The transfiguration of Christ before Peter, James, and John is a significant event in His life and ministry. It is related by Matthew (17), Mark (9), and Luke (9). Peter mention it as well during his second letter (1:16-18).
In relating the experience, Matthew notes that Jesus in the transfiguration had a face that shined like the sun, and His clothes became white as light. Moses and Elijah appeared before the apostles, and talked with Jesus. Peter marveled at the site, and proposed to erect three tabernacles, one for each individual. Though an understandable reaction, this was not what God wanted at all. Jesus was transfigured, and Moses and Elijah appeared, to exclusively magnify Jesus as the Son of God. When Peter made his suggestion, God took Moses and Elijah away, leaving Jesus alone. He said from heaven, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Hear Him!” (17:5).
Elijah was a great prophet, and Moses a great servant in God’s house (cf. Hebrews 3:5). However, Jesus was God’s Son, and the Heir of the Father (cf. Hebrews 3:6). He was greater than either Elijah or Moses, and at this point in the history of mankind, God had chosen to send Jesus to change everything! “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they” (Hebrews 1:1-4). Put simply, Elijah and Moses were great men, important to the Jewish nation. But God here showed the apostles (and us by extension), that Jesus is the unique Savior of mankind. All men are to listen to the will of no other, only Him.
This is made clear by Peter’s words in 2 Peter 1, “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory…” (16-17). All authority has been given to Jesus Christ, in heaven and on earth. Jesus claimed it, (Matthew 16:18), and the Father attested to it on this occasion.
What we have in Jesus Christ is the unique pinnacle of humanity coupled with Deity. You have THE anointed of God. Not A Christ, but THE Christ. He is the One through which God chose to redeem the world. Faith in Him is required for man’s salvation. There is no person or thing like Him!
