Reading:
2 Peter 1:16-19
"Concerning
which salvation the prophets sought and searched
diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come
unto you: searching 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. To whom it was revealed,
that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister
these things, which now have been announced unto you
through them that preached the gospel unto you by the
Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven; which things angels
desire to look into" (1 Peter 1:10-12).
In our
earlier meditation we saw that the word 'presence', used
here by Peter, and by other writers, is a word which
links the Transfiguration with the coming again of the
Lord Jesus. The phrase is rightly translated 'power and
presence' - the PRESENCE. That word, as you see,
is applied to the Transfiguration: the presence of the
Lord Jesus in majesty, in power, in glory. That same word
is used, and in the same way, concerning His coming
again. It is called His 'presencing', His 'being
present'; and we know that that presencing will indeed be
in power, majesty and glory. If these are the
accompaniments of the presence of the Lord Jesus, as they
are clearly seen to be, again and again - we shall
indicate some of these occasions as we go on - if these
be the accompaniments of His presence, then the issue,
not only in transfiguration and what it means, and in the
advent at the end, but surely upon every occasion of the
presencing of the Lord Jesus, must be to bring an impact
upon the situation, the conditions, the place where He is
present.
The Impact Of The Presence
There is
here, on the Mount of Transfiguration, an impact. The
three men who were there in His presence fell on their
faces with great fear. The Lord Jesus had to approach and
lay His hand on them, and say: "Arise, and be not
afraid" (Matt. 17:7). The presence of the Lord Jesus
will lay waste all our own strength; all our natural
wisdom; all our pride; all our impetuosity. Peter - and
another evangelist recording it tells us this - Peter
said: "Master, it is good for us to be here: and let
us make three tabernacles..." The evangelist adds:
"not knowing what he said" (Luke 9:33). Here he
is in his own impulsiveness again, obtruding himself into
this situation, taking the speech upon his lips, and the
situation into his hands, wanting to organize this, and
to perpetuate it, and to make something of it. In
Matthew's version he says: ''I will make...
three tabernacles..." 'I'! - Peter! - "not
knowing what he said", truly perhaps with the best
intentions; nevertheless Heaven had to rebuke him, and
put him in his place, and this was a devastating
experience, both for him and for his companions.
From one
standpoint it is a glorious thing to see His MAJESTY; from
another standpoint it is always a fearful thing - that
is, for the flesh, for the natural life. We cannot walk
into this and take hold of it, make something of it for
our pleasure and satisfaction. There is an impact in it,
that is the point; it registers. If we pray for, and seek
- as by His grace we surely shall - new vision of the
Exalted Lord, we must be prepared to be brought very low,
and to have all our own natural energies wasted; to
realize that that Majesty demands nothing other than that
we shall be on our faces. That is a good place to be when
it is before Him.
It was a
tremendous thing when Stephen saw his Lord in majesty and
glory. It carried him through the awful ordeal of
martyrdom, of being broken, shattered and slain, with all
the hatred and malice that was being poured out by those
who gnashed their teeth and ran upon him. It was a
glorious emergence for Stephen to see the Lord in glory
as he did: but it was a tremendously devastating thing
for at least one man there. More than that, we could say
that it was devastating for that nation; for, in what
they were doing, they were only setting their double seal
to what they had done to the very Man in the Glory.
Again, it is impact. What I am trying to say is, not that
such and such things characterize a visitation or a
vision, but that we can never really see the Lord, and be
in the presence of the Lord, without knowing it, and
something happening - without it being tremendously
effective.
Saul of
Tarsus saw the Lord glorified, and no one will argue as
to there being an impact on that occasion. John saw Him;
when he was in Patmos he saw his Lord glorified, and he
fell to the ground - it is like that. And, whatever might
be the consequences and effects, we would all say, Let us
have it so, rather than this impotent, helpless, weak,
ineffective state, in which we so often find ourselves.
The effect of the Transfiguration, that is, of the seeing
of the Glorified Lord, is always something tremendous.
The Fact Of The Transfiguration
Now
here, in his letter, Peter is affirming the FACT
of the Transfiguration. He is setting it over
against what he calls "cunningly devised
fables" - cleverly concocted reports, over against
anything merely fictitious or imaginary. He says, 'This
is a FACT! We were with Him; we saw; we heard'.
And, he says, 'This has been abundantly confirmed:
"we have the word of prophecy made more sure"'
- probably referring to what he said in the passage from
his first letter that we read. The prophets all pointed
on to that, to that suffering and glory which met on the
Mount of Transfiguration, as Moses and Elijah spoke to
Him about the Cross, His 'exodus', about to be
accomplished at Jerusalem. The suffering and the glory
met there on that mountain. Peter says that the prophets
were all pointing to that, and seeking and searching
diligently to know what manner of time it would be, when
they prophesied the sufferings and the glory. He says
that the prophets searched DILIGENTLY. And then he
crowns it all by saying, 'This is something that angels
are desirous of looking into!' He says, 'We have got it -
we have got it all in fulfilment! We were there on the
mount, and we have seen it working out ever since; we are
living in the light and the power of that blending of
suffering and glory, glory and suffering. The word of the
prophets is confirmed, both in the event and in our
history ever since the event - it is made sure.'
Probably
Peter meant more than that, but he meant that. That is
not the whole interpretation, but it is a part. What I am
trying to underline is this FACT that Peter
himself is affirming here - THE THING HAD HAPPENED. But,
when Peter adds his word about "more sure", you
notice he carries it beyond the event, that historic
event, that occasion on the mount. There is something
added to this, something added to the (if we may call it)
'incident'. Mighty incident! Something more - it has been
"made more sure" in our case. What is it?
An Inward Reality
Well,
just this, that is so true in the other cases, it was not
only something BEFORE THE EYES of Peter (and the
others); it was something that happened TO him,
and afterward came INTO him. True, there was the
event, the happening, in time, at a certain place. But,
with it, something happened IN Peter. You notice
the immediate context: he is speaking of his departure.
"Knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle
cometh swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified
unto me". 'I will seek that you have these things
after my departure....' He is at the end of his life, at
the end of his ministry; but something has happened that
has carried him through. It is not that something has
remained as the memory of an objective experience, but
that something has happened IN him.
This is
more than a doctrine, more than a theory, more than even
something in the Holy Scriptures. To see the Lord does
something IN us. We can get the 'truth'
about anything and everything: all the truth that is
available about the Lord Jesus Himself - His birth, His
life, His works, His words, His death, His resurrection -
all that there is; we can have all the 'truth' about the
Church - and what a lot there is available; we can have
it all, know it all - nothing fresh to know about it; and
any other thing you like to mention, in the Scriptures -
and yet the fact can remain that nothing has happened in
us as a result. I ask you: What has all your knowledge of
the Church meant, as a 'happening' in you, to effect
something, to put you in a new place, with an entirely
new conception, revolutionizing your whole life, so that
one whole order of things just falls away as empty, and
another heavenly order comes in? That is how it ought to
be. True spiritual apprehension ought not just to be
something in front of us - it ought to be something IN
us. It was so with Peter, and we can trace
this in his life.
Take
again his great contemporary, Paul. Here is this fact,
that, on the Damascus road, Jesus appeared UNTO him
in glory - 'brightness above the brightness of the sun'.
It was a tremendous objective 'something' that was before
him; it struck him as from the outside. But as you know,
when speaking of it years afterward, he says: "it
pleased God... to reveal His Son IN me"
(Galatians 1:15-16). It was not only to him - it was
something IN him. The Apostle Paul's whole life
and ministry was based upon and sprang out of that double
event, TO and IN. And the Majesty of the
Lord Jesus became an INWARD thing with him, and
therefore a tremendously effective thing. The answer to
the critics, who say that Saul of Tarsus was in a frenzy,
and therefore was overtaken by a terrible hysteria, and
began to 'see things', and believed that they were real,
and that that is the psychological explanation of the
conversion of Paul - the answer is his life of endurance,
and suffering, and service, and love; and his death for
his testimony. You do not go that way, like that, on a
dream, on an imagination, on an hysteria. I venture to
say that a very small proportion of what Paul had to meet
during the thirty years of his ministry would knock
hysteria out of most men. No, something happened inside;
the vision did something in him, as well as being
something to him.
And so
we could go on with the other people, like John, who saw
the Lord in His glory. But that is enough. The thing
happened TO him, but it happened IN him. It
was an event, true; but it was also an abiding process.
For, right on through their lives, this was the thing
that was growing - this marvellous greatness of the Lord
Jesus. They did not get it all at once, even in the
wonderful event, but throughout their lives the one
mighty thing that was happening was this growing
realization. Jesus, in all the greatness of His glorified
Person and position, was dominating their whole horizon
and the whole course of their lives.
The Principle Of Spiritual Vision
Now that
brings us to the principle of all this, which opens up a
very large field, in which we could move for a long time.
The principle is the principle of true, spiritual, inward
vision. Not 'visionariness', but inward vision, which is
specific, which is definite. Visionariness can be very
abstract, but what we mean by 'vision', spiritual vision,
is very concrete; it is very specific. It is a Person Who
is in view, and this mighty Person is no abstraction.
There is nothing unreal or imaginary when we see the Lord
Jesus.
Let us
weigh this whole matter. You and I and the Lord's people,
as we said earlier, in our various places, various
situations, various experiences, scattered and tried and
pressed, need something very mighty to carry us through
to the end. Things are becoming very grim, are they not?
Most of us are aware that we are in a most terrific
spiritual conflict, and the Christian life is not getting
easier. It is becoming exceedingly difficult just to hold
on, keep on, and especially to be triumphant. That is how
it was when Peter wrote his letter.
Now, we
need more than words, and more than visionariness, to get
us through. Our Christian lives ought to be based upon
something like this: 'I have seen the Lord'. We shall
only go through if that is true. By the operation and
activity of the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven we must
have an inward vision of the Exalted Lord. For all
endurance, and for all service, that is essential. Life
that has to go on without that is just a drag; it is an
existence. Work or service without that INWARD VISION has
nothing in it to lift us, to carry us on. For everything
- life and work and endurance - it is indispensable that
we have this inward vision of the Lord in majesty and
glory, kept fresh, kept clear, constantly revived. With
such a vision all the essentials of effectiveness are
bound up.
A Sense Of Purpose
First of
all, what we all need, what the Church as a whole needs,
and what every part of it needs, is a mighty governing
sense of purpose: that there is something for which to
live, and something for which to work, and something for
which to endure and go on: a real master-purpose in our
existence. If you look into this matter in the New
Testament, you will find that these men and the Church
were brought into this master-purpose. We are so familiar
with the very word that it has lost its music in our ears
- 'the eternal purpose' - 'called according to His
purpose'. They were governed by this objective, this
goal, this something toward which they were being moved,
drawn, constrained, urged and held; which, again and
again, when they were cast down, and it seemed that
everything was hopeless, revived in them, and revived
them, and brought them up again. It was not a mentality,
not a theory, not an idea, but what Paul calls "the
power that worketh in us" - "according to the
power that worketh in us". The word 'worketh' there,
as you know, is the one from which we get our word
'energize' - 'the power that energizes in us'. What is
it?
Look
again, and you will see that it had to do with that
great, great end which God had fixed concerning His Son,
the Lord Jesus, in universal majesty and glory and
fullness. They had seen something of that in Him. It had
become the great purpose which bound their lives, and
drew them out in a sense that life is not empty,
meaningless; it has some great end: 'We see what it is -
it is concerning the Lord Jesus'. We, too, must have that
sense of purpose, or we shall not get very far. Not only
was it A purpose, but this inward spiritual vision
gave the incentive to life. Through days and years of
wearing out and wearing down, weariness and
disappointment, over many things, disillusionment and
heartbreak, it is not difficult to lose incentive; to
ask, Is it worth it? Is it all justified? Are we not just
spending our strength for nought? We need incentive. It
was this apprehension of Christ as having gone that way
of weariness and devastation and triumph, and having been
glorified, and now being there in the glory, which gave
them the incentive; it imparted to life an incentive, a
motive, a power.
Cohesive Power
Further,
in this vision, there is the effect of cohesion. A vision
is a very cohesive thing: that is, it has the power of
drawing people together, holding them together, making
them a 'together' people - those who are going on
together. They have one vision. The great illustration of
this is Nehemiah and the people of his time, with their
one vision. Look at all the variety of people, and
variety of gifts and qualifications- every kind of
artisan and profession mentioned; every sphere of life;
but they are one people, a solid whole, simply because
they have got one vision. That wall and the rebuilding of
the city dominated everyone's heart and everyone's mind,
and brought them together in a wonderful unity. There is
no other way of having unity but really to see the Lord
Jesus, and have Him in view as on the throne, above all,
over all. It will bring us together.
I have
said that what we all need is the power to endure; and it
is just there, as we have seen, that Peter introduces the
Transfiguration. He speaks about 'the trial of your
faith, being much more precious than of gold that
perisheth...' - the TRIAL of your faith. 'Manifold
temptations' - he brings in the vision as the power for
enduring and going through. We are told that Moses
endured 'as seeing Him Who is invisible' (Hebrews 11:27).
This is the power. Now, you can see this from the
opposite and contrary standpoint. See the effects of loss
of a vision! However many other visions the Lord's people
may have, as soon as they lose the vision of the Lord
Himself, as Lord over all, as on the Throne, what
happens? They lose their sense of purpose; they lose
their awareness of a true objective in their existence.
They then have to have substitutes for that vision, to
keep them going; but these things wear out and
disappoint. The loss of vision always results in the loss
of an incentive, real incentive for life.
In the
same way, it is true of this matter of cohesion,
coordination: lose vision, and the result is always
disintegration, division, separation, confusion, and the
loss of strength and stability. This is no matter of
theory or technique - it is very true. Some of us know -
and that is why we are speaking like this just now - we
know that when a people have really been gripped by the
vision of the Throne, the Majesty of the Lord Jesus, the
Authority of Christ, a wonderful sense of purpose comes
on that people, and a wonderful incentive, and a
wonderful unity: they are a one people. It is the Throne
that has done it, and their apprehension of that Throne.
And when things take the place of the Lord - anything
that you like to mention - then the falling apart begins.
Sooner or later the disintegration sets in, the
confusion, the loss of heart, incentive and purpose. A
real INWARD seeing of the Lord Jesus, as in the
place of Authority and Government and Majesty, is the
answer to our every need, personally and collectively. It
was so of old; it is so now.
Four Major Elements
Do you
notice how this Transfiguration was the confirmation and
complement of all the teaching? Look again at the record
of the Transfiguration in Matthew 17. What have we? We
have the four major elements of the Christian faith and
the Christian life:
(1) The Person Of The Lord Jesus
"When
Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked
His disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of Man
is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some,
Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the
prophets. He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the Living God. And Jesus answered and said
unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh
and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father
Which is in heaven" (Matt. 16:13-17).
"Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." I think
that there it might have been said that Peter, once
again, did not know what he was talking about! It was a
tremendous utterance: 'Thou art the Messiah! Thou ART the
Messiah!' Both 'Christ' and 'Messiah' mean 'The Anointed
One', and, as such, the Son of the Living God. Here is
the basic fact of Christianity - the Person of the Lord
Jesus. For a man like Peter, a Jew, versed and saturated
in the Old Testament and Jewish history, to say that,
meant far more than we realize. Think of the tremendous
things that were bound up with that word 'Messiah'!
There
were three great conceptions of the Messiah in Israel.
The first we find in the first part of the prophecies of
Isaiah - the 'Son of David'; the Seed and the Son of
David. You remember Isaiah's prophecy about 'the shoot of
Jesse' (Isaiah 11:1): that was the first
conception of the coming Messiah, the Anointed One, Who
should take over the Throne of David, and all that that
meant.
In the
second part of Isaiah, the Messiah is the Suffering
Servant of Jehovah; King-Redeemer, Redeemer-King; and
Isaiah 53 stands right at the centre of that conception
of the Messiah. We see the Throne, and Redemption: how it
is going to work out.
We find
the third conception of the coming Messiah in the Book of
Daniel, chapter 7. It is a very wonderful passage.
"I
beheld till thrones were placed, and One that was Ancient
of days did sit: His raiment was white as snow, and the
hair of His head like pure wool; His
throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof
burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from
before Him: thousand of thousands ministered unto Him,
and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the
judgment was set, and the books were opened... I saw in
the night visions, and, behold, there came with the
clouds of heaven one like unto a Son of Man, and He came
even to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near
before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and
glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and
languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away, and His
kingdom that which shall not be destroyed" (Daniel
7:9,10,13,14).
That was
their coming Messiah: King, Saviour, reigning Lord for
ever and ever, in universal sovereignty. When Peter said,
'THOU art the Messiah, the Son of the Living God', all
that was present in the declaration. Hence, Jesus said,
'Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you. My Father
knows the meaning of the Christhood, the Messiahship, the
Sonship, and it is all that!'
Now, I
have included that, only with a view to trying to revive
this conception of the greatness of our Lord Jesus; to
help toward the vision. I would that, as we speak of it,
read of it, you might see that your Lord Jesus is no
little, defeated Lord - defeated at the hands of the
great enemy. Only as we have such a conception and
apprehension of His Person shall we get through in
triumph.
(2) The Church
The
second thing is the Church. The Person always does lead
to the Church, in Divine sequence. ''I say unto thee,
That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My
church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against
it" (Matthew 16:18). Why? Well, for that
very reason. It is His Church, the Church of this One -
this One to Whom the Kingdom is given, and the Throne;
before Whom all nations shall bow. The Church is the
embodiment of the vision of the Exalted Lord. If that is
true, it will make it a great Church, a powerful Church.
If this One - this One of the Transfiguration mount, this
One of Stephen's vision, of Paul's vision - if this One,
by the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven, is embodied in the
Church - then what a Church! What a Church! Is that the
Church with which we are familiar? Have we really
understood that that is what is meant by the very term
'Church' - the embodiment of Himself as Lord over all?
(3) The Cross
The
third thing is the Cross.
"From
that time began Jesus to shew unto His disciples, how
that He must go unto Jerusalem" (Matthew 16:21).
"The Son of Man shall be delivered up into
the hands of men" (Luke 9:44).
His
wonderful Cross! I like that thought, that idea, that a
certain writer has expressed when he has spoken of Christ
'reigning and ruling by His Cross'. There is no doubt
that that is right. What looked, humanly, so much to the
contrary - defeat and failure, loss and despair, weakness
and helplessness - has proved in history to be the most
potent force in the universe - the Cross of the Lord
Jesus. Saul, before his conversion, looked upon the Cross
as the very symbol of ignominy, of shame; something
despicable, to be hated. Afterward he said: "God
forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14, AV). From the shame
to the glory. The Transfiguration transfigures the Cross.
In other words, a vision of the glorified Lord will
transfigure our sufferings, will altogether transform our
afflictions. We see what that Cross meant really in the
mind of God.
(4) The Coming Of The Lord
The
fourth thing is the coming of the Lord.
"The
Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His
angels; and then shall He render unto every man according
to his deeds" (Matthew 16:27).
The
point is this, that the Transfiguration was the crown and
confirmation, the complement of all those four things. It
was the crown of the Person: Peter had said, 'Thou art
the Christ!' Well, the mount of Transfiguration gave good
evidence to that fact as he saw Him transfigured. The
Lord had said to him: 'I will build My Church'. The mount
of Transfiguration gave good hope for that Church, if He,
that One, was going to build it. If the Lord was speaking
about the Cross, the mount of Transfiguration will give
an altogether new and different interpretation to the
Cross. If He has spoken of His Coming Again in the Glory
of the Father, the mount of Transfiguration explains
that, demonstrates that.
Yes: to
see the Lord in that way, glorified, is the confirmation
of our whole faith; the establishment of our whole
position; and the assurance of our final triumph with
Him. The Lord give us a new vision of Himself - His
power, His majesty and His presence.