The transfiguration of God’s Son in Matthew 17:1–9 was a profound moment of revelation for Peter, James, and John. Overwhelmed by a sense of the holiness of God’s presence, they fell to their faces and had to be comforted by Christ (Matthew 17:7).
This event on the mountain was something they never forgot. In fact, in 2 Peter 1:16-18, Peter writes about the transfiguration:
For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such a declaration as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory: “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased”—and we ourselves heard this declaration made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
Peter is saying that at the transfiguration the majesty of Christ was put on display, and that he (along with James and John) was given privileged access to behold the glory of God’s Son. On that mountain, the “power and coming” of Christ were revealed in a preliminary way as a testimony of what would take place at the culmination of Christ’s ministry in his session at God’s right hand (Psalm 110:1) and in his second coming as the judge of all (Isaiah 11:4; Matthew 26:64).
Here are four points to consider in relation to the what the transfiguration reveals about Christ:
1. The transfiguration reveals that Jesus is the Daniel 7 son of man
Daniel 7:13-14 records a prophecy in which Daniel “…kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a son of man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, honor, and a kingdom, so that all the peoples, nations, and populations of all languages might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.”
In Daniel’s prophecy, we are given a “behind the scenes” look at what happened at Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:9). The transfiguration is connected with this event and is the evidence that after Jesus’ suffering and death (Matthew 16:21), he would receive the glory and dominion promised to him by the Father (thus fulfilling God’s plans for mankind from the beginning).
We would do well to note the overlap of concepts from Matthew 16:28-17:9 and Daniel 7. In both passages the phrase “son of man” is used. In both passages, the reality of his “coming” in glory is noted. And in both, the glory cloud is present. In short, in Matthew 17, Jesus’ glory is manifested in a real but preliminary way as the one who will fulfill the Daniel 7 prophecy. He is the Daniel 7 Son of Man!
2. The transfiguration reveals that Jesus is the climax of Old Testament revelation
Astonishingly, Moses and Elijah met with Christ on the holy mountain. We don’t have to wonder what they spoke with Christ about. Luke 9:31 tells us that “…appearing in glory, departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” The Greek word used for “departure” is the word exodus, highlighting that Christ is fulfilling what the ministry of Moses pointed forward to—namely, liberation from the bondage of sin through Christ’s atoning death (c.f. Matthew 1:21).
Moses and Elijah are not incidental figures in redemptive history. They are part of the warp and woof of God’s proleptic revelation that anticipated the coming Christ. Herman Ridderbos has a helpful quote: “ stepped forward as the great representatives of the Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets. They came to Jesus, their superior and Lord who would bring their work to completion, to stand at his side before his last great struggle began. Their appearance at this moment highlighted the immense redemptive-historical significance of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.”
One of the ways that we perceive the glory of Christ is by setting him next to the giants of redemptive history and seeing how Christ’s significance outstrips them by far (Hebrews 1:1). Just as Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to Christ’s arrival in history (John 8:56), so Moses and Elijah came forward at the transfiguration to encourage God’s Son to fulfill all that had been spoken of him in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings (c.f. Luke 24:44).
3. The transfiguration reveals that Christ is the suffering servant of Isaiah
At the outset of Christ’s public ministry, the Father expressed his approbation by saying, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Now that the first part of his ministry is complete, Christ sets his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), and the Father speaks the same words in Matthew 17:5, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
When we examine the Old Testament background of these words from the Father, we find that they allude to a passage back in Isaiah 42:1, which says,
Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; my chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” In Matthew’s gospel, the Father is drawing attention to Jesus Christ and saying, “The one that I spoke of prophetically in Isaiah 42—the one who was endowed with the Holy Spirit in his baptism—he is my very own Son and will fulfill the prophecies concerning the suffering servant as Isaiah delivered them to you.
Hermeneutically, this helps us understand that those sections of Isaiah that highlight the coming work of the suffering servant (in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 52-53) are all about Jesus Christ.
4. The transfiguration reveals that Christ is the prophet of Deuteronomy 18
Just as Moses’ ministry anticipated the arrival of Christ and pointed to his exodus in Jerusalem, so Moses directly spoke about Christ. In Deuteronomy 18:5, Moses told the people of Israel, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen; to him you shall listen.” In the same chapter, God also says, “I will raise up for . And it shall come about that whoever does not listen to My words which he speaks in My name, I Myself will require it of him.”
In Matthew 17:5, God expressly identities to Peter, James, and John (in the presence of Moses, no less!) who this prophet is: “This ,” the Father says as spotlights Jesus, “is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him!” The “to him you shall listen” of Deuteronomy 18:5 is the background to the “listen to Him” of Matthew 17:5.
In short, we must listen to God’s Son because God the Father has told us to listen to him as the prophet Moses prophesied. If we won’t listen to the Son of God in whom God the Father is well pleased, he will not be well pleased with us. Everything about our future glory hinges on resorting to Christ with ears of faith, coming to him as the Messiah anticipated by the Old Testament. The glory earned by Christ can only be ours (Matthew 13:43) if we truly give heed to Christ and come to him and believe upon him as the Savior who suffered in Jerusalem but was raised and ascended to glory in fulfillment of the Scriptures.
The transfiguration was a watershed moment of revelation in the life of Christ. It was something Peter, James, and John never forgot as they bequeathed their writings to the New Testament church in expectation of Christ’s second coming. The dominion and the glory belong to Christ today. Christians have not followed cleverly devised myths. And we know that because God glorified his Christ in a preliminary way in Matthew 17, revealing that all the strands of biblical revelation find their “yes and amen” in him (2 Corinthians 1:20). The suffering Jesus would face in Jerusalem would not diminish his future glory—the suffering was actually the pathway to obtaining the glorious destiny of Daniel 7. This was the Father’s plan from eternity. As Christ was well pleased to walk the path of obedience, undergoing suffering and shame for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12:2), God was well pleased with his Son who fulfilled every task given to him and spoke every word commanded by the Father.
If Jesus is the Daniel 7 Son of Man, if he is the climax of Old Testament revelation, if he is Isaiah’s suffering servant, and if he is the prophet Moses promised—there is only one proper response. We must give our full attention to him. We must listen to what he says. We must take him seriously. We must follow him as faith-filled disciples, desiring that he would receive the honor and glory from our lips and the gratitude of our hearts for the exodus he accomplished that liberated us from the bondage of our sin—he will share his glorified, resurrected existence with us in the life to come! His glory so poignantly portrayed in a preliminary way at the transfiguration gives us great confidence to say presently, “Truly Jesus is the Son of God!”
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