Exodus 33 has long been one of my favorite Old Testament texts. It comes right after a devastating scene where Moses has been on Mount Sinai speaking with the Lord and receiving the Ten Commandments only to come down and find the people of Israel engaging in idolatry, as they’d made the golden calf. Talk about a range of emotions! Moses is speaking with God and receiving his laws one moment only to find that his people have begun violating those very same laws in the next. Then, added to that disappointment, the Lord informs Moses that he is going to destroy the Israelites. But Moses intercedes, and the Lord agrees that he’ll indeed bring his people into the promised land. With the joy of that news, however, comes added disappointment. The Lord will not go with them. He’ll send them into the land, but they’ll go without his presence.
Again, this crushing news causes Moses to intercede, pleading with the Lord to let his presence be with them, noting that without the Lord’s presence, Israel is just like every other nation on the face of the earth. In fact, Moses even declares that if the Lord’s presence will not go with them, he doesn’t want the promised land. To have the promised land without the Lord himself is ultimately no better than dying in the wilderness. And, finally, after Moses continues to plead, the Lord tells him that he will indeed go with him, saying, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name” (Exod 33:17). All the agonizing prayer, pleading, and crying out to the Lord had gloriously paid off.
I picture Moses like an exhausted man, on his face, having wrestled with the Lord in prayer and now left with nothing left to give. Only then, when you least expect it, Moses dares to make one more request. As if God’s promise that he will go with his people, give them the promised land, and give them his promised rest isn’t enough, Moses declares, “Please show me your glory” (33:18)
The question that has arisen in my mind numerous times as I look at this text is, “Why?” Why does Moses ask for this glimpse of God’s glory? I mean, the Lord has promised him so many blessings, including his presence, so why does Moses feel so desperately that he needs to get just a glimpse of the Lord’s glory?
And I’m not sure, but one explanation that has made sense to me is that Moses knew he needed something to hold onto, to sustain him, as he began to walk down this difficult path that lie ahead, leading this obstinate and stiff-necked people who’d already rebelled against the Lord numerous times and would do so again. Moses needed a reminder of who his God is so that he might draw on that image, recalling to mind the glory of his God in the midst of agonizing obedience.
I think something similar is going on in Matthew 17:1-13. Up to this point, Peter has faced, like Moses, a rollercoaster of emotions. He had boldly confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and he had been right. Jesus even made clear that Peter’s understanding had come from a revelation from the Father himself. Peter was feeling great, no doubt. He was with the Messiah, and this meant that he was about to reign alongside of him.
Then came the news from Jesus that his mission would involve being rejected, suffering, and dying. And Peter and the others were greatly dismayed. After all, if the one you’re following as God’s anointed king is going to be rejected, face trial, suffer, and die, then your own future hopes were pretty grim as well. Emperors do not deal kindly with the followers of false rulers that attempt to rise up against them. So, seeing this in a moment of self-preservation, Peter rebuked Jesus, only to hear from Jesus that self-preservation cannot be the goal of anyone who would follow our Lord. In fact, if you’re going to follow Christ, you must be ready to deny yourself, face death, and indeed lay down your life for his sake.
How then does that affect one’s psyche? How would that have affected Peter’s psyche? Again, talk about a rollercoaster of emotions. “He is the Messiah. Rome is about to be overthrown, and we’ll reign with him. Wait, he’s going to suffer and die. We’re going to suffer and die with him. Yes, he’s making it clear, to follow him is to suffer and die.” What do you do with that? How do you hold it all together?
Even as Moses knew he needed a glimpse of the Lord’s glory as he stood at the beginning of a path of difficult and treacherous obedience, the Lord knows that his disciples (and specifically Peter, James, and John) need a glimpse of the Lord’s glory as they get ready to follow him to the cross and soon bear their own. Therefore, the Lord provides for them a glimpse of his glory, a reminder of who he is that they can hold to, recall, and be sustained by as they walk the path of costly obedience. And we know that they did indeed hold on to this moment as Peter wrote of it in the epistle of 2 Peter years later, recalling that they “were eyewitnesses of his majesty . . . when he received honor and glory from God the Father” (2 Pet 1:16-17).
This morning, perhaps you need the same. Maybe obedience to the Lord is proving very costly to you. You watch others run toward sin, and they seem to be getting out of life it’s most precious treasures, while you simply have known difficulty, pain, loneliness, and disappointment. And you need a reminder that following Christ is utterly worth it, despite every cost. You need a reminder of who our Lord is. You, like Peter, James, and John, need a glimpse of his glory to sustain you in your path of difficult obedience. After all, at the end of your life, you will say that any cost you knew in following Christ was well worth it because Jesus really is who the Bible says he is. Therefore, let’s look at who this text tells us that Jesus is and get one more glimpse of his glory.
Matthew tells us in verse 1 that “after six days” Jesus took Peter, James, and John up to this high mountain. Now, Matthew almost never gives such time indicators that are this specific, so I think that this is Matthew’s way of saying that the event we’re about to see is tied to the declaration Jesus just made in 16:28 when he noted that some of his disciples would see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. I think this meant that some (as we’ll see, specifically, Peter, James, and John) would see a glimpse of the glory that would accompany Jesus as he came to consummate his kingdom, and that’s what happens in our text this morning.
Matthew says, “He was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (v. 2). Now, when we read this, it’s not as if we have a category to relate to, do we? We don’t say, “Oh, right, transfiguration. That happened to my Uncle Jimmy in the fall of 2012.”
But we do have help from Peter, who writes about this incident in 2 Peter when he says, “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father . . .” (2 Pet 1:16-17). So, in Peter’s words, this moment where Jesus’ face and clothes become bright and dazzling white was just a glimpse of his majesty, honor, and glory that he shared with the Father before his incarnation and that we’ll see again at his return.
And then, Matthew tells us that Moses and Elijah appeared, who’d long ago gone on to be with the Lord, appeared and were talking to Jesus. Now, as Peter sees Jesus standing there with Moses and Elijah, he gets excited. Funny enough, he probably gets excited that Jesus is in such great company. I mean, Moses and Elijah are impressive figures in the OT, and they’ve been dead a while. If the interns were hanging around me and all of the sudden two figures whose books they’ve been reading came up and started talking to me like they knew me, then the interns’ estimation of me might rise a bit. After all, they’re hanging out with someone who is a good friend with two prominent authors. But imagine if the two figures that all of the sudden appeared to chat it up with me were Martin Luther and John Calvin. That would be a bit more impressive, wouldn’t it? Their estimation of me might rise a bit more. That’s what Peter is no doubt feeling at this moment.
So Peter decides that he needs to take advantage of this opportunity Jesus has, and he proposes building three tents where Moses, Elijah, and Jesus can dwell on equal ground together. But while he’s speaking, God the Father interrupts, speaking from heaven, making clear that this is far from a situation where Moses and Elijah are actually elevating Jesus. Moses and Elijah are simply servants, but this is God’s own Son about whom the Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (v. 5), and if the point that their focus should be on Jesus wasn’t clear enough, as the disciples look up after falling down in fear, Matthew says, “they saw no one but Jesus only” (v. 8).
What then does this text tell us about who Jesus is? First, it reminds us that:
The appearance of Moses and Elijah is interesting in that there could have appeared any two figures, theoretically. I mean, David and Isaiah would have been fine options as well, it seems. But I think there’s a specific reason why these two are here. Both do have ties to the last days when God would bring his Messiah. Moses prophesies in Deuteronomy 18 that the Lord would raise up a prophet one day like him. And Malachi prophesies that Elijah would come as a forerunner to the Lord’s appearance. So, perhaps their presence simply reminds of God’s promises. But I think there’ another understanding of their presence that we should see as well.
When the Jews spoke of the OT Scriptures, they would often sum up the Scriptures by speaking of the Law and Prophets. Jesus, for example, had said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And this isn’t his way of saying that he’s not come to fulfill books like the Psalms or Ecclesiastes but only the Law and the Prophets. Rather, the Law and the Prophets are a designation for the whole of the OT.
And if you’re going to pick two individuals to represent the law and the prophets, whom would you choose? Obviously Moses represents the law. That’s an easy one. But who might represent the prophets? You could suggest Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, since they wrote the longest of the prophetic books. But if you actually look at which prophet (as an individual – not simply a reference to his OT book) is actually brought up most as a person in the NT, the answer might be surprising to you. It is Elijah. In fact, after Moses, Abraham, and David, Elijah is the most frequently cited OT figure mentioned in the NT.1
If that is surprising to you, then it may signal that we lessen Elijah’s crucial importance in the Scriptures. He seems to be the major representative of the OT prophets. Therefore, I think that Moses and Elijah’s appearance here signify the very thing Jesus has already stated in Matthew 5:17, namely that he is the fulfillment of the OT Scriptures.
Everything in the OT points to him, awaits him, and is fulfilled in him. Moses and Elijah served the purpose of pointing to Christ. All the laws are fulfilled in Christ. He not only fulfills the law’s prophetic words but actually in himself perfectly obeys the law. In fact, this is the reason why you are I can be justified by faith. It’s not because the Lord just decided he would look over the fact that we’ve not perfectly honored our parents, for example, but because we’ve been credited with the righteousness of Christ who perfectly honored his parents. And everything the prophets foretold is fulfilled in him. He is the substance that the shadows of the OT point to as they culminate in him.
For this reason, Moses and Elijah don’t elevate Jesus’ status by their appearance but serve to bear witness that he is the fulfillment of everything they are, did, and hoped for. Jesus is the fulfillment of the OT Scripture. Second:
As Peter is in the midst of sharing his bright idea of building three tents, we’re told that a voice comes from a bright cloud overhead, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (v. 5). Now, we might be tempted to pass over this declaration from the Father as simply as a nice statement of approval of the Father for the Son. But I think if we look at the statement more closely, we’ll see that this language is quite particular. For example, when you read the OT there is from the beginning an expectation of a human being who would reign over the earth as a representative of God, who resembles him, in his image. Adam of course fails at this. Israel, is then called God’s son, as the Lord tells Pharaoh to let his son go (Exod 4:22) and then brings his son out of Egypt (Hos 11:1). But they too fail to resemble and represent God, rebelling and being driven out of the garden until finally the Lord promises one day to raise up one from David’s line who would be a human king who would rightly resemble and represent God, saying to David in 2 Samuel 7:14, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a son.”
Therefore, every one of David’s sons from this promise onward who was enthroned as king would hear the reading of Psalm 2, where in verse 7 the Father proclaims to the Davidic king, “You are my Son.” But, we know from the history of Judah’s kings that all of them drastically fell short of rightly resembling and reflecting God in his reign.
At this moment, then, the Father is proclaiming the words of Psalm 2:7 to Jesus, making clear, “This is my true Son. This is the one who perfectly resembles and reflects me. This is the one who will reign over my kingdom. This is the Messianic King.” And so Jesus is.
But he’s not only king. He’s also the servant. When the Father says of the Son that Jesus is the one “with whom I am well pleased,” he is drawing from Isaiah 42:1, where the Lord has spoken of this promised servant who would come, suffer, and save his people from their sins. Of this servant, the Father declares in Isaiah 42:1, “Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.”
And we know from Isaiah 53 that the servant is one who comes and offers the sacrifice of himself to save his people from their sins. He offers himself as a sacrifice for many. Jesus is not only king, but he is the servant—who suffers for our salvation.
Finally, when the Father says, “Listen to him,” he is drawing from a specific promise made in Deuteronomy 18:15-22, where Moses predicted that there would come a prophet like him. And repeatedly the Lord says of this coming one who would deliver God’s words: “It is to him you shall listen.”
Therefore, I think that what’s going on in this declaration from the Father, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him,” the Father is clearly declaring that Jesus is the promised prophet, servant, and king. He fulfills each of these roles. He speaks God’s words. He comes to sacrifice himself for his people’s sins. And he comes to reign over all the earth.
Now, it is interesting to note that this prophecy of the coming prophet, king, and servant would be a human being. Moses specifically noted that the prophet who would come would be “from among” the Israelites. David is told that the promised king would come “from your body.” And the servant is going to save the people of Israel but is also from among Israel, even being called himself “Israel.” But he is also more. In fact, in the closing verses of this section, we are reminded that:
Elijah’s presence on the mountain sparks a question in the minds of the disciples. The scribes had been teaching, based on Malachi 4:5-6 that Elijah will come prior to the coming of the Lord’s kingdom, so the disciples bring this up to Jesus, saying, “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” (v. 10). Jesus answers that they teach this because they are right. But then Jesus adds one more unexpected element, saying, “But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased,” and Matthew adds that the disciples then understood that he was “speaking to them of John the Baptist” (vv. 12-13).
Jesus has already declared this truth earlier that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of the type that was foreshadowed with Elijah, and we’ve looked at that in 11:14. So, I won’t go into great detail there this morning. But I do want us to see the ramifications of Jesus’ statement. Malachi had declared that Elijah would come “before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes,” preparing the hearts of the people for the Lord’s arrival. Now, John came to prepare the way for Jesus’ arrival. So, if John is Elijah, then what does this tell us about the identity of Jesus? It tells us that he is the promised Lord who said he would come to his people and has now come in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the God-man, the promised Lord.
He is the God-man who speaks truthfully and authoritatively, who died for our sins, and who was raised from the dead on the third day. And he is the God-man who upholds the universe by his divine power. Behold a glimpse of the glory of our God. And our charge today is to listen to him, as he himself charged us to making disciples by teaching them to obey all that he has commanded. Therefore, this morning, let us come to the table, having caught a glimpse of the Lord’s glory, and by faith, visibly declare our willingness to obey his commands. Amen.