Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S27 || The Transfiguration of Jesus Explained || Mark 9:1-11 || Session 27 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
A profound transformation unfolds on a remote mountaintop as Jesus reveals his true divine nature to three astonished disciples. The Transfiguration stands as one of the most extraordinary moments in the Gospels – a glimpse behind the veil of Jesus' humanity into the fullness of his glory.
Moses and Elijah appearing alongside Jesus carries tremendous significance. They represent the Law and the Prophets – the entire witness of the Hebrew Scriptures – affirming Jesus as their fulfillment. Their presence also offers a powerful testimony about life beyond death, as these figures from centuries past stand conversing with Jesus. When God's voice thunders from the overshadowing cloud, "This is My beloved Son, listen to Him," the message becomes unmistakable: Jesus stands supreme above all others.
The eyewitness nature of this account cannot be overstated. Years later, both Peter and John would explicitly reference what they had seen and heard on that mountain – a transformative experience that sustained them through persecution and martyrdom. Their testimony challenges us: how do we respond to the revealed glory of Christ? Do we cling to mountaintop moments, or carry their truth with us into the valleys of everyday life?
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. Today we are in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9. If you have your copy of the Word of God, turn there. We're going to see a mountaintop experience. Literally, we have Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, which is one of the high points of the Gospel. It's a very dramatic scene, but we also have some great teaching that can go along with it that we'll be able to learn. So let's go ahead and dive into the Word of God. Steve, if you could read Mark 9, verses 1 through 8.
Speaker 2:And Jesus was saying to them. Truly, I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God, after it has come with power. Six days later, jesus took with him Peter and James and John and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them and his garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Elijah appeared with them along with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah, for he did not know what to answer for. They became terrified. Then a cloud formed over.
Speaker 1:I think we need to get a big picture of it first before we go in in detail. First of all, the chapter divisions were not in the original and they're not our friend here, because I think Mark is drawing a contrast between what's at the end of chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 9. At the end of chapter 8, jesus ends the chapter with this message of coming in his glory and being ashamed of people who failed him. That's who he talks about. If you're ashamed of me, then I'm going to be ashamed of you when I come in my glory. The very next verse, the beginning of 9, speaks just the opposite of people that are going to see the glory and the kingdom of God coming with power. So it would seem that Mark is drawing a contrast between one verse at the end of verse 8 that talks about people that he's going to be ashamed of when he comes in his glory because they were ashamed of him, and then the very next verse, those that are going to see his glory and be there when he's there in power. It would seem that Mark's drawing a contrast Over in Matthew. The chapter divisions are really not our friend because the prediction that we have here in 9.1, where Jesus says there's some that are going to see the kingdom coming with power. That's at the end of one chapter and the transfigurations at the beginning of another. People think of them as separated, but here it's a little more clear. But nevertheless, mark is still drawing this contrast between people failing him at the end of chapter 8 and people that are with him at the beginning of chapter 9.
Speaker 1:He takes Peter, james and John up to a mountaintop and is transformed. Peter mentions this account as being an eyewitness of this in 2 Peter 1, verses 16 to 18, where Peter says that he was an eyewitness of Jesus's majesty when they were with him on the holy mountain. Peter claimed to be an eyewitness of this very transformation. We also have to realize here in this passage, jesus isn't merely just shining like as if he had a bright light appearing on him. The word there is that we use. The word transformation on is the original Greek, is the same word we get the word metamorphosis from. It's a fundamental change of form. He changed fundamentally before them. This was a light from the inside out. He was changed into another form, a glorified form, apparently the same form as he will return to set up his earthly kingdom. Steve, what else can we learn from this story of the Mount of Transfiguration?
Speaker 2:In that reference you gave on 2 Peter, he says there we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you all these stories, as he gives that eyewitness account. So it's very clear that Peter is saying I'm an eyewitness, I saw this happen, I heard this with my own ears. It's not some sort of a fable or some type of a tale that we made up in order to get people to follow us or to continue it. He's very clear that he was an eyewitness to it. As he describes what's going on and God's glory, we're told.
Speaker 2:I think it's in Hebrews where Jesus cloaked his glory when he became a man, here on this mountain, here with his other three disciples. He takes that cloak off. He lets them see exactly who he is and I agree with you, glenn, it's going to be the way he appears whenever he comes the second time. So it's also true that whenever they look around and it's only Jesus, he has again cloaked his glory once again. But when he ascends at the end and goes, he ascends in his glory. They see him the way he is. He won't have to cloak himself anymore. He will come in his glory. I think this all works into everything that he has been teaching them there at the end of chapter 8 and end of chapter 9, talking about for those who will be ashamed of me. I will be ashamed of them when I come in my glory.
Speaker 2:Here it is six days later and he shows them what this glory is going to be. Once again, I think it's Jesus giving them indication of what the program is, what is going to happen. He started telling them I must die and be buried and raised again three days later. They didn't completely understand that. He told them that he's going to come in his glory. Now he's shown him what that glory is going to be. He is slowly showing his disciples, and especially these inner three of Peter James and John, and especially these inner three of Peter James and John, what is going to happen. He's going to come again at a second time.
Speaker 1:That's what's going to happen. You mentioned the eyewitness account that is mentioned in 2 Peter. Well, one of the people that was here was the Apostle John. In the first three verses of 1 John he mentions nine times in three verses that he was an eyewitness. He says our hands handled him, we touched him, we saw him, we heard him. He was manifested in front of us. John says we were there, we saw him, we heard him, we touched him. Peter says we didn't go off into a corner and make up a cleverly devised fable. We didn't go off and make up some religious story. We were eyewitnesses. We saw these things. The New Testament claims to be eyewitness accounts of what they saw and heard. Jesus say and who are we, who are you, my skeptical friend, to look back on it all these years later and say they really didn't see what they say they saw? How dare you? We have eyewitness accounts of what happened here. Back to Mark 9, on this Mount of Transfiguration. Who appears on the mountain and what do they represent?
Speaker 2:Moses appears and Elijah appears. I think this is a representation of Moses, for the law, the Torah, and for Elijah the prophets you remember. After Jesus had resurrected and he was here for that 40-day period, he met the two men on the way to Emmaus. Once they recognized who he was, it says, beginning with the law and the prophets, he told them everything in the Hebrew scriptures that talked about him. I think also, moses did die, elijah didn't die. So I think Moses is representing the saints who have died. Elijah is representing saints who will be translated, who won't die. And the third thing I think it represents is it gives us hope of a life after this life, because there it is, moses and Elijah. They are there, so there is life after this life. Those are the three things I can think of that they're representing.
Speaker 1:What a tremendous, tremendous lesson is that we can be reassured that there's life after this one. As you said, steve, if you remember, jesus will sometimes talk about the law and the prophets speak of me. Well, moses is the law and Elijah represents the prophets. He's saying the entire Old Testament gives approval to me. That's what he's saying here gives approval to Jesus. These two appearing are signs that the law and the prophets approve of Jesus. Let's talk about the transfiguration itself. Why is he doing this? He pulls these three aside and he is fundamentally changed. He's transfigured in all of his glory. Is he doing it just to be showy, or is there another purpose here? Why would he do this?
Speaker 2:Well, again, I think that he's doing it to show them this is how I am going to be when I come the second time. He hasn't quite got to the point where he's explicitly told him that he's going to go away. He'll get to that later, after his resurrection, and he's talking to them, but he's giving them an indication. This is who I truly am. This is the glory that I'm going to be in when I rule from Jerusalem, when I rule the world from Jerusalem and David's throne. This is how I'm going to be. So I think it's an object lesson, if we can say that, of who he really is and how he's really going to be when he comes and establishes that kingdom.
Speaker 1:We have to remember where this is in the flow of the book. Remember last time we said that there was a question that Jesus asked the twelve who do men say that I am? Well, who do you say that I am? He elicits this confession. You are the Christ. That point is really the hinge point of the book. And what he's doing here, one of the very next things he does as far as action, is do the Mount of Transfiguration. He's demonstrating. You've said that I am the Christ. Let me show you, let me give you a peek behind the curtain of what I really like. Here's a glimpse at my glory. He is transfigured before them. He's showing them. Yes, I really am the Christ, I'm not just a man. So that's the lesson here. One Jesus says truly.
Speaker 1:I say to you there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power. So there's more than one way to interpret that. I think we should deal with the Bible interpretation. The two main ones are probably that there is a group of amillennialists that would say that the kingdom is a spiritually present today kingdom and the power is the power in our lives. But these people would say it's not going to be a physical earthly kingdom and they would point to passages such as this one and they would say see the people that were standing there who would see the kingdom of God coming with power, and the amillennialists or the people that would hold this, would say this happened on the day of Pentecost, when the church was started, or possibly something to do with the present church age, that that's the power.
Speaker 1:There's another interpretation that would be more of a premillennial interpretation, that would say well, there still is an earthly kingdom simply because there's a giant mountain of Old Testament prophecies that say there's going to be an earthly kingdom. And those standing here say there's going to be an earthly kingdom. And those standing here, when he in verse 1, seeing the kingdom come is the transfiguration, which is the very next verses, and the context say the premillennialist is the context of Mark 9.1, there are some standing here who are going to see the kingdom is when he does the transfiguration, which is the very next thing he does, the context of the paragraph is the transfiguration. That's what we would hold Any elaboration on that.
Speaker 2:Steve, I totally agree with it. That is it. He's showing them how he is going to be in the kingdom his glory. He's not going to be clothed like he is now. He will be reigning in his glory. I think I agree with everything you said. He is showing them the power and who he is going to be in the kingdom. They're seeing the kingdom there whenever he takes off the cloak and shows his glory.
Speaker 1:They could see the kingdom because the king was there, cloak and shows his glory. They could see the kingdom because the king was there and once you see the king in his true glory, you're seeing the kingdom. Today, the king is not here and the kingdom is a shadow, is the best you could call it is. This is a shadow of the kingdom because the kingdom's not here. My friend, if this is the kingdom, if the church is the kingdom, can we give it back? Is my question, because we messed it up. Look at the mess we've made of it.
Speaker 1:The kingdom is in the New Testament world is Romans, chapter 7, the things I want to do I don't do, and the things I don't want to do that I do and I scream out in agony. Who will deliver me from this body of death? That's the kingdom in our day, and the kingdom he's talking about is in his glory, when it's here in all of its power, when we won't have to worry about getting stuck in Romans 7. We can live in Romans 8. Then we have in verse 5, peter says it is good for us to be here. Good for us to be here. Why would he say that, steve?
Speaker 2:Whenever we went through our study in Zechariah Glenn, in the last chapter, chapter 14, it notes that in the kingdom that all nations will come, there's going to be one feast for sure that all the nations are going to observe. It's called the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles, and I think that this fits right in with the expectation of what Peter has here's the Messiah, here's the king, the king's here, here is his glory, it says. There, he says he didn't really know exactly what to say or what to do and out of his excitement, I think he's thinking back to Zachariah and said let's go ahead and make some booths here, one for you and Moses and Elijah. So I think it's an indication that these disciples are noting the expectation of what the king and the kingdom is going to bring with it. I think that is what Peter is doing here.
Speaker 1:I think you're right hearing that. I think you really hit the nail on the head is that he's talking about the setting up some fulfillment, because, again, this is the kingdom. What came with the kingdom? What came with the kingdom was the trappings right out of Zechariah 14. So that's, I think, what he's talking about.
Speaker 1:Traditionally, what I always would think of when I read this passage was him trying to set up some sort of a shrine. I always think of people today, steve, that they always want to have some physical object in front of them so that they can worship. The context here is that, peter, you don't know what you're talking about. We don't need to set up a shrine. We don't need to set up some physical object, because what ends up happening whenever we set up any kind of a physical object a shrine or a relic or any of that we get our eye off of who Christ is and onto the object. For some reason, humans are always wanting to have some object in front of them instead of just focusing on the person of Jesus. Our worship and our adoration should always be for Jesus as a person and not directed towards any religious object or any religious location or anything like that. Further three shrines that he wants to set up here would hint somehow that Moses and Elijah were approaching the equality of Jesus, and nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus is so far above all humans Moses, elijah, mary all of this where Jesus is the focus and not on some prophet, not on some shrine.
Speaker 1:But I think, steve, your explanation kind of hit the nail on the head is that he was indeed expecting the kingdom to be set up right then. He just saw what he was expecting, which was Jesus and his glory. The kingdom must be here right now. Let's go ahead and fulfill Zechariah 14. We also have here the voice from heaven in verse 7, where the Father says this is my beloved Son. Listen to him. The Father gives approval of Jesus. Remember, at Jesus' baptism God spoke as well. The Father spoke, but here he does it as well. This is my Son. We have God, the Father, giving a blessing on the Son.
Speaker 2:And who's he talking to? He's talking to Peter, james and John. That's who that message is for. It's obviously not for Jesus. So again Peter later on when he talks we didn't follow clearly devised fables, this is what we heard, and he mentions that in 2 Peter that God, the father, said this is my son and to obey him and to do what he says to do.
Speaker 1:Now there's a little tidbit here in verse 7 that I want to bring out. That shows us that every word of Scripture is important. There are no throwaway passages, throwaway verses or throwaway sentences In verse 7, the voice came out of the cloud. So there was a cloud there that was surrounding this Mount of Transfiguration and the voice came out of the cloud. And it actually is the case that clouds play a great role throughout all the Bible, especially around the person of God.
Speaker 1:If you remember going all the way back to Exodus, god spoke from a cloud. In Exodus the cloud would lead Israel. In Exodus, god would appear in a cloud in the Holy of Holies, in the tabernacle and the temple. God appears in a cloud in Ezekiel, chapter 1. When Ezekiel sees heaven and sees God coming, he comes in a cloud. The Son of man comes in the clouds. That's predicted in Daniel 7.13. Jesus in Acts, chapter 1, in the ascension is received into a cloud and Jesus returns with the clouds in Revelation, 1.7. So we have here God speaking from a cloud.
Speaker 1:So we have to ask ourselves, why this pattern? Why this pattern of a cloud? Well, one of the reasons is that God's full glory is so overwhelming that it would destroy a regular human to see its power regular human to see its power. He cloaks himself in a cloud to protect us. That's the theological explanation. The good news is that once we are glorified in heaven, then we'll be able to see God as he is without being cloaked in a cloud. There's what's called the beatific vision, where we actually get to see God and he is infinitely beautiful and we will never tire of worshiping the God. He will not be cloaked in a cloud in those days, and that's just a great, tremendous lesson. Steve, can you start at verse 9 and read down to verse?
Speaker 2:13?. As they were coming down from the mountain, he gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen until the Son of man rose from the dead. He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen until the Son of man rose from the dead. They seized upon the statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant. They asked him saying why is it that the scribes say that Elijah must come first? And he said to them Elijah does come first and restore all things. And yet how is it written of the Son of man that he will suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I say to you that Elijah has indeed come and they did to him whatever they wished, just as it is written of him.
Speaker 1:At the beginning of that passage it says they are coming down from the mountain. Of course, previously they went up on the mountain for the Mount of Transfiguration, but now they have to come down again, as they were coming down from the mountain. Then he sees what happens. That was going on while they were up at the top of the mountain. Jesus had brought along only Peter, james and John. The rest of the disciples were down at the foot of the mountain and it seems there they had gotten into this argument.
Speaker 1:I find, first of all, steve, it's really interesting. We have this mountaintop experience. Sometimes we open our Bibles and we read and we have this huge mountaintop glorious experience with the Lord and having a wonderful time of meeting Him and he reveals Himself to us and reveals some great truth. But we have to come down from the mountain. We have to come down from the mountain and get down and get our feet dirty and get our hands dirty and we come down from that glorious spiritual experience into the real world. People around us are squabbling about earthly things and there's the regular mess of the world that we have to go through. I just think we are in the same picture. Sometimes we have this glorious experience with Jesus on a mountain, but we can't stay up there. We have to come down from the mountain and get into the mess that's in the valley.
Speaker 2:I don't like being in the valley with a mess, I'd rather stay up there on the mountain. You know, glenn, the experience that they're having there is one that has an impact on them, such an impact, among other things, that they go to their deaths in horrible ways. They don't die of old age. So I'm thinking that these type of events before it was miracles and seeing things happen and the calming of the storms and everything else this is just an additional thing to it, but it's really something you got to think. Jesus, his glory shining fully, god the Father, a voice coming from the cloud saying this is my son, listen to everything that he has to say and follow him. It has such an impact on them to carry them through their ministries.
Speaker 2:You know, it's said, oftentimes people don't die for a lie. They might accidentally die for a lie, but they don't on purpose die for a lie, excruciating painful deaths. These disciples, for the most part, died excruciating deaths. You've got to think that their eyewitness accounts are ones that they're not making it up just to have people follow them. Their eyewitness accounts always continually point to Jesus, and I think it's an indication of how we should treat the teachers that we have. Are they pointing to Jesus or are they pointing to themselves? But getting back to your original question, yes, mountaintop experiences where we are all in on Jesus and then we have to come down from that mountain and sometimes maybe sometimes people turn their back on Jesus. But we shouldn't do that.
Speaker 1:In verse 9, he comes down from the mountain with the three disciples and it says orders them not to relate anyone what they had seen. Now, if they were to go tell this to the crowd, the crowd wouldn't have understood, it wouldn't have believed them. I think back to our application. We have this wonderful experience with Jesus and there are people around us that just don't understand. They don't know Jesus and it's really hard to relate these mountaintop experiences to those that are not believers and won't understand. But he tells them don't miss what. He says again in verse 9, orders them not to relate to anyone what they had seen until the Son of man rose from the dead. So he is again predicting his own resurrection from the dead. Now it also says the very next word.
Speaker 1:They, the disciples, seized on that statement, discussing one another of what rising from the dead meant. They didn't understand what he was telling them. They had this wonderful mountaintop experience. They knew who he was. He was the Christ. He just proved it to them. But now he gives them a teaching that they don't understand. He tells them something what's this rising from the dead thing? I don't get it. I think, steve, there's times where, yes, we understand who Jesus is. But now he's taught me something and I don't get it. I don't understand what he's trying to tell me here. I've seen these words in the Bible, but I really don't get what they're meaning. What should we do at that point, steve? What should we do when we know who Jesus is? I know I'm following him, but he said something that I'm not understanding what he's telling me. I don't understand what I'm to do now.
Speaker 2:We talked about in the last session of understanding and knowing the full counsel of God, and we do that by studying the whole scripture, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and doing things of deep studies like this, of going verse by verse through scripture, because you then really understand fully the character of God and his purpose and his meanings. That's one way. The second way, I think, is, is stop and reflect and ask God for clarification. Give me some clarification. I really don't understand this. Give me some clarification. As believers, we have the Holy Spirit, and I don't think that we tap into that, and what I mean by that is is that I don't think we go to the Holy Spirit many times to say give me some clarification on what is this meaning here, because I'm having a hard time understanding it. If we're really sincere about that, I think the Holy Spirit will really guide us to a better understanding of that hard saying that we're trying to understand.
Speaker 1:He tells them in Mark, chapter 9, that he's going to rise from the dead, and they don't understand it. They did understand it by the time they get to Acts, chapter 2, because then oh, now I get it. He had risen from the dead, they had seen him. The Holy Spirit comes. Now I understand. The lesson here is when we hear something from God that we don't understand, just hold on to that, because there will come a day when we understand. It might be a little later down this path, it may be a little later once we get to see him directly, but there will come a time where it becomes clear Everything he says has a point. Everything he says is true. I may not understand it, so I just hold on to those things that I do understand and I keep those things that I don't with me and I'll understand them someday.
Speaker 1:Then, in verse 11, they ask him again they're not understanding, and he says why is it that the scribes say Elijah must come first? Well, I used to think it was because, well, maybe they just didn't know the prophecy at the end of the book of Malachi. But I think they did know that prophecy. It's just what they're asking, and the reason they're asking. This is again they're not understanding the sequence here of what Jesus is telling them. They expected the kingdom to come. They just saw the transfiguration. He's here. He's going to walk into Jerusalem and all this shining glory and the kingdom's here and I'm going to be at his right hand. Now he's talking about rising from the dead and don't tell anybody just yet. That's what they're not understanding, is they're not understanding the sequence of what is to come about? That's what I think they don't understand, steve we also.
Speaker 2:I believe, glenn, see that these aren't uneducated men. A common myth that the skeptics want to give is that they're just uneducated fishermen. They don't know how to write, they don't know how to read, they're illiterate. We don't get that indication. They're thinking of the things that are being taught to them in a synagogue. They say why do the scribes, why do the teachers tell us that Elijah must come? It's the last few verses of Malachi.
Speaker 2:This is a glimpse into their thought process of. I agree with you. They're trying to understand what is going to happen. The king's here. We're expecting the kingdom, but yet we're being told you're going to die, you're going to be raised from the dead. You show us your glorification. One of the things we should build boosts, because Zachariah also says that there's going to be Feast of Tabernacles. They're trying to process this and understand what's going on. You might say, in a way, they're being taught at the rate of a water coming from a fire hydrant, just a gush of information that's coming to them all at one time. So, yes, I think exactly what you're thinking is they're just trying to process everything that Jesus is showing them and teaching them.
Speaker 1:And we're going to pause here for now, but if you come back next time, we're going to talk more about Elijah, because Jesus does. We're going to talk about who is Elijah and that coming, we'll reason through that next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
