THE Transfiguration in the Mount is the advance play of light, that brings out the more strikingly the deep dark shadow of the suffering of the Messiah. It is the reality of the heavenly glory, that shines out for a moment, to make, as by contrast, the full reality of the passion of the Man of Sorrows tangible.
It requires no effort on our part to take this as the heart of the matter, for the Gospel narrative itself states that such is the case. And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. (Luke 9, 30, 31).
In the holy mount, writes Peter (2-1, 16) we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty, and, from this Mount the Divine signal is given, that, with heaven and earth as spectators, the awful drama of the dying of the Son of God is to begin.
Moses and Elias appear to the Man of Sorrows as messengers of God, and all we learn from them, is, that they tell Him of His decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.
The connection therefore is not a point of question. This interlinking of glory and sorrow is a fact. The Transfiguration in the Mount is the prelude to Golgotha.
It is the first “sign of the Son of Man” pointing to the cross on which He is to die, even as presently a second time “the sign of the Son of Man shall be seen, when He returns in glory.
But as then it shall be the sign that His glory is about to appear in all its fulness, so here it was the sign, that the fulness of death and of curse was about to be poured out upon Him.
As in olden times in cities and towns bells were rung from every steeple, whenever gallows were erected, so here the ringing of the bells of heaven is heard, to cast the seriousness of Golgotha upon all hearts.
From the Mount the tiding goes forth, that Golgotha is at hand.
It affects one strangely however, that this announcement of His decease at Jerusalem is not made to the world, and not to Israel, not even to the apostles in the fulness of their number, but to Jesus Himself alone, and that only three of His disciples are eyewitnesses to the fact, that Moses and Elias announce to Him His suffering and death. The “sign of suffering” if we may say so, the sign of the Lamb of God, that shall be slain, remains hidden from the eyes of those who stand outside, and rather than have it proclaimed from the Mount to the world, Jesus charges His disciples not to tell any man what they had seen, as long as He is not risen from the dead.
This affects one the more strangely, because involuntarily one asks himself, whether there was any part of the drama of suffering that was at hand, that Jesus Himself did not know. He Who presently on the way to Emmaus expounds the Scriptures to His disciples, and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, shows them, that the Christ had to suffer all these things, and thus enter into His glory, had least need, that the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, should expressly, and in such an impressive way, be announced to Him by Moses and Elias.
That the disciples had need of so solemn an announcement, you understand. When even a Peter had to be rebuked with a “Get thee behind Me, Satan”, because he would not believe the tragic end of Jesus’ appearance, you can imagine that a miracle like this of the Mount was necessary to profoundly impress them with the seriousness and the unpreventableness of the coming suffering.
And yet from everything connected with it, it is evident, that this was not the purpose of the transfiguration. The “sign of Golgotha” there appears, not that the world might take notice of it, and not that the disciples might give up all doubt, but for Jesus’ own sake.
To Him, and not to the disciples is announced by Moses and Elias, the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.
Presently the word shall be spoken from the Cross: “It is finished;” here in the Mount, Moses and Elias speak of a decease which He must accomplish.
Does this not show, that in the Mount it was least of all the announcement of a suffering which was unknown to Jesus, but rather, that it tended to complete the impression of the reality of the coming suffering in the self-consciousness of Jesus?
Do not forget, that Jesus’ human consciousness did not at once appropriate into itself what Divine knowledge there was in Him.
Of course as Son of God the knowledge of the Messiah was equal to the Father’s knowledge and that of the Holy Ghost’s. But in the case of Jesus, the human consciousness did not lose thereby its human character, and the character of our human consciousness is, that only by degrees, only gradually, only by a steady ripening does it enter into the full impression of things. Do we not read of Jesus that He increased in wisdom and grace?
Hence though we reverently confess, that the Divine knowledge of Christ was perfect and not susceptible to further completion, yet it must be maintained, that with His human consciousness Jesus did not enter, except gradually, into the full sense of what awaited Him, and thus likewise of His suffering.
He knew that He had to suffer all these things, that He had to go into death and pass under the curse, but it was still something wholly different, so to know all this, and so to sense it beforehand, that the impression of that suffering and dying was in advance received by Him.
And therefore when prophecy instructs Him what suffering awaited Him, it is not the same, as when in the Mount, with the heightened receptivity with which the consciousness of life exalted in glory enriched Him, Moses and Elias hold before Him that all this suffering must be accomplished to the death.
It still entangles us in riddles why the realtity of Golgotha was indispensable. Had not Enoch and Noah, Abraham and Israel, a David and an Isaiah, already obtained justification? Was not theirs also the faith in the coming Messiah? If then they had already entered among the company of just men made perfect, without the reality of Golgotha having materialized, why could not like grace be shown unto us, even though Golgotha were ever deferred, at length deferred to the end of the world, and thereby of itself have become superfluous?
Entire willingness to suffer was evident in the Messiah, could not then God, taking the will for the deed, have waived the demand of death, and still have reconciled and forgiven us in Christ?
If indeed there was entire willingness on the part of Jesus to make the sacrifice, why should His blood itself have to be shed?
Did it all depend upon the shedding of that blood? Was reality here indispensable? Must all that bitter suffering actually be accomplished? Not for our sakes, that we might see it, but for God’s sake, that there might be reconciliation?
Thus the snare presents itself to our meditation, a snare braided from the tangled threads of the doubts of our heart.
We can argue with ourselves and others that sin brought with it the punishment of death, and that to redeem us, Jesus had to suffer death for us and in our stead. But when sacrificial willingness to die is perfect, what does the disposition of the heart still lack, and what benefit has God from that shedding of the blood?
And against this snare of doubt the Transfiguration is the protest.
No, God is not concerned about arguments regarding the atonement, but about the reality of it. Therefore, from the Mount, once more, the Divine ordinance goes forth, that this suffering of death must not merely be accepted and willed, but must actually be accomplished.
It all depends upon that reality. Abstraction, the representation of things in thought, analysis in our processes of thinking, the imagination of faith avails here nothing.
Surely, thinking explains life, but it is therefore by no means yet real life that is explained, and what you think or represent to yourself, amounts to nothing, unless before or afterward actual reality corresponds to it.
In the thought of God the world was from all eternity. But this was not enough. From the Divine thought that world had to pass over into reality, and this was the Creation.
God Himself is not merely a fulness of thought, but He is. He lives. His is the essence of all essences.
He created our human life in full reality. Everything in the world which first moves in hidden places presently comes out in full reality. Hence, the atonement could not remain pending in the world of thought, but must come out in full reality and be accomplished. They who were saved in the Old Covenant, believed in what should be accomplished. We who are born after Jesus, believe in what is accomplished. But the actual accomplishment must lie in between.
The Messiah is not merely called the Lamb of God, but He is the Lamb of God, and therefore as the Lamb of God He must in all reality be slain.
Only by this reality does the atonement pass over from the realm of possibility into the realm of truth.
And it is this reality, this full reality of the coming suffering and death, that under the effulgence of the glistening antithesis of glory and curse, is brought to Jesus in the Mount.
It was an act of love on the part of the Father, in behalf of the Only-Begotten One, whom He had given to the world.
This transition in the Mount from the realm of thought into the full impression of the reality reflects its seriousness upon us.
One day you will die. You know it. You do not deny it. You accept this your lot and are ready to suffer it. But do you truly enter into the reality of your own coming death and do you realize it to the full?
One day you will be carried out to the grave, and separated from the body, in simple existence as soul, you will await the ressurection of the body. And this, too, you know and confess. But in your perception has it become real to you?
You believe in reconciliation. And confessing your faith in the atonement, you speak of Golgotha, and of what the Man of Sorrows there endured. But has your soul ever come under the full impression of what that atonement and that suffering is, not as a dogma and not as an image of the imagination, but in reality?
You believe in an eternal life, in a world far richer and more glorious than this world. You call yourself a pilgrim. You glory in the blessedness which God preserves for His elect as an incorruptible good. But has all this become real to you? Has all this passed over for you from the realm of thought into the full reality?
You well know the difference between representation and reality. He who is a-thirst, and first pictures the sight of water to himself, and then comes to the fountain and actually drinks the water, sweetly and gloriously tastes the difference.
Do you know this difference, when you lift up your mind and soul to eternal things? In your estimation does the life of heaven which is with God weigh in its full reality?
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