Luke 9:28-29

1 st. Luke 9:28-29. The Glory of Jesus.

The three narratives show that there was an interval of a week between the transfiguration and the first announcement of the sufferings of Jesus, with this slight difference, that Matthew and Mark say six days after, whilst Luke says about eight days after. It is a very simple explanation to suppose that Luke employs a round number, as indeed the limitation ὡσεί, about, indicates, whilst the others give, from some document, the exact figure. But this explanation is too simple for criticism. “Luke,” says Holtzmann, “affects to be a better chronologist than the others.” And for this reason, forsooth, he substitutes eight for six on his own authority, and immediately, from some qualm of conscience, corrects himself by using the word about! To such puerilities is criticism driven by the hypothesis of a common document. The Aramaean constructions, which characterize the style of Luke in this passage, and which are not found in the two other Syn. (ἐγένετο καὶ ἀνέβη, Luke 9:28; ἐγένετο εἶπεν, Luke 9:33), would be sufficient to prove that he follows a different document from theirs.

The nominative ἡμέραι ὀκτώ, eight days, is the subject of an elliptical phrase, which forms a parenthesis: “ About eight days had passed away. ” It is not without design that Luke expressly adds, after these sayings. He thereby brings out the moral connection between this event and the preceding conversation.

We might think, from the account of Matthew and Mark, that in taking His disciples to the mountain, Jesus intended to be transfigured before them. Luke gives us to understand that He simply wished to pray with them. Lange thinks, and it is probable, that in consequence of the announcement of His approaching sufferings, deep depression had taken possession of the hearts of the Twelve. They had spent these six days, respecting which the sacred records preserve unbroken silence, in a gloomy stupor. Jesus was anxious to rouse them out of a feeling which, to say the least, was quite as dangerous as the enthusiastic excitement which had followed the multiplication of the loaves. And in order to do this He had recourse to prayer; He sought to strengthen by this means those apostles especially whose moral state would determine the disposition of their colleagues. Knowing well by experience the influence a sojourn upon some height has upon the soul, how much more easily, in such a place, it collects its thoughts and recovers from depression,

He leads them away to a mountain. The art. τό denotes the mountain nearest to the level country where Jesus then was. According to a tradition, of which we can gather no positive traces earlier than the fourth century (Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome), the mountain in question was Tabor, a lofty cone, situated two leagues to the south-east of Nazareth. Perhaps the Gospel to the Hebrews presents an older trace of this opinion in the words which it attributes to Jesus: “Then my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me up by a hair of my head, and carried me to the high mountain of Tabor.” But two circumstances are against the truth of this tradition: 1. Tabor is a long way off Caesarea Philippi, where the previous conversation took place. Certainly, in the intervening six days Jesus could have returned even to the neighbourhood of Tabor. But would not Matthew and Mark, who have noticed the journey into the northern country, have mentioned this return? 2. The summit of Tabor was at that time, as Robinson has proved, occupied by a fortified town, which would scarcely agree with the tranquillity which Jesus sought. We think, therefore, that probably the choice lies between Hermon and Mount Panias, from whose snowy summits, visible to the admiring eye in all the northern parts of the Holy Land, the sources of the Jordan are constantly fed.

The strengthening of the faith of the three principal apostles was the object, therefore, of this mountain excursion; the glorification of Jesus was an answer to prayer, and the means employed by God to bring about the desired result. The connection between the prayer of Jesus and His transfiguration is expressed in Luke by the preposition ἐν, which denotes more than a mere simultaneousness (whilst He prayed), and makes His prayer the cause of this mysterious event. Elevated feeling imparts to the countenance and even to the figure of the entire man a distinguished appearance. The impulse of true devotion, the enthusiasm of adoration, illumine him. And when, corresponding with this state of soul, there is a positive revelation on the part of God, as in the case of Moses or of Stephen, then, indeed, it may come to pass that the inward illumination, penetrating, through the medium of the soul, even to its external covering, the body, may produce in it a prelude, as it were, of its future glorification. It was some phenomenon of this kind that was produced in the person of Jesus whilst He was praying. Luke describes its effects in the simplest manner: “ His countenance became other. ” How can Holtzmann maintain that in him the vision is “aesthetically amplified.” His expression is much more simple than Mark's: “ He was transfigured before them,” or than that of Matthew, who to these words of Mark adds, “ and His countenance shone as the sun. ”

This luminous appearance possessed the body of Jesus in such intensity as to become perceptible even through His garments. Even here the expression of Luke is very simple: “ His garments became white and shining,” and contrasts with the stronger expressions of Mark and Matthew.

The grandeur of the recent miracles shows us that Jesus at this time had reached the zenith of His powers. As everything in His life was in perfect harmony, this period must have been that also in which He reached the perfection of His inward development. Having reached it, what was His normal future? He could not advance; He must not go back. From this moment, therefore, earthly existence became too narrow a sphere for this perfected personality. There only remained death; but death is the offspring of the sinner, or, as St. Paul says, the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). For the sinless man the issue of life is not the sombre passage of the tomb; rather is it the royal road of a glorious transformation. Had the hour of this glorification struck for Jesus; and was His transfiguration the beginning of the heavenly renewal? This is Lange's thought; it somehow brings this event within the range of the understanding. Gess gives expression to it in these words: “This event indicates the ripe preparation of Jesus for immediate entrance upon eternity.” Had not Jesus Himself voluntarily suspended the change which was on the point of being wrought in Him, this moment would have become the moment of His ascension.