SPEAKER_00: In John 17, verse 5, Jesus prays what's called his high priestly prayer, and he prays to the Father, and he asks the Father this.
SPEAKER_00: He prays, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus prays that, he's praying that God would, when Jesus returns to heaven, that God would glorify Jesus by receiving him back in the way in which he was before he came to earth.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reality in that prayer that Jesus, though truly God, has his glory veiled or constrained in some way in the incarnation.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus leaves the riches of heaven for earth, he robes himself in a human nature.
SPEAKER_00: He adds a human nature to himself.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes born as a true human being.
SPEAKER_00: Now he maintains all the attributes of God, of course, but now he adds to them humanity, and there's a sense in which humanity constrains it.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that, surely Jesus is omnipresent in his deity, even throughout his incarnation, and yet he's localized as a human being.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly he's omniscient, he knows all things, and yet in his humanity he has to learn.
SPEAKER_00: The angels are ready to serve him and minister to him, whereas before they were worshiping him.
SPEAKER_00: In his humanity, he has to eat and drink and sleep.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a sense in which he is God but veiled.
SPEAKER_00: And so in his prayer, he recognizes that in John 17, and he prays to the Father, Lord, receive me back into your very own presence with the same glory I had earlier.
SPEAKER_00: That tension is all over the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is truly God.
SPEAKER_00: In him the fullness of God dwells, but do you remember the rest of the verse?
SPEAKER_00: In bodily form.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Trinitarian tension in the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: How can an infinitely high and glorious and majestic God take on human flesh which constrains him?
SPEAKER_00: That's the backdrop for what you read in Matthew 17.
SPEAKER_00: This is the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_00: It's described in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
SPEAKER_00: John just contains the prayer that Jesus would be glorified, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it for us now, chapter 17, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: After six days, that's six days later, after Jesus told the twelve that some of them will not die before they see him in his glory.
SPEAKER_00: They see him in his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Six days later, he took Peter, James, and James' brother John, and he led them up a high mountain by themselves.
SPEAKER_00: He was transfigured before them.
SPEAKER_00: His face shone like the sun, his clothes became white as light.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him.
SPEAKER_00: Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good that we're here.
SPEAKER_00: If you wish, I'll make three tents here: one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: As he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came and touched them, saying, Rise and have no fear.
SPEAKER_00: And they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.
SPEAKER_00: This narrative is referred to as the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_00: That word transfiguration, it is found there in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He was transfigured before them.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Greek word metamorphine, which we get our word metamorphosis from.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks of an internal change that produces this outward distinction.
SPEAKER_00: The caterpillar and the butterfly are the same creature, but there's been a change inside of the cocoon, and he comes out with wings.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the etymology of this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was ascribed to caterpillars and butterflies before it was used in the Gospels or after.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a very good word picture of what's taking place here.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is walking with his disciples in his humanity, and then around the corner, so to speak, he is transfigured, metamorphosized, he is glorified.
SPEAKER_00: The glory is extreme.
SPEAKER_00: You know that because of Matthew 16, verse 27, where Jesus describes it as the glory of his Father.
SPEAKER_00: This is the triune glory of God, the majesty of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is transfigured into it.
SPEAKER_00: So what had previously been constrained by his humanity now breaks through.
SPEAKER_00: This, of course, is the fulfillment of what he says in Matthew 16, verse 28, that some of them won't die until they see this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, six days later, they see it.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if the twelve understood what was happening.
SPEAKER_00: In those twelve days, they were probably asking Jesus repeatedly.
SPEAKER_00: So, when are we going to see you in your glory?
SPEAKER_00: When is it going to be?
SPEAKER_00: When's your kingdom going to come to us in glory?
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But six days later, he takes three of them.
SPEAKER_00: Up the hill, up a high mountain.
SPEAKER_00: Moses received word from the Lord that he was going to see God, and it was six days before Moses went up the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah went searching for the Lord and went for six days off in the wilderness before he went up the mountain and saw him.
SPEAKER_00: And so the same pattern is here where Jesus tells them, Some of you will see me in the glory of my Father.
SPEAKER_00: Six days later it happens.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you go through this passage, you see three groups of three.
SPEAKER_00: I'm calling it the Transfigurations Triple Triad.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you enjoyed that more than the first hour, and I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: You see three divine persons in this, the Father, Son, and Spirit on display, their glory shining through.
SPEAKER_00: You see three glorified persons in this.
SPEAKER_00: Moses and Elijah and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And you see three mystified persons in this: Peter, James, and John.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's way more that I want to say that I can pack into one sermon.
SPEAKER_00: So my plan is to save this for three sermons over the next few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at the three divine persons this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But before we get to that, here's the high-level overview of how I see this passage unfolding.
SPEAKER_00: The three divine persons display to you the Trinity and the Son.
SPEAKER_00: How the Father reveals the Son, how the Spirit reveals the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Together you have the Father, Son, and Spirit, same time, same place, with the same message.
SPEAKER_00: You have the three glorified persons, which reveal to you the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Moses standing for the law, Elijah for the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: God tells Moses and the Israelites that a prophet will arise like Moses and they should listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah comes to prepare the way for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And they should repent from their sins and make way ready for the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus appears alongside of both of them, thus fulfilling the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And you have the three mystified persons: Peter, James, and John.
SPEAKER_00: I'll have more to say about them later, and in a few weeks and look at them, they become the new priests, beholding the new temple of the Lord, the church that the Lord will build on the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this is revealing from a high level, but I want to get a little bit closer to the ground, and we'll start with the Trinity and the Son.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean by that the Son is not part of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: There were some that asked me that first hour.
SPEAKER_00: No, the Trinity is three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And yet in this passage you see all of them revealing and testifying to the Son.
SPEAKER_00: It starts, of course, with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus leads them up on the mountain, and he was transfigured before them.
SPEAKER_00: His face shone like the sun.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, this is prefigured, so to speak, in verse 27 of chapter 16, that he will come in the glory of his Father.
SPEAKER_00: Glory and light are often connected.
SPEAKER_00: God is, of course, a glorious being, and God is also light.
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures continually describe God as being regaled in light.
SPEAKER_00: So he wraps himself in light.
SPEAKER_00: He is light by his own nature, and his light reveals himself.
SPEAKER_00: God is self-revelatory.
SPEAKER_00: To see God is to behold him.
SPEAKER_00: He is constantly revealing himself.
SPEAKER_00: In God, there is no secrets, there's only revelation.
SPEAKER_00: If any part of God seems veiled to us or obscure to us, it's not because of any ambiguities in God.
SPEAKER_00: It's because of our limited capacity to understand him, or perhaps sin or darkness blinds our eyes to him.
SPEAKER_00: But God himself is light.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is bracketed with this truth.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis chapter 1, before God creates, there is light.
SPEAKER_00: The first day of creation, he's separating light from darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can read Genesis 1 in an almost too wooden way, where we wonder, how can there be light before their sun?
SPEAKER_00: As if the sun were the only source of light.
SPEAKER_00: May it never be.
SPEAKER_00: God himself is the source of light.
SPEAKER_00: God is light.
SPEAKER_00: The very most basic part of creation, day one of creation.
SPEAKER_00: God separates light from darkness.
SPEAKER_00: There is a creature and creator distinction.
SPEAKER_00: God is light.
SPEAKER_00: And in him there is no darkness at all.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that lives and moves and has its being, has its life on loan from God.
SPEAKER_00: Every act of light in the universe, the light is on loan from God.
SPEAKER_00: God is light, God is life, God is love.
SPEAKER_00: Any act of love in the universe, the love is on loan from God.
SPEAKER_00: God is those things towards himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is light and love and life.
SPEAKER_00: And in creation, he radiates those or shines those into the world.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible ends with that same image.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 21.
SPEAKER_00: In heaven, it says, there will be no need for the sun, because the Lamb is the light.
SPEAKER_00: The Lamb is the lamp.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus Christ radiates his presence throughout all of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Right now you might orient yourself by the sun when you go outside.
SPEAKER_00: You might figure out what time of day it is by the sun, but in heaven you will have no need of that.
SPEAKER_00: You will orient yourself by where the Lord is.
SPEAKER_00: Time is measured by his standard.
SPEAKER_00: So the sun dissipates, is overshadowed, eclipsed, disappears because of the brightness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's because God is light.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 104 says it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 104 says, Yahweh, you are clothed with splendor and majesty.
SPEAKER_00: Covering yourself with light.
SPEAKER_00: As with a cloak.
SPEAKER_00: When you went outside this morning, you might have wondered, is this raining?
SPEAKER_00: Do I wear a coat?
SPEAKER_00: Does it count as rain this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Not really sure.
SPEAKER_00: And you might think, do I wear a jacket or not?
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't need to wear a jacket.
SPEAKER_00: He wears light, but he doesn't wear light as if it were a jacket.
SPEAKER_00: It's not something additional he puts on.
SPEAKER_00: It is himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is light in and of himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is light.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't possess it, he is it.
SPEAKER_00: Same with glory and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: These are words that just describe who God is.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't have glory, he is glorious.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't have holiness, he is holy.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have light, he is light.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, glory and holiness and light can be used almost interchangeably as reference to God.
SPEAKER_00: God has an inner holiness, an inner luminosity.
SPEAKER_00: God illuminates, He reveals.
SPEAKER_00: Luminosity is a great word for it.
SPEAKER_00: God is always revealing.
SPEAKER_00: And so you see the Father and Son relationship by the light.
SPEAKER_00: All that God does, he does is Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: And all that God does, he does is light.
SPEAKER_00: And so you see light as Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: You see the Father as the source.
SPEAKER_00: You see the Son as the image of the light.
SPEAKER_00: And you see the Spirit as descending, the joy, the fellowship, and the warmth of God.
SPEAKER_00: The warmth of the light.
SPEAKER_00: The Father shines, the Son reveals, the Spirit affirms.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they're doing in this very passage.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is the source, but you don't see the Father.
SPEAKER_00: You see the Father's light in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so to see Jesus in his radiant glory is to see the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He says that himself, but you see the Father through the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Light is from the Father, but through the Son.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 2, his face shone like the Son.
SPEAKER_00: His clothes became white as light.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the image of God, the exact representation of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: In him the fullness of God dwells.
SPEAKER_00: He is light, but is light from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is the source, and to see the light of God, you have to see it through Jesus, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: I've read skeptical commentators that say things like it is possible that the light the disciples see is simply electromagnetic waves perceptible to the disciples' optic nerves.
SPEAKER_00: I suppose that's possible.
SPEAKER_00: It's also possible that you are expected to recognize the betrayal of God as light throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so that when you see Jesus shining like the sun, you see the eternal glory of the triune God breaking through into creation through the face of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mutual light shined from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the image, the imprint, the radiance of the Father's nature.
SPEAKER_00: It's a threefold light because the Spirit provides the warmth and the joy from the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: All three persons are light in themselves.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is truly light, the Son is truly light, the Spirit is truly light, but we behold the light in a Trinitarian way.
SPEAKER_00: We behold the light as from the Father, through the Son, and we behold it by the Spirit, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit opens our eyes to see the light.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul tells the Corinthians that the Spirit causes the eyes of our heart to behold the light and the glory of God in the person and the face of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And as we behold it, we are transformed into the very image of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the Father saves us.
SPEAKER_00: The Father elects us to become children of light.
SPEAKER_00: The Son redeems us because the Son is the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And the Spirit then draws us into the light.
SPEAKER_00: That's John chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit brings us to the light so that we can see God.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, any divine light shines through God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Nicene Creed, for example, says the Son of God is true God of true God, light from light.
SPEAKER_00: The Son's light nature is revealed in this passage, of course.
SPEAKER_00: But notice, verse 2, his face shone like the sun.
SPEAKER_00: This is a reference to the humanity of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The light of God comes to us, but in the humanity of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, God, a very God, takes on a human nature in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's through that union of the divine and human natures that light shines into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And you're getting here a little prefiguring of his future glory, aren't you?
SPEAKER_00: That's what he told the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to go up and you're going to see the glory that I will have in my kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see it now for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Get a window into the eternal glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: That will be Jesus' fully in the future.
SPEAKER_00: It was his in the past, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Remember John 17?
SPEAKER_00: He prays that he'll go back to what he had.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a new glory for him, but it is a new glory for the man, Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And it will be an eternal glory that he will have forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: The light on Jesus' face and on his clothes, it's not merely decorative.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a fashion choice.
SPEAKER_00: It's substantial.
SPEAKER_00: It reveals the very nature of God.
SPEAKER_00: And it reveals the mission of God, the eternal light that is always shown from the Father through the Son by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That light breaks into the world to save us and cause us to become children of light, to walk in the light.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament, the priests had a lampstand in the temple to show that God's presence was always there.
SPEAKER_00: When Solomon dedicated the temple, it filled with the light of fire and consumed the burnt offering.
SPEAKER_00: And God's glory dwelled in the temple, but God's glory was not at home in the temple permanently, was it?
SPEAKER_00: You remember in Ezekiel, the glory relieves the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't leave in light, it leaves in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: One of the sadder scenes in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The glory leaves, darkness falls.
SPEAKER_00: And the Old Testament ends in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It ends with the Israelites wandering without a prophet, without a priest, without a king.
SPEAKER_00: And then in the New Testament, the glory comes back.
SPEAKER_00: The light of the world is born among us.
SPEAKER_00: It makes his dwelling among us.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't come in the temple, it doesn't come as a lampstand.
SPEAKER_00: The light of the world comes back as a human being.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's gospel begins by saying he's a light of revelation for the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And that light is seen and confirmed here in Matthew 17, where Jesus is turned white as light.
SPEAKER_00: That's not something that you would ever say.
SPEAKER_00: You get your white clothes out of the dryer, you would never say, these are as white as light.
SPEAKER_00: That's all the disciples can come up with when they look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's as white as light.
SPEAKER_00: Words fail.
SPEAKER_00: Notice it is his face that is light in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: His face shines.
SPEAKER_00: In the garden, Adam and Eve walked with God and had fellowship with him as a person walks with a friend.
SPEAKER_00: And when they sinned, they went and hid from God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that that fellowship was broken?
SPEAKER_00: It went from walking and talking to hiding and hearing.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, God calls for them and they answer, but they will no longer see him.
SPEAKER_00: They're in darkness now.
SPEAKER_00: They hide.
SPEAKER_00: The first time the phrase face to face is used in the Bible is when Jacob wrestles with God.
SPEAKER_00: He wrestles with an angel and he wakes up with his hip out of joint and everything messed up.
SPEAKER_00: I don't, again, I don't know more than the Bible says about that.
SPEAKER_00: But he says, I have wrestled God, and I have seen him face to face.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's named Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The word Israel means struggled with God or wrestled with God, but it's a bit of a pun in the Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: It can also mean saw God.
SPEAKER_00: Face to face.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word for a mask that a person wears in a play, and when it's taken off, you see him as he is.
SPEAKER_00: Right now we see God dimly as through a mirror.
SPEAKER_00: But we will see him face to face.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the disciples get an image of here: Jesus' face-to-face glory.
SPEAKER_00: Moses asked to see God, and God told Moses, You can't see my face and live.
SPEAKER_00: And then God moved in the shadows.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Numbers in Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: After Moses' request, he moved in the shadows around him.
SPEAKER_00: The priests prayed that they would see God face to face.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ironic blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Numbers chapter 6, the very common prayer in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: May Yahweh cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
SPEAKER_00: May Yahweh look with favor on you and give you peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's a plea for a face-to-face encounter with God.
SPEAKER_00: God, shine your face on me.
SPEAKER_00: But even notice the language is a little distant, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: God, shine your face on me.
SPEAKER_00: Notice you're passive.
SPEAKER_00: God's shining on you.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting a glimpse.
SPEAKER_00: Here the disciples see God face to face.
SPEAKER_00: And what does God's face look like?
SPEAKER_00: The person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they see.
SPEAKER_00: They see God face to face.
SPEAKER_00: And it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The voice thunders from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look more about Peter's suggestion in a few weeks when he wants to build tents or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at that later.
SPEAKER_00: But notice that the Jesus' idea, or Peter's idea is overcome in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: When a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the voice of the Father proclaiming the deity of the Son.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Son of God, described in Psalm 2, where the Father says, I will appoint my son on my holy hill.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Son of Man, described in Daniel chapter 7, where Daniel says had a vision of a man, the Son of Man, who will open up the books and judge the nations.
SPEAKER_00: This is the chosen servant of Isaiah 42, where God says, My servant in whom my soul is well pleased, he will be the savior.
SPEAKER_00: He's the well-pleased servant, the Son of God, the Son of Man, declared by the Father from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And what are you supposed to do?
SPEAKER_00: If you believe any of this, like if you believe the bare minimum of this, that Jesus is the Son of God, if you believe that much of this, what should you do?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is what the Father says.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room for those who say they believe Jesus is the Son of God, but they're not going to obey him, they're not going to follow him, they're not going to listen to him, not going to submit their life to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's too much.
SPEAKER_00: It's the one thing God says.
SPEAKER_00: This is my son.
SPEAKER_00: Do what he says.
SPEAKER_00: The world is filled with people that say Jesus is God or a good teacher or whatever and live flagrantly immoral lives.
SPEAKER_00: Have no time to actually submit their life to him.
SPEAKER_00: It's the one thing God says.
SPEAKER_00: This is my son, do what he says.
SPEAKER_00: But you don't only see the Father in the Son, you also see the Spirit in the Son.
SPEAKER_00: This is revealed to the cloud.
SPEAKER_00: Notice in verse 5: a bright cloud overshadowed them.
SPEAKER_00: This represents the spirit, and it's not the first time we've seen the spirit moving in the form of a cloud.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the Israelites were led by the pillar of smoke and the cloud, of fire.
SPEAKER_00: At night it was fire, and day it was smoke, and it was just the way the Spirit led them through the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: When God called Moses in the mountain, remember, it was six days later Moses went up the mountain, and then God met with him with a cloud of glory that descended upon him.
SPEAKER_00: That's Exodus 19, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: When Moses entered the tabernacle, a cloud filled the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: When God spoke to Moses and revealed his glory to Moses, he revealed his glory not through the man Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's not going to come until Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_00: He reveals his glory through the cloud.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron was told he could never approach the tabernacle whenever he wanted to, because God was above the mercy seat, enthroned in the cloud.
SPEAKER_00: And if Aaron approached, he would die.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Spirit led them in the wilderness as a cloud.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament looks back on this, and Paul says, all the Israelites back then were baptized by the Spirit into the cloud and into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says that he's recognizing that the cloud represents God generally, but represents the Spirit particularly.
SPEAKER_00: Bottom line in the Old Testament, the cloud represents the Holy Spirit's manifestation.
SPEAKER_00: God's approval.
SPEAKER_00: And it's always external in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: The cloud leads them, and they have to watch and follow.
SPEAKER_00: This is the great change in the New Testament, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, the Spirit dwells inside of us, convicts us, applies the word to our heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what is prophesied in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 4, verse 5 says, the time is coming when the king, the Savior, the Son of God, will be established on God's holy mountain.
SPEAKER_00: And in that day, the Spirit will descend on him like a canopy or like a cloud.
SPEAKER_00: And the earth will be filled with his glory.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what you see here.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit descending upon the Son.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit's not acting independently of the Father or the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Notice they're all operating together.
SPEAKER_00: They're doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: They're revealing God's light to the world, but they're doing in his Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: God is saying, This is my son.
SPEAKER_00: The Son is there radiating the light, and the Spirit comes as a cloud of light.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he's called a bright cloud in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: How do you have a bright cloud?
SPEAKER_00: It's a cloud of light.
SPEAKER_00: A cloud of brightness envelops them.
SPEAKER_00: Which is what the Spirit always does.
SPEAKER_00: In creation, the Father speaks, the Son is the word, and the Spirit hovers on the water.
SPEAKER_00: In salvation, the Father elects, the Son redeems, and the Spirit warms your heart, changes your heart, brings life to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: At the baptism, the Father says, This is my son, and the Son is there to be baptized, and the Spirit descends like a dove.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing again.
SPEAKER_00: The Father says, This is my son, and the Son is radiating, and the Spirit descends like a cloud.
SPEAKER_00: The cloud overshadows them.
SPEAKER_00: That word overshadows, it's the same word Luke uses for Mary falling pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit falls upon Mary and she conceives.
SPEAKER_00: Here the Spirit falls upon the disciples, affirming that when the Son is reflecting the Father's glory, it is a triune glory.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit consents, the Spirit attests, the Spirit joins in with the declaration, this is the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, when the disciples heard this, they fell on their face.
SPEAKER_00: Overcome with fear and terror.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know how to respond.
SPEAKER_00: This is what happens all over the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: People have an encounter with God.
SPEAKER_00: They fall down dumbstruck.
SPEAKER_00: And it happens here as well.
SPEAKER_00: What's the application of this?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my goal with this little series, the transfiguration, is well, my goal is pretty transparent, first of all.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to love the story as much as I love it.
SPEAKER_00: That's my main goal.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to like this.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to look at this and draw spiritual strength.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see in the transfiguration this is the meeting of the two worlds.
SPEAKER_00: The glory of God predates creation.
SPEAKER_00: The glory of God belongs in a world where there is no sin.
SPEAKER_00: There is no slander.
SPEAKER_00: There's no favoritism, there's no lies.
SPEAKER_00: There's no suffering, there's no untimely deaths, there's no cancer, there's no car accidents, there's no funerals.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the glory of God belongs.
SPEAKER_00: In that world.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the world we live in, is it?
SPEAKER_00: And so when you see the transfiguration here, you're seeing the face of Jesus in both worlds.
SPEAKER_00: That's the remarkable thing about this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is living in the world where there is lies and slander and favoritism and death.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to walk down the mountain to a boy who's convulsing, who's possessed by a demon, and that's followed by people, the very next part of Matthew 17 is people surrounding Jesus, questioning his tax bracket.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, talk about going from the clouds of glory back to the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the joy this passage should bring you.
SPEAKER_00: God's glory doesn't need to take you out of the human suffering and out of the human world in order to be experienced.
SPEAKER_00: You can see and draw strength from God's glory in this world that is so filled with suffering.
SPEAKER_00: The transfiguration is bracketed by Jesus saying he's going to go to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's the last thing he says before it happens.
SPEAKER_00: It's the next thing he says after it happens.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: So in that sense, the transfiguration has anticipation and retrospection.
SPEAKER_00: It looks forward to his death, burial, descent to the grave, resurrection, and ascension back to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But also looks back on all the human suffering that has led Jesus to that point, all the sins of the world that are placed on him.
SPEAKER_00: It has expectation.
SPEAKER_00: It's expecting him to come in glory.
SPEAKER_00: But it has recognition that that glory only comes through the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It's a preview of his future glory, but it's a reminder that his glory pre-exists.
SPEAKER_00: It confirms Peter's confession that he's the Son of God and it goes beyond it.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of God will be crucified and resurrected and revealed the very triune glory of God in a human being.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we draw strength from this.
SPEAKER_00: We recognize the eternal glory of God is at home in a human being.
SPEAKER_00: That was Peter's takeaway.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, who added front row seat to this, when he looks back on this, in both 1 and 2 Peter, he talks about this, of course.
SPEAKER_00: He says we too can become partakers of the divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: If the triune glory of God can dwell in the human being of Jesus Christ, and we become brothers of the Lord, then his glory can dwell in us.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's not at home in us in a pre-existent way like it is in Jesus, but it is at home in us in a real way, in a true way.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to get to heaven and we're going to be surrounded by the blazing white of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: The new creation will be filled with the white robes, with white clouds, with white horses, with a white throne, all iridescent with Jesus' hot glory.
SPEAKER_00: The foundations of the new heaven and the new earth are the jewels that are translucent, bright with light.
SPEAKER_00: There's pearls that line the street.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Sun is done away with and replaced with the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't a change in Jesus' inward nature here.
SPEAKER_00: It's a change of his outward nature to reveal for a brief moment his true nature.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what it's so intense.
SPEAKER_00: Transfiguration is the glory of God united to a human soul.
SPEAKER_00: It's a perpetual theophany.
SPEAKER_00: For all of eternity now, God dwells with man.
SPEAKER_00: That, of course, has implications on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: His humanity doesn't taint deity, his deity inflames his humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Patrick Schreiner gives a very helpful analogy of this, that of an iron placed in fire.
SPEAKER_00: The fire inflames the iron in the way that Jesus' deity inflames his human nature.
SPEAKER_00: But the fire doesn't go dark with iron.
SPEAKER_00: Divinity doesn't get marred by humanity, it only inflames it.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven meets earth in the transfiguration.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus will remain on earth.
SPEAKER_00: When the transfiguration is over, he walks back down the hill with them.
SPEAKER_00: He stays with them.
SPEAKER_00: It's the threshold of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: This connects our glorious future with Jesus' shameful past.
SPEAKER_00: We become partakers of the divine nature through his death on the cross, paying for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: That lets us know that our destiny is to experience the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Sharing in deity is deity.
SPEAKER_00: By being partakers of the divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: And that happens through trials.
SPEAKER_00: Understand that.
SPEAKER_00: That happens through trials.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' glory doesn't come without the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We long for the day when this world is transformed and the tears are no more.
SPEAKER_00: But we know that the tears of this world prepare us for the eternal weight of glory.
SPEAKER_00: God, we're grateful that you have mapped this out in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples had that moment of transfiguration to see your glory.
SPEAKER_00: How that would sustain them.
SPEAKER_00: Those same three will be in the garden with you.
SPEAKER_00: Not many months later.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly the image of your heavenly glory sustained them through that trial.
SPEAKER_00: We pray it would sustain us through ours.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone here this morning that has never trusted you, that has never come from the darkness to the light.
SPEAKER_00: I pray this morning that you would draw them, that you would open their eyes to behold the beauty of God through the law and the person of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For those of us that struggle with obedience, pray today that you would open our eyes to the wonder of your word and the beauty that comes from following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.