THE TRANSFIGURATION.
Of the week following the events last considered, no record is found in
the Gospels. We may safely assume that the time was devoted, in part at
least, to the further instruction of the Twelve respecting the rapidly
approaching consummation of the Savior's mission on earth, the awful
circumstances of which the apostles were loath to believe possible. When
the week had passed[775] Jesus took Peter, James, and John[776] and with
them ascended a high mountain, where they would be reasonably safe from
human intrusion.[777] There the three apostles witnessed a heavenly
manifestation, which stands without parallel in history; in our Bible
captions it is known as the Transfiguration of Christ.[778]
One purpose of the Lord's retirement was that of prayer, and a
transcendent investiture of glory came upon Him as He prayed. The
apostles had fallen asleep, but were awakened by the surpassing splendor
of the scene, and gazed with reverent awe upon their glorified Lord.
"The fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white
and glistering." His garments, though made of earth-woven fabric,
"became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can
white them;" "and his face did shine as the sun." Thus was Jesus
transfigured before the three privileged witnesses.
With Him were two other personages, who also were in a state of
glorified radiance, and who conversed with the Lord. These, as the
apostles learned by means not stated though probably as gathered from
the conversation in progress, were Moses and Elias, or more literally to
us, Elijah; and the subject of their conference with Christ was "his
decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." As the prophet
visitants were about to depart, "Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is
good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee,
and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said."
Undoubtedly Peter and his fellow apostles were bewildered, "sore afraid"
indeed; and this condition may explain the suggestion respecting the
three tabernacles. "He wist not what to say;" yet, though his remark
appears confused and obscure, it becomes somewhat plainer when we
remember that, at the annual feast of Tabernacles, it was customary to
erect a little bower, or booth of wattled boughs, for each individual
worshiper, into which he might retire for devotion. So far as there was
a purpose in Peter's proposition, it seems to have been that of delaying
the departure of the visitants.
The sublime and awful solemnity of the occasion had not yet reached its
climax. Even as Peter spake, "behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them:
and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." It was Elohim,[779] the Eternal
Father, who spake; and at the sound of that voice of supreme Majesty,
the apostles fell prostrate. Jesus came and touched them, saying,
"Arise, and be not afraid." When they looked they saw that again they
were alone with Him.
The impression made upon the three apostles by this manifestation was
one never to be forgotten; but they were expressly charged to speak of
it to no man until after the Savior had risen from the dead. They were
puzzled as to the significance of the Lord's reference to His
prospective rising from the dead. They had heard with great sorrow, and
reluctantly they were being brought to understand it to be an awful
certainty, that their beloved Master was to "suffer many things, and be
rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be
killed."[780] Such had been declared to them before, in language devoid
of ambiguity and admitting of no figurative construction; and with equal
plainness they had been told that Jesus would rise again; but of this
latter eventuality they had but dim comprehension. The present
reiteration of these teachings seems to have left the three with no
clearer understanding of their Lord's resurrection from the dead than
they had before. They seem to have had no definite conception as to what
was meant by a resurrection; "And they kept that saying with themselves,
questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should
mean."[781]
The comprehensiveness of the Lord's injunction, that until after His
rising from the dead they tell no man of their experiences on the mount,
prohibited them from informing even their fellows of the Twelve. Later,
after the Lord had ascended to His glory, Peter testified to the Church
of the wondrous experience, in this forceful way: "For we have not
followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his
majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when
there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from
heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount."[782] And
John, reverently confessing before the world the divinity of the Word,
the Son of God who had been made flesh to dwell among men, solemnly
affirmed: "And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of
the Father, full of grace and truth."[783]
The divine purpose as shown forth in the Transfiguration may be as
incomprehensible to the human mind as is a full conception of the
attendant splendor from verbal description; some features of the results
achieved are apparent, however. Unto Christ the manifestation was
strengthening and encouraging. The prospect of the experiences
immediately ahead must naturally have been depressing and disheartening
in the extreme. In faithfully treading the path of His life's work, He
had reached the verge of the valley of the shadow of death; and the
human part of His nature called for refreshing. As angels had been sent
to minister unto Him after the trying scenes of the forty days' fast and
the direct temptation of Satan,[784] and as, in the agonizing hour of
His bloody sweat, He was to be sustained anew by angelic ministry,[785]
so at this critical and crucial period, the beginning of the end,
visitants from the unseen world came to comfort and support Him. What of
actual communication passed in the conference of Jesus with Moses and
Elijah is not of full record in the New Testament Gospels.
The voice of His Father, to whom He was the Firstborn in the
spirit-world, and the Only Begotten in the flesh, was of supreme
assurance; yet that voice had been addressed to the three apostles
rather than to Jesus, who had already received the Father's
acknowledgment and attestation on the occasion of His baptism. The
fullest version of the Father's words to Peter, James, and John is that
recorded by Matthew: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;
hear ye him." Aside from the proclamation of the Son's divine nature,
the Father's words were otherwise decisive and portentous. Moses, the
promulgator of the law, and Elijah the representative of the prophets
and especially distinguished among them as the one who had not
died,[786] had been seen ministering unto Jesus and subservient to Him.
The fulfillment of the law and the superseding of the prophets by the
Messiah was attested in the command--Hear ye _Him_. A new dispensation
had been established, that of the gospel, for which the law and the
prophets had been but preparatory. The apostles were to be guided
neither by Moses nor Elijah, but by _Him_, their Lord, Jesus the Christ.
The three selected apostles, "the Man of Rock and the Sons of Thunder"
had seen the Lord in glory; and they marveled that such a thing could be
at that time, since as they had interpreted the scriptures, it had been
predicted that Elijah should precede the Messiah's triumphal advent. As
they wended their way down the mountain-side, they asked the
Master:[787] "Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?"
Jesus confirmed the prophecy that Elias should first come, that is,
before the Lord's advent in glory, which event they had in mind; "But,"
He added, "I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him
not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also
the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he
spake unto them of John the Baptist." That John the Baptist would
officiate "in the spirit and power of Elias," as the forerunner of the
Christ, had been announced by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias,[788]
before the Baptist's birth; and that John was _that_ particular Elias
had been shown by Jesus in His memorable tribute to the Baptist's
fidelity and greatness. That His words would not be generally accepted
with understanding is evidenced by the context; Jesus, on that occasion,
had said: "And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to
come."[789]
It is not possible that Jesus could have meant that John was the same
individual as Elijah; nor could the people have so understood His words,
since the false doctrine of transmigration or reincarnation of spirits
was repudiated by the Jews.[790] The seeming difficulty is removed when
we consider that, as the name appears in the New Testament, "Elias" is
used for "Elijah,"[791] with no attempt at distinction between Elijah
the Tishbite, and any other person known as Elias. Gabriel's declaration
that the then unborn John should manifest "the spirit and power of
Elias" indicates that "Elias" is a title of office; every restorer,
forerunner, or one sent of God to prepare the way for greater
developments in the gospel plan, is an Elias. The appellative "Elias" is
in fact both a personal name and a title.
In the present dispensation both the ancient Elias, who belonged to the
Abrahamic dispensation and in the spirit of whose office many have
officiated in different periods, and also the prophet Elijah, have
appeared in person and have conferred their particular and separate
authority upon latter-day bearers of the Holy Priesthood, and the keys
of the powers exercized by them while on earth are today inherent in the
restored Church of Jesus Christ. The authority of Elias is inferior to
that of Elijah, the first being a function of the Lesser or Aaronic
order of Priesthood, while the latter belongs to the Higher or
Melchizedek Priesthood. Malachi's prediction, that before "the great and
dreadful day of the Lord" Elijah the prophet would be sent to earth to
"turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the
children to their fathers,"[792] did not reach fulfilment in the mission
of John the Baptist, nor in that of any other "Elias";[793] its complete
realization was inaugurated on the third day of April, 1836, when Elijah
appeared in the temple at Kirtland, Ohio, and committed to Joseph Smith
and Oliver Cowdery the keys of the authority theretofore vested in
himself. "The great and dreadful day of the Lord" was not the meridian
of time; that awful though blessed period of consummation is yet future,
but "near, even at the doors."[794]
NOTES TO CHAPTER 23.
1. Interval Between Time of Peter's Confession and that of the
Transfiguration.--Both Matthew (17:1) and Mark (9:2) state that the
Transfiguration occurred "after six days" following the time of Peter's
great confession that Jesus was the Christ; while Luke (9:28) notes an
interval of "about an eight days." It is probable that the six-day
period was meant to be exclusive of the day on which the earlier events
had occurred and of that on which Jesus and the three apostles retired
to the mountain; and that Luke's "about an eight days" was made to
include these two days. There is here no ground for a claim of
discrepancy.
2. Peter, James, and John who were selected from among the Twelve as the
only earthly witnesses of the transfiguration of Christ, had been
similarly chosen as witnesses of a special manifestation, that of the
raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51); and, later,
the same three were the sole witnesses of our Lord's night agony in
Gethsemane (Matt. 26:37; Mark 14:33).
3. Place of the Transfiguration.--The mountain on which the
Transfiguration occurred is neither named nor otherwise indicated by the
Gospel-writers in such a way as to admit of its positive identification.
Mount Tabor, in Galilee, has long been held by tradition as the site,
and in the sixth century three churches were erected on its plateau-like
summit, possibly in commemoration of Peter's desire to make three
tabernacles or booths, one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Later a
monastery was built there. Nevertheless, Mt. Tabor is now rejected by
investigators, and Mt. Hermon is generally regarded as the place. Hermon
stands near the northerly limits of Palestine, just beyond Cæsarea
Philippi, where Jesus is known to have been a week before the
Transfiguration. Mark (9:30) distinctly tells us that after His descent
from the mount, Jesus and the apostles departed and went through
Galilee. Weight of evidence is in favor of Hermon as the Mount of
Transfiguration, though nothing that may be called decisive is known in
the matter.
4. The Names "Elias" and "Elijah."--The following statement which
appears in Smith's _Bible Dictionary_ is supported by authorities in
general: "'Elias'" is "the Greek and Latin form of 'Elijah' given in the
Authorized Version of the Apocrypha and New Testament."
5. "The Spirit and Power of Elias."--That John the Baptist, in his
capacity as a restorer, a forerunner, or as one sent to prepare the way
for a work greater than his own, did officiate as an "Elias" is attested
by both ancient and latter-day scripture. Through him water baptism for
the remission of sins was preached and administered, and the higher
baptism, that of the Spirit, was made possible. True to his mission, he
has come in the last dispensation, and has restored by ordination the
Priesthood of Aaron, which has authority to baptize. He thus prepared
the way for the vicarious labor of baptism for the dead, the authority
for which was restored by Elijah, (see page 149 herein), and which is
preeminently the work by which the children and the fathers shall be
united in an eternal bond.
On the 10th of March, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith gave the following
exposition of the power of Elias as compared with higher authority: "The
spirit of Elias is first, Elijah second, and Messiah last. Elias is a
forerunner to prepare the way, and the spirit and power of Elijah is to
come after, holding the keys of power, building the temple to the
cap-stone, placing the seals of the Melchizedek Priesthood upon the
house of Israel, and making all things ready; then Messiah comes to His
temple, which is last of all."
"Messiah is above the spirit and power of Elijah, for He made the world,
and was that spiritual rock unto Moses in the wilderness. Elijah was to
come and prepare the way and build up the kingdom before the coming of
the great day of the Lord, although the spirit of Elias might begin
it."--_Hist. of the Church_, under date named.
6. Mention of the Lord's Approaching "Decease."--Of the three
synoptists, Luke alone makes even brief mention of the matter upon which
Moses and Elijah conversed with the Lord at the Transfiguration. The
record states that the visitants, who appeared in glory, "spake of his
decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31). It is
significant that the _decease_, which the Lord should _accomplish_, not
the _death_ that He should _suffer_ or _die_, was the subject of that
exalted communion. The Greek word of which "decease" appears as the
English equivalent in many of the MSS. of the Gospels, is one connoting
"exodus," or "departure," and the word occurring in other early versions
signifies glory. So also the Greek original of "accomplish," in the
account of the Transfiguration, connotes the successful filling out or
completion of a specific undertaking, and not distinctively the act of
dying. Both the letter of the record and the spirit in which the
recorder wrote indicate that Moses and Elijah conversed with their Lord
on the glorious consummation of His mission in mortality--a consummation
recognized in the law (personified in Moses) and the prophets
(represented by Elijah)--and an event of supreme import, determining the
fulfilment of both the law and the prophets, and the glorious
inauguration of a new and higher order as part of the divine plan. The
_decease_ that the Savior was then so soon to _accomplish_ was the
voluntary surrender of His life in fulfilment of a purpose at once
exalted and foreordained, not a _death_ by which He would passively
_die_ through conditions beyond His control. (See pp. 418, and 662).
FOOTNOTES:
[775] Note 1, end of chapter.
[776] Note 2, end of chapter.
[777] Note 3, end of chapter.
[778] Matt. 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36.
[779] Page 38.
[780] Mark 8:31. Note 6, end of chapter.
[781] Mark 9:10.
[782] 2 Peter 1:16-18.
[783] John 1:14.
[784] Matt. 4:11; Mark 1:13.
[785] Luke 22:43; compare John 12:27-28.
[786] 2 Kings 2:11.
[787] Matt. 17:10-13; Mark 9:11-13.
[788] Luke 1:17; pages 77 and 257 herein.
[789] Matt. 11:14.
[790] Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus," vol. ii, p. 79.
[791] Note 4, end of chapter.
[792] Mal. 4:5, 6; see page 149 herein.
[793] Note 5, end of chapter.
[794] Doc. and Cov. 110:13-16. See chapter 41, herein.