The transfiguration - Chambers, Oswald

The Great Divide

The great divide is the name given to the ultimate height of land in the rocky mountains where the waters separate and run one way to the atlantic, the other to the pacific. The mount of transfiguration is the great divide in the life of our lord.

1. Toward the summit (Matthew 16:1317:8)

when holy character was fully matured in our lord, earth lost its hold on him and he was transfigured. In all probability if Adam had transformed his innocence into holy character by obeying gods voice, transfiguration would have been the way out of this order of things, there would have been no death. The entering in of sin made that impossible. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Romans 5:12). For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Adam was intended by god to partake in his own development by sacrificing the life of nature to the will of god, and in that way to transform innocence into holiness. Our lord came on the same plane as Adam and he did all that Adam failed to do; he transformed innocence into holy character, and when he had reached the full purpose of his manhood he was transfigured. The characteristic of the holiness of almighty god is that it is absolute, it is impossible to antag- onise or strain it.

The characteristic of the holiness of Jesus is that it manifested itself by means of antagonism, it was a holiness that could be tested (see Hebrews 4:15). The son of god as son of man transformed innocence into holy character bit by bit as things opposed; he did not exhibit an immutable holiness but a holiness of which we can be made partakers that we might be partakers of his holiness (Hebrews 12:10). Jesus Christ revealed what a normal man should be and in so doing showed how we may become all that god wants us to be. When we are sanctified we do not get something like a landslide of holiness from heaven; we are introduced into a rela- tionship of oneness with god, and as our lord met antagonistic forces and overcame them, so must we. The life Jesus lived is the type of our life after sanctification. We are apt to make sanctification the end; it is only the beginning. Our holiness as saints consists in the exclusive dedication to god of all our powers.

One thing that is not sufficiently noticed is the place of the transfiguration in the life of our lord; it came at the climax of his public ministry. In mat- thew 16 we read that Jesus asked his disciples, first, who do men say that the son of man is? (RV) and then, but who say ye that i am (RV) and in a flashing, revolutionary moment of discernment peter con- fessed, thou art the Christ, the son of the living god. Then our lord laid down the basis of membership in his church upon this rock, i. E. The revelation of who Jesus is and the public confession of it, i will build my church. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Our lord had made mystical allusions to his death earlier (see john 2:1922 but the disciples did not know what he meant; here he tells them plainly why he came to be killed. And now we read that he took three of the disciples into a high mountain apart, and he was transfigured before them (RV ).

Another thing we are apt to overlook is what led up to the transfiguration in our lords own life. The gospels reveal these three things first, Jesus Christs deliberate free submission of himself to his father: i can of mine own self do nothing. Second, the subordination of his intelligence to his father: the words that i speak unto you, i speak not of myself. Third, the submission of his will (not the subjugation of his will) to his father: but the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. All through, jesus manifested a strong personal identity, but the dominant note was the submission of it all to his father. He separated his holy self for gods purposes, for their sakes i sanctify myself. Before he spoke, he listened with the inner ear to his father; he never allowed thought to originate from himself. For i spake not from myself; but the father which sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what i should say, and what i should speak (RV). That is the meaning of communion, an intelligent determined submission. Verily, verily, i say unto you, the son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father do.

When we are sanctified, our spiritual education goes along the same lines the deliberate sacrifice to god of the self god has sanctified; the determined subordination of our intelligence to god, and the determined submission of our will to god. What a glorious opportunity there is for Jesus Christ in our lives! We testify to salvation and sanctification, but are we proving day by day that Jesus Christ is made unto us . . . Sanctification in all holy living, in all holy

Speaking, and all holy thinking? Are we doing the greater works that Jesus said we should do because our wills are submitted to him as he submitted his will to his father?

2. Transformation on the summit (Luke 9:29)

And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. We say, no cross, no crown; in the life of our lord the crown of the glory of the transfiguration came before the cross. You never know Jesus Christ, and him crucified unless you have seen him transfigured in all his transcendent majesty and glory; the cross to you is nothing but the cross of a martyr. If you have seen Jesus glorified, you know that the cross is the revelation of gods judgement on sin, that on the cross our lord bore the whole massed sin of the human race. Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf (rv ). No wonder we say:

Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus

 I have lost sight of all beside.

Have we seen him, crowned with glory and honour?

When the transfiguration took place our lord as son of man had fulfilled all the requirements of his father for his earthly life and he was back in the glory which he had with the father before the world was. Why did he not stay there? Supposing Jesus had gone straight to heaven from the mount of trans- figuration, what would have happened? He would have gone alone. No one would ever have been able to follow him; his life would have been only a glorious ideal to lash humanity to despair. If Jesus Christ had gone to heaven from the mount of transfiguration we might have worshiped him, but we would have had no power to live the kind of life he lived. But Jesus did not come to show us what a holy life was like: he came to make us holy by means of his death. The only way in which our lord does become our example is when his life has been imparted to us. When we partake of his life through the experience of regeneration we are put into a state of innocence towards god, and we have then to do what Jesus did, viz. , transform that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices.

All that transpired in the life of our lord after the transfiguration is altogether vicarious, we are without a guide to it in our own experience. Up to the transfiguration we can understand his holy life and follow in his steps when we have received the holy spirit; after the transfiguration there is no point of similarity, everything is unfamiliar to us. Jesus Christ has a consciousness about which we know nothing. We have come to the place where he is completing the will of god for the salvation of fallen humanity. Beware of the teaching that makes out that Jesus Christ suffered because he was so noble, so pure, so far beyond the age in which he lived, that men put him to death; it is not true. No martyr ever said what he said i lay it [my life] down of myself. As workers, you will find that people like to listen as long as you talk about the holiness of jesus and exalt him as a marvellous character; but immediately you speak of his death and say that he became identified with sin that we might be delivered from it, you find resentment. In the new testament everything centres in the cross. The cross did not happen to jesus: he came on purpose for it.

3. Transition from the summit (Luke 9:3043)

And behold, there talked with him two men . . . Who . . . Spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem (RV). They spake not of his glory, but of his death. Who were the glorified visitants? One was moses, whom the rabbis said died of the embraces of god, god kissed him into eter- nity; an ecstasy of divine delight. The other visitant was Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a mighty whirlwind with the accompaniment of horses and a chariot of fire; a marvellous ecstasy. Here on the mount our lord Jesus Christ was back in his preincarnate glory, and what did he do? He turned his back on the glory and came down from the mount into the demon-possessed valley to be identified with sin on the cross. The bible is full of anti-climaxes. Over and over again we are brought up to a sublime height and then rushed down to earth. This is an anti- climax no human mind could have dreamed of. The son of god was transfigured before his disciples we were eyewitnesses of his majesty, says peter in his epistle; the voice of the father came with the divine approval, this is my beloved son, in whom i am well pleased; hear ye him; then he came down from the mount and was crucified in obscurity. At his baptism our lord took upon him his vocation, viz. , to take away the sin of the world by identification, and from the transfiguration onward he fulfills that vocation. Between the baptism and the trans- figuration there is no mention made of Jesus Christ being made sin; during that time he was perfecting holiness, i. E. Living the kind of life god requires us to live. After the transfiguration we see him dealing with sin put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

The completion of the transfiguration is the ascension, not the resurrection. The transfiguration is a glimpse of glory but not yet. For the holy ghost was not yet given; because that jesus was not yet glorified ( john 7:39).

We find here an explanation why god sends his servants into difficult places after the experience of sanctification; he sends them where he sent his son. Transfiguration is the necessary result of obeying god, and there are moments when the glory does shine through, but we have to come down into all that is symbolised by the demon-possessed valley, into the toil and turmoil of the world for his sake. The church of Jesus Christ is in danger of forgetting this nowadays; she is seeking favour in the eyes of the world, seeking signs and wonders, and christ stands without the door knocking. Have you ever caught a glimpse of what going without the camp bearing his reproach means? What camp? The camp that does not put jesus first. After the glorious vision in the heavenlieswhat? Filling up that which is lacking of the afflictions of christ (RV). Few of us get there because we stop short at sanctification. The emphasis is put on the subjective side, can Jesus christ make me holy? The dominant note with the apostle Paul was not sanctification, but jesus christ, and him cru- cified. When we are baptised with the holy ghost self is effaced in a glory of sacrifice for Jesus and we become his witnesses. Self-conscious devotion is gone, self-conscious service is killed, and one thing only remains, Jesus Christ first, second, and third.