While the three are gazing with dazzled eyes, suddenly, as if shaped
out of air, there stand by Jesus two mighty forms, evidently men,
and yet, according to Luke, encompassed in the white radiance,
walking with the Son of Man in a better furnace. What a stound of
awe and wonder must have touched the gazers as the conviction who
these were filled their minds, and they recognised, we know not how,
the mighty lineaments of the lawgiver and the prophet! Did the three
mortals understand the meaning of the words of the heavenly three?
We cannot tell. Nor does Matthew tell us what was the theme of that
wondrous colloquy. These two might have asked, 'Why hast Thou
disquieted us to bring us up?' What is the answer? Wherefore were
they there? To tell Jesus that He was to die? No, for that lay plain
before Him. To learn from Him the mystery of His passion, that they
might be His heralds, the one in Paradise, the other in the pale
kingdoms of Hades? Perhaps, but, more probably, they came to
minister to Him strength for His conflict, even as women did of
their substance, and an angel did in Gethsemane. Perhaps the
strength came to Jesus from seeing how they yearned for the
fulfilment of the typified redemption; perhaps it came from His
being able to speak to them as He could not to any on earth. At all
events, surely Moses and Elijah were not brought there for their own
sakes alone, nor for the sake of the witnesses, but also for His
sake who was prepared by that converse for His cross.
Further, their appearance set forth Christ's death, which was their
theme, as the climax of revelation. The Law with its requirement and
its sacrifices, and Prophecy with its forward-looking gaze, stand
there, in their representatives, and bear witness that their
converging lines meet in Jesus. The finger that wrote the law, and
the finger that smote and parted Jordan, are each lifted to point to
Him. The stern voices that spoke the commandments and that hurled
threatenings at the unworthy occupants of David's throne, both
proclaim, 'Behold the Lamb of God, the perfect Fulfiller of law, the
true King of Israel.' Their presence and their speech were the
acknowledgment that this was He whom they had seen from afar; their
disappearance proclaims that their work is done when they have
pointed to Him.
Their presence also teaches us that Jesus is the life of all the
living dead. Of course, care must be exercised in drawing dogmatic
conclusions from a manifestly abnormal incident, but some plain
truths do result from it. Of these two, one had died, though mystery
hung round his death and burial; the other had passed into the
heavens by another gate than that of death; and here they both stand
with lives undiminished by their mysterious changes, in fulness of
power and of consciousness, bathed in glory, which was as their
native air now. They are witnesses of an immortal life, and proofs
that His yet unpierced hands held the keys of life and death. He
opened the gate which moves backwards to no hand but His, and
summoned them; and they come, with no napkins about their heads, and
no trailing grave-clothes entangling their feet, and own Him as the
King of life.
They speak too of the eager onward gaze which the Old Testament
believers turned to the coming Deliverer. In silent anticipation,
through all these centuries, good men had lain down to die, saying,
'I wait for Thy salvation,' and after death their spirits had lived
expectant and crying, like the souls under the altar, 'How long, O
Lord, how long?' Now these two are brought from their hopeful
repose, perchance to learn how near their deliverance was; and
behind them we seem to discern a dim crowd of holy men and women,
who had died in faith, not having received the promises, and who
throng the portals of the unseen world, waiting for the near advent
of the better Samson to bear away the gates to the city on the hill,
and lead thither their ransomed train.
Peter's bewildered words need not long detain us. He is half dazed,
but, true to his rash nature, thinks that he must say something, and
that to do something will relieve the tension of his spirit. His
proposal, so ridiculous as it is, shows that he had not really
understood what he saw. It also expresses his feeling that it is
much better to be there than to be travelling to a cross--and so may
stand as an instance of a very real temptation for us all, that of
avoiding unwelcome duties and shrinking from rough work, on the plea
of holding sweet communion with Jesus on the mountain. It was
_not_ 'good' to stay there, and leave demoniacs uncured in the
plain.