Let’s now turn over to the gospel of Luke, chapter 9, and we’ll continue reading through God’s Word. Luke chapter 9, starting in verse 28. That’s found on page 867 in the pew Bibles.
If you’ve been with us on Sunday evenings we’ve been working our way through the gospel of Luke for the last several months, and this is the passage where we stopped a few weeks ago, so we pick up here because it dovetails nicely into a mini-series that we will be doing for these first three weeks in the month of July.
A few years ago, I taught a Sunday school series on the topic of Christology, based on the questions and answers of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Now I know for a lot of people, they hear words like “Christology” and “catechism” and they start to zone out and maybe think about getting another cup of coffee, but stick with me. In that series that I taught, I purposefully did not mention those two words until the very end of the series so that people, hopefully, would grasp the relevance of the study of Christ and of the deep truths of the questions and answers of the catechism to the relevance of the Christian life. And I hope we’ll see the same thing these next few weeks as we study who Christ is, particularly thinking about what the catechism says in question 23 because question 23 reminds us that “Christ, as our Redeemer, executes the offices of a prophet, a priest, and a king, both in His estate of His humiliation and exaltation.” A prophet, a priest, and a king – that’s what we are going to do over the next three weeks. We are going to look at how Jesus fulfills the role of prophet, the role of a priest, and the role of a king. I’ll be covering that prophet passage this morning for us, and David Felker will help us as we look to Jesus as the priest next week, and then Ligon Duncan will be here in three weeks to preach on Jesus as the king in His work of salvation.
And what we see as we take all of those together, that Jesus is a perfect Savior. He is the only Savior. He is sufficient to meet our every need. Jesus reveals the truth and He shows us the way of God. Jesus covers our sin and our shame and our guilt. He cleanses us from the stain of guilt and shame and He reigns, He rules, He governs with justice and righteousness and peace. Jesus as the prophet, the priest, and the king is the one whom we so desperately need and the one in whom we find that which is desperately lacking anywhere else that we would look.
So today we are going to start with Jesus as the prophet who was to come, the one who reveals the fullness of God’s way of salvation. But even as we do that, we need to be careful. Let me just say these few words before we read this passage. Be careful as we think about Jesus as prophet, priest and king because, as we think about Jesus as the prophet, there were many in Jesus’ day who recognized Jesus as a prophet and yet they dismissed Him. In fact, there are many in our own day who believe that Jesus was a prophet, that He was born of Mary, that He worked miracles, and yet that He was not God, He was not the Son of God. And that’s what we find in the Koran, among those who are of the faith of Islam. And there are others, even, who think of Jesus as a respected teacher who had a nice message that someone we should listen to, but not trust and give our lives to. In fact, Louis Berkhof says that this is the only office, the office of prophet is the only office that is held for Christ among liberal theology. So it’s common to think about Jesus as a prophet. What we need to recognize is that Jesus is not just a prophet. Jesus is prophet, priest and king. Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah. He is God the Son. He is the only Savior of God’s people.
So let’s give our attention to this passage in Luke’s gospel where we see this so clearly, and yet mysteriously; the uniqueness and the glory of Jesus Christ. Let’s pray before we read this passage.
Our Father, we come before You this morning and we ask for Your wisdom and Your help. We come to a passage that really goes beyond anything that we could understand or imagine, and yet we need to see and to recognize and to remember the glory of our Savior Jesus as we seek to live with hope and faithfulness and obedience in this world that is so badly broken by the fall in our own lives that are so polluted by sin. And so we ask that You would help us to see Jesus this morning, that You would speak with power through Your Word, and help us as we go out to serve You with joy and with wonder. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 9, verse 28:
“Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!’ And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
We read these verses and I think we recognize pretty quickly Peter’s dilemma. We don’t know what to say. Verse 33 says that Peter didn’t know how to respond when he saw this on the mountain. When he saw the glory of Jesus and the appearance of Moses and Elijah he said, “Let’s make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” And Luke adds he did not know what he had said. His comment was off the mark. The better approach, the better way would have been what we find Him doing in verse 36. He’s silent. He’s not speaking there. It says in verse 36, “And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”
I have a neighbor who recently got back from Normandy and the beach, the sight of the WWII invasion on D-Day in 1944. And what he told me about was about the battlefield and about the crosses and the epitaphs and the silence. He said that the silence lent to that place a sobering experience. There was a gravity to what happened there. There was a gravity to that place even. It feels like this passage demands a moment of silence from us, a moment of silence. If we could handle it, if we could let it sink in, the gravity of what is happening here on this mountain; if we could recognize the uniqueness of what happens and what is described here in these few verses. We read just a few minutes ago from Exodus and 1 Kings and now here from Luke’s gospel. You can see something of the significance of the event as we hear these different occasions throughout the Scripture of God meeting His people on the mountain. I remember a sermon series several years ago, it was a pastor that was actually filling in for our pastor in Memphis and he did a four-week series during the summer and his series was, “Moses on the Mountain,” “Elijah on the Mountain,” “Jesus on the Mountain,” and then, “Moses, Elijah and Jesus on the Mountain.” These are special occasions that happen throughout Scripture where we see God meeting and having a special word for His people, for His servants, on the mountain.
There is a weightiness, a deep significance to this passage that we come to in Luke chapter 9 this morning. There is nothing like this in Jesus’ life so far. Nothing compares to what we find in these 8 verses. What we find elsewhere or what we find – the hymn that we sometimes sing at Christmastime – that, “Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love’s sake becamest poor. Thrones for a manger did surrender, sapphire-paved courts for stable floor. Thou who art God beyond all praising, all for love’s sake becamest man.” That’s the message of the gospel up to this point. So far in the gospel, the portrait that we have of Jesus is one who is born in absolute obscurity and shame even, and He was laid in a lowly feeding trough and He was raised in poverty, He was brought up in insignificance in the insignificant little town of Nazareth. There is an anonymity to Jesus’ life, all the way up until He is about 30 years of age. Jesus is one who experiences hunger and fatigue and mockery and rejection.
And now, in this gospel, in this part of the gospel, He has begun to speak about even His death. Verse 22 of this chapter says that, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed.” Yes, Jesus has demonstrated amazing authority and power in His wonders and in His teaching, He has calmed the storms, He has raised the dead, but He has done all of that with a remarkable weakness and humility. And then there’s this. In fact, that’s what makes this section, this passage so prominent in this gospel. This is a turning point in Luke’s story about Jesus. The shadow of the cross is already cast over Jesus. He is about to set His face to go to Jerusalem where He will meet His greatest suffering and humiliation and shame and death and take the wrath of His Father.
Did you notice in verse 31 that when Moses and Elijah are speaking with Jesus, what are they talking about? It says that they “appeared in glory and spoke of His departure.” The Greek word there is literally, “exodus.” They were speaking to Jesus of His exodus. And we get a hint there that this is bigger than just His death. His death is bigger than just dying. His death means that He is the Passover Lamb, He is the one who will take the wrath of God in order to set His people free from the bondage of sin and death. And this is the burden that is placed on Jesus at this moment. This is the weight that He carried on His shoulder.
And it’s at this crucial moment that He takes Peter and John and James and He goes up on this mountain to pray. And while they are up on the mountain, it says in verse 29, “as He was praying, the appearance of His face was altered, and His clothing became dazzling white.” There’s something striking about that, that in this unprecedented moment, this indescribable event, that it’s told to us in just a few words. There is a restraint by Luke as he recounts this part of Jesus’ life and ministry. We’re just told that Jesus, the appearance of His face was altered. His appearance was different. It wasn’t different altogether but it was transformed in some way. The word there is “heteron,” from which we get the prefix, “hetero.” It means, “different.” There’s a sense of otherness or distinctiveness about Jesus’ appearance in this event. He is set apart in His appearance. And His clothes, we are told, became “dazzling white.” Mark, in his gospel in chapter 9, says that His clothes became “radiant, intensely white,” such that no one on earth could bleach them. And if we look at other translations of Luke’s gospel we find that the translators will say that His clothing became “blinding white,” that His clothes were “white and flashing with the brilliance of lightning.” And yet it’s just one sentence that describes this picture of the glory of Jesus Christ, just one sentence.
And I think that the reason that the description of Jesus’ glory is so minimalistic is because His glory transcends all language. There are no words, there are no words that can adequately convey what took place on this mountain. It is beyond what any of us can imagine. And whatever it was like, it left an impression upon these three disciples. It left an impression that could not be taken away from Peter and John and James. In fact, Peter writes in his second letter, in 2 Peter chapter 1, he says that, “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” And we know how John begins his gospel, don’t we? He talks about the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” I think he is referring to this moment where he saw the glory of Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration. They understood something of the great blessing and privilege that was granted to them in being included in this moment in Jesus’ life.
In fact, I think we can say that this glory of Jesus, which is so rare in Luke’s gospel, actually becomes the dominant note as Luke continues to tell us the story of Jesus’ ministry in the book of Acts. You remember that the books of Luke and Acts are really two volumes that Luke is giving to us. It’s a gospel and a sequel. And here we have this rare occasion of Jesus’ glory appearing to His disciples, and yet when we come to the book of Acts we find that His glory takes the dominant note over and over and over again. It’s in Acts chapter 1 that Jesus is ascended into heaven. It says that He was “lifted up and a cloud took Him up out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes.” Stephen, in Acts chapter 7, you remember that he was the first martyr in the church. And as he was about to be martyred, he looked up, and what did he see? He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And there are several times in the book of Acts that we hear the report of what Paul saw. What changed his life on the road to Damascus? He saw the blinding light and a voice from heaven and a vision of the resurrected Jesus.
All of those descriptions are descriptions of the risen and ascended Jesus Christ. And yet here, in Luke chapter 9, we see that Jesus displays that same glory, which is His, which is His from all of eternity, and yet it is that glory which has been veiled up to this point. This is just a glimpse. It’s a fleeting moment. I love what some have said about this event. It’s been said that, “A brilliance overtook them as if through a fold in heaven.” And that this is “a glimpse of eternity while time was still running.” This is a glimpse of heaven on earth before the Lord’s return. “Let’s keep it this way. Let’s stay here like this, not the way of suffering and rejection and death, but the way of wonder and glory and majesty.” That’s what Peter is saying, you see. Peter wants to keep it like this and he says, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let’s build three tents, one for You and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” But Luke tells us he didn’t know what he was saying. Jesus isn’t the same as Moses and Elijah. And Jesus’ glory can’t be contained just on this mountain. Jesus’ glory can’t be contained in tents or booths or tabernacles or whatever it was that Peter had in mind. For all the glory that he sees, for all the glory that Peter has seen right here, Jesus is actually far greater than he recognizes at this point in his life.
And as he was saying these things, a cloud came and the cloud overshadowed them and a voice came from the cloud and the voice said, “This is My Son, My Chosen One, listen to Him.” Back in Luke chapter 3 we find something similar. Jesus was baptized and He was praying and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him and a voice came from heaven saying, “You are My beloved Son, with You I am well pleased.” Or go even further back into the book of Deuteronomy and what do we find in Deuteronomy chapter 18? Moses says, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from among your brothers. It is to Him you shall listen.” You see, this episode from Luke chapter 9 is an echo of those previous events. And it is a confirmation and a preparation for Jesus. It is a confirmation of His identity. It is a preparation for all that He is about to endure as the Christ, as the Savior of God’s people. Jesus is the one and only Son of God. He is the one who is set apart to accomplish God’s work of salvation. He is the one to whom the law and the prophets, Moses and Elijah, had pointed to and anticipated and promised. But He’s also the one who will suffer and die and be raised again in order to accomplish that salvation, in order to fulfill all of God’s promises.
It is, as we come to this passage, it is almost like it is 2 Corinthians 4:17 in reverse. What does 2 Corinthians 4:17 say? It says that, Paul writes that, “This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” What is happening here? It’s as if this momentary display of glory is preparing Jesus for a weight of affliction that nothing can compare to. You see, He’s headed to the cross. And there have been many over the history of the church that have taken note of the striking similarities, or contrasts really, between this event and what happens at the cross. Because it’s here that Jesus is revealed in glory on the mountain, but it’s there that He will be crucified and shamed on the hill of Golgotha. And here, Jesus’ clothing becomes dazzling white. But what happens to His garments at the cross? They cast lots to divide His bloodstained garments. Here, He is joined by Moses and Elijah on the mountain. But on the cross, who are His companions? They are two criminals, crucified justly. Here, there’s light. Then, there’s darkness. While He hears now, “This is My Son, My Chosen One,” what do they say? How do they mock Him at the cross? They say, “If You are the Chosen One, save Yourself.” If He is the Chosen One. And while Peter at this moment wants to stay near, he wants to be close to Jesus, what happens at the time of Jesus’ greatest trial? Peter denies Him and he is nowhere to be found.
The cross, in contrast to this display of glory, is beyond anything that we can imagine in its misery and its horror. And as Jesus, in a broken and sinful world, bears the penalty for sin, He takes on the wrath of God in our place, it is here in that same sinful and broken world that we see a glimpse, a glimpse to the other side of the cross, to the resurrected and ascended Jesus Christ. And we need that. We need that today. We need to have a glimpse of Jesus’ glory. The glimpse that we find here in this passage. We need it if we are going to live in this broken and fallen world with hope because our focus so often, our attention can be on what’s wrong, and there can be lots of things that go wrong. We grow weary, don’t we? We grow weary of conflict and violence. We grow weary of injustice and immorality. The problems that are around us can seem so complicated and beyond anything that we could ever repair. And then there’s our own suffering. And there’s the suffering of those who are closest to us. There’s addiction and depression and cancer, dementia, death. There’s grief. And our own sin. We struggle with pride and lust and bitterness and envy. All too often our hearts are cold and distant from God. These are distressing days, in so many ways, but don’t forget the glory of Jesus. Don’t forget the glory of the one who took on the frailties of human flesh, who subjected Himself to the curse of a fallen creation, and who even suffered the shameful death of the cross in order to bring about the glory of God’s salvation. That’s our hope. This passage shows to us our hope and the glory of Christ.
Did you notice there’s even – in some ways it seems out of place – that as Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah on the mountain, we read the word “glory” two times in these verses. It’s one, associated with Jesus, but also it’s associated with Moses and Elijah. And just as we cannot explain everything about Jesus’ glory in this passage, surely we can’t explain what this was with Moses and Elijah either. And yet isn’t it a glimpse as well of the destiny of God’s people that we will be with Him and we will be like Him in glory? We find elsewhere in Scripture that the whole creation, “the creation itself will be set free from the bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” And even we ourselves who trust in Christ for salvation, “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is and the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.” Our thoughts, our hearts, our imaginations are often too low. They need to be focused again, they need to be gripped by the glory of Jesus much more than they usually are. We need to look up. We need to look up in whatever we are going through to see the glory of Jesus, to wonder in awe at who He is and what He has done for our salvation. That is our hope. That is our joy. That is what causes us to rejoice even in difficult days.
But we also need to hear the message from the mountain, the Word of God. It says, “Listen to Him.” The writer of Hebrews tells us that, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things.” There are so many voices that we could listen to. They are the voices of the news and politics, of social media and advertising. There are competing worldviews, there are self-help experts, there are even our own misplaced desires and affections. And yet we are called to listen to Jesus, to turn and look to Him and to hear Him. Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh. He is the way, the truth and the life. There is no other way to the Father but through Him. What we find is that Jesus is the full revelation of God. He shows us the way of salvation. He shows us the way of life.
How then does Jesus fulfill the role of a prophet in His humiliation and His exaltation? We find it in many different ways. Everything about Jesus prophesies about God and about our salvation. And we see in this glory, this glimpse of His glory, we see something of the holiness of God – that we cannot approach Him and live. We need someone to be our substitute in our place. We need the cross for the forgiveness of sins. In Jesus’ wonders and His miracles, we see again the power of God and His control over all things and His working to make all things new, to restore this creation as God is intending it to be. And at the cross, we find again the holiness of God and the mercy of God together. We find Jesus’ teaching and we are to listen and we are to obey. Jesus tells us that all of Scripture speaks of Him. All of the law and the prophets are the message about Jesus.
So we are called today, as we hear this message from the mountain, to turn again, to commit ourselves to God’s Word, to hear all of it and to look for Christ in all of it and to hear of Him and to learn of Him and to grow in our love and adoration for God and thanksgiving for His salvation that He has accomplished for us in Christ Jesus. And we are called to obey. We are called to humility in this. This is not our way. Oftentimes we must put our own desires out of the way and we must be prepared to stand alone in many ways for the sake of hearing Jesus and obeying His Word. Jesus is our great prophet, the Son of God, the Savior of sinners.
And yet one more thing before we close this passage. You’ll notice, again, a note that we began with. He is not just prophet, but He is prophet, priest and king. We could just as well go to this passage as we hear this call to listen to Him, to hear His prophetic ministry, we could also go to this very same passage and see that Jesus is our priest and that in His exodus, He was the sacrificial lamb. And we could also see that Jesus is our king, that in His glory He is the exalted and risen king who reigns over the kingdom of God. Jesus is our prophet, our priest and our king. Hear Him. “This is My Son, My Chosen One. Listen to Him.”
Let’s pray.
Our Father, we can hardly take in all that we encounter in these few verses, and yet we ask that by Your Spirit You would continue to impress them upon our hearts as You have impressed it upon the hearts of Peter and John and James. And that You would do a work of transforming us by Your grace, that You would grow us in godliness, that we would grow in our faithfulness and obedience to Your Word, and that we would live in hope of glory that You have stored up for us in Christ. We pray that You would now use us in all that we do for Your glory. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.