything. If this is true - that is, if
the Transfiguration was true - then anything and
everything in the Bible can be true. If it was not true,
then we can doubt everything. but it was true!
The Significance Of The Transfiguration
You are
aware that the Transfiguration marked the turning-point
in the mission of the Lord Jesus on this earth. He had
gone to the farthest point of His travels north; from
that outermost rim of His ministration, He would
immediately turn about, with face to the south - to
Jerusalem, and to the Cross. A resolute, purposeful,
meaningful decision was reached on the mount; it was a
crisis, a turning-point. We might say that it represented
the very heart of His time here on this earth, if we
could see it. But what did it mean so far as He was
concerned?
(1) Humanity Perfected
I think
it meant two things in one. It certainly represented and
set forth the absolute perfecting of His humanity. Here
He has reached the point of His own personal perfecting
as a Man. This glorifying, this transfiguring, was
Heaven's testimony to His utter and perfect sinlessness
as a Man: that in all respects, whether of Hell's
assaults and temptations and subtleties and efforts, or
men's hatred, malice, trickery and what not, He had
triumphed, completely triumphed. If we were to analyse
it, we should have to look at the word sin. But we
can say this, that the sum of sin, from the beginning in
the garden to the end, is unfaithfulness to God -
a breach of fellowship with God through mistrust. That is
the very core of sin. Everything was concentrated upon
Him, from every realm, if by some means, in some way, a
breach could be made between Him and God. That would be
sin.
But in
His case it never happened. He met it all and triumphed.
The first Adam failed, and all his seed have been
involved - but here is a Man perfected. Humanity that God
intended is here achieved and realized, and is therefore
glorified. So far as He was concerned, that was the first
meaning: Sin, with all its horrible entail, has been
completely defeated in and by this Man; and therefore
death must go. There can be no death, for death is the
result of sin. If Adam had never sinned, he would never
have died. This One never sinned: He could not die - He
could only be glorified!
(2) The Return Of His Glory
There is
another aspect as to its meaning to Him. I think it is
quite clear that the Lord Jesus carried in His heart a
great longing and a prayer for the glory that He once
had. This is where I think John touches this matter very
closely. In the seventeenth chapter of his gospel, he
records that great prayer of the Lord Jesus: 'Father,
glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with Thee
before the world was' (vs. 5). That opens a window and
lets us see that the Lord Jesus had a consciousness of
His eternal glory past: He carried it with Him; He knew
about it - marvellous thought! - and that the
consciousness of that former glory was ever prompting Him
to pray toward, long toward, the day when He would return
to it and it would return to Him. 'Father, glorify Thou
Me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world
was.'
The
Mount of Transfiguration had become an answer to His
heart's prayer and cry and longing - at least a touch of
it. A fleeting touch, but for Him it was one of those
things which perhaps you know a little about in your
Christian life. The Lord just does something - it passes,
but you know by it that you have been heard; you know
that there is sympathy in the Father's heart for your
need and situation. It may only last for a day, or a
night, for an hour, or for a little while, and then pass,
because the end of the road is not yet; the eternal glory
has not yet come; but the touch by the way is something
that carries us on. We know the Lord has heard; we know
the Lord has taken account of that inner cry and longing,
and has given us a token of His sympathy. It was like
that with the Lord Jesus - the answer to His own cry.
(3) The Offset To The Cross
Now, it
is here that the Lord Jesus introduces, in a direct,
frank way, the matter of His Cross. If there had been any
hints before, the apostles and their representative,
Peter, were completely oblivious of those hints; but now,
at this time, the Lord Jesus comes to the matter quite
positively, quite deliberately. Peter rises up as the
spokesman of the others, in rebellion; he will not have
it. But here it is. The Transfiguration was to be the
offset to the Cross for these men, at the time when they
should come to realize that the Cross was not (as they
were then thinking it would be) the end of everything:
shame and failure, reproach, dishonour, and despair. When
they should come to see that the Cross was just the
opposite of all those things, then the Transfiguration
would take a new place, and they would see, as Peter says
in his letter.
If you
will read back in his first letter, you will hear Peter
saying this: "The prophets sought and searched
diligently... what time or what manner of time the Spirit
of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it
testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the
glories that should follow them" (1:10-11). Peter
has got it right now; he has got it round the right way.
First, when he would repudiate the sufferings, he is all
for the glory - he is putting that first. The disciples
were after the glory and were not going to have any of
the sufferings; the Cross was something they would not
hear about or accept. Glory, yes, but not the suffering.
He has got it round the right way now: 'the sufferings,
and the glory that should follow'.
Is that
what Moses and Elijah were talking to the Lord Jesus
about on the Mount? - 'the exodus that He was about to
accomplish at Jerusalem' - the suffering and the glory?
The Transfiguration was the great offset to the
suffering, to the Cross; and it was intended not only for
the Lord Himself. It was intended for these leaders
amongst His servants, that they should have the ground
laid, the foundation put down, upon which presently the
Holy Spirit would alight for seeing that not only the
Cross of Calvary, but all its outworking, were in the
light of the glory, had in view the glory at the end.
These sufferings were toward the glory. They came to see
that later.
You and
I need that message. The message of the Transfiguration
at this particular point is this: It is not now all
'transfiguration'; there is a lot that is of the plain
and of the valley; there is the Cross. You notice that
the Lord Jesus, in speaking of the Cross, said: 'He that
would save his life shall lose it'. There is much of that
to be gone through and experienced. But this is saying
that all that - the Cross, His Cross, and the outworking
of His Cross in the experience of His own servants - is
unto this glorious end, that they shall be glorified
together with Him.
The Issue Of The Transfiguration
We have
to look for the issue of it in the incident that
immediately followed, as they came down from the
mountain. It is full of truth; too full for exhausting at
this time. They came down, and are met by this distracted
father - distracted over his boy, whom (in the original
language) he calls 'my only begotten son'; his one boy.
There are many emotional elements bound up with it, of
course, which we can leave. But here is this father with
his boy, distressed over the situation, and disappointed
over the nine representatives of the Lord Jesus, the
majority of His disciples whom He had left down below. He
describes what is the matter with the boy, what happens
to him, and tells the Lord that, although he had brought
the boy to His disciples, they could not help him or do
anything about it.
(1) An Impotent Church
Here,
surely, in the Holy Spirit's thought in giving these
details, is the suggestion of an impotent church in the
presence of this demon-driven humanity on the plain. It
is representative of a condition in this world and in
humanity. Would it be going too far to say that the
description of this boy's trouble and how it affected him
can be seen in counterpart in the world today? The world
is under the domination of a power with which it cannot
cope; a driving force, driving toward destruction; always
driving toward self-destruction. It cannot help it; it is
mastered by an evil power in this universe, driving,
dominating, frustrating every effort; and in this scene
of humanity's helplessness and need, a Church that does
not know what to do with it, unable to cope.
That
situation can be found in ten thousand things. We are all
up against situations with which we cannot cope. Perhaps
in your assembly, perhaps in your own family, perhaps in
your own self, you meet with forces that are too much,
driving; and it is always in the direction of
self-destruction, of evil, of harm, of hurt, of injury;
toward the fire and the water, to destroy and to quench.
That is a good description of the evil work of the evil
one in human life, and we have this small representation
of it in this boy. Without indulging in unworthy
criticism, and taking account of all the noble sacrifice
and service and labour and toil of the servants of the
Lord, we have, nevertheless, to say that the Lord's
people, very largely and in a great many things, are
impotent in the presence of these forces. The evil powers
are holding the ground; they are defeating and defying
every effort.
It is
quite patent that those nine disciples had made an
effort. 'Why could not we cast it out?' They had
evidently tried and failed. Their effort and labour was
for nought, and the enemy was laughing at them, holding
his ground, while no doubt the critical world around was
very pleased that these disciples were such poor
expressions of their Lord, letting Him down like this.
What is
the issue of the Transfiguration? Surely it is this, that
there must be brought upon these situations an impact of
the exalted and glorified Christ. It is a question of impact!
When I use that word, I am quite sure you will say,
Yes, that is what we need: that is what the Church needs;
that is what local companies need; that is what I need in
my own life - an impact upon situations, upon places.
This is what happened later, did it not? These men who
had come to understand the meaning of the
Transfiguration; these men whose eyes had seen the King -
Jesus, perfected, glorified, exalted, attested by Heaven
- men who had seen Him thus, went everywhere; and what an
impact! Rarely, if ever, did they fail to register on
this earth, in the kingdom of Satan.
(2) The Impact Of The Presence Of
The Lord Jesus
And do
you notice how Peter describes this? "We were
eyewitnesses of His majesty" - His majesty. Is
not the need for the impact of the majesty of the
Lord Jesus upon this earth? It should be. Again, he says:
"We made known unto you the power and presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ...' I am sorry they have not
translated that word thus; they have put 'coming'. Of
course, the word is very frequently related to the coming
again of the Lord Jesus, but the word itself cannot be
isolated to that. The same word is used of the apostles,
when they came into a situation. It is the same
word, whether the 'coming' or the 'presence'. And Peter
describes this as the "power and presence" of
His majesty. Yes, that is the issue. The power,
not as abstract and unrelated, but the power of His
presence in His majesty - that is the holy mount; that is
the high place; that is what the world needs.
Let me
use the word again - 'impact'! If it should be ours to
see the King in His glory; if it should be ours to catch
a fresh glimpse of the glorified Lord, that is going to
answer the cry and the need for impact. And
conversely: there will never be an impact until we have
seen Him as the glorified Lord. He is the answer to every
need, and a vision of Him as exalted and attested by
Heaven will bring new impact into our lives, into our
ministries, into our churches, upon situations. Does not
your heart cry, as mine does, Oh for a recovery of the
Church's impact upon this world! And this is none other
than the impact of the majesty of the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, we
know that that is how it will be when this word is
actually fulfilled by His appearing at the end. When He
comes, He will 'smite the earth with the rod of His
mouth' (Isaiah 11:4). The brightness of His presence will
be devastating to evil. There is no doubt about it that
when that presencing, that 'parousia', takes place, there
will be an impact. We cry for that; we pray for that. But
the word is used not only of that, but in other
connections, on different occasions. The same word,
exactly the same word, as is used for the coming again of
the Lord Jesus, is used of apostles coming into a
situation, or being present there. It is used of the Lord
Jesus too in this motional sense. He came, in
that sense, on the mount of transfiguration; it was His presencing
in glory. Again and again He presenced Himself,
and every time there was impact - all pointing to His
final great presencing in glory. It is
interesting, is it not, that Peter uses for the event on
the mount of transfiguration exactly the same word as he
uses for the coming again of the Lord at the end - the presence
of the Lord.
The Present Need
All
these are statements with which I imagine you will agree,
both as to the significance and as to the issue. But we
need an anticipation of the day of His coming, in the
Church today - now. We need something of the meaning of
that final impact now - His presence in majesty
and in power. What about it? One of the writers who
recorded this event tells us that Jesus went up into the
mountain to pray; 'and as He prayed, the fashion of His
countenance was changed' (Luke 9:29). And when He came
down, the key which He used for that desperate situation
was the key of prayer: 'This kind goeth not out but by
prayer and fasting' (Mark 9:29). What are we to pray for?
What is to be the burden of our prayer in relation to
this matter of impact, recovered power? If you have any
sense of this poor world's distracted condition, and
desperate need, you will not control your praying; you
will not regulate your praying; you will not make prayer
a legal system of 'you must', 'thou shalt...', and so on.
If you are touched, as the Lord was touched, with this
situation and this need, be it in an individual, or in a
company, or in the world, or in the whole Church, the
only thing that you will do - but you will do it - is
pray.
And what
will you pray for? What is it that will answer the need,
the situation; what will touch it?
Now here
is the point of departure. We feel the need; we are aware
of the situation here and there, in this one and that, in
this place and that; and of course, we do pray to the
Lord and ask Him to do something about it; we do that. I
trust I am not saying a wrong thing when I say that too
often it is like the effort of the nine - nothing
happens! The thing goes on, persists and defies you. You
see, the need is not for that kind of prayer. What is
needed is the kind of prayer that brings in the majesty
and the power of Jesus Christ; that is born out
of a mighty apprehension of His glory, of Who He is, what
He has done, where He is, and what He is doing now. That
is what we need to recover.
About
that we have much more to say. But - let us recognize it,
face it, and acknowledge it - what is needed is this: the
secret of bringing the majesty of the Lord into a
situation; putting that power upon it. It is executive;
it is dynamic; it is something which registers, and the
thing is done. Do you not agree with me that that secret
is what we need? And for that, I repeat, we need a new,
mighty mastery, in our inner being, of the greatness of
the Lord Jesus. We all agree that He is great; we will
sing 'How great Thou art!'; we will not reserve or trim
our words about the Lord Jesus in glory: but there is a
gap between that and this situation. That is the tragedy
and that is the problem and the perplexity of it. Heis like that, and yet this is like this, and the two things are not brought together.
Why did
He take those three up? Not simply
because He had a heart that longed for human fellowship.
No! He knew who they were; He knew their future; He knew
the position that Peter was going to take, and He knew
the ministry that John was going to fulfil, right on
beyond the lifetime of all the others. He took them there
with Him with this one object, I believe, in view: that,
in those coming days, when they would meet these
situations on this earth, in this world, they should be
in possession of the secret of His majesty, and that they
should be a link between Him in glory, and this situation
of shame and evil.
Is not
that the vocation of the Church? - to be His link between
Heaven and earth; to be the instrument of the
registration of His Kingdom upon the kingdom of Satan? Is
not that what we are called for? If that is not it, I do
not know what we are for. And if we fail in that, we can
do ten thousand things, and still the enemy will laugh at
us. With all our efforts and expenditure, he still holds
the ground so terribly. Oh, for men whose eyes have seen
the King! To have done so means a tremendous thing in the
life of such men. That we shall see. But here is the
preparation of the way.
Before
we begin to pray over situations, let us pray for a new
vision of the majesty and glory of the Lord Jesus, and
then nothing will be impossible. I believe that is what
was in the thought of the Lord when He said: 'If you have
faith as a grain of mustard seed...' It is not merely
psychological make-believe. If only you have grasped the
smallest meaning of His majesty, anything is
possible; it is so great!