you.' 'If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.'* So too St. John, in hailing the final establishment of that kingdom into which it had been granted him to see his Lord so come, exclaims, 'Even so, come, Lord Jesus.'† JESUS IS TRANSFIGURED. Ver. 2-8. 11-13. And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to 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. For he wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves.- -And they asked him, saying, Why say the scribes that Elias must first come? And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought. But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever thou listed, as it is written of him. By connecting the narrative of this mysterious event with the passages immediately preceding, some probable view may be given of its object, considered as a part of the Saviour's ministry. *John xiv. 10 and 23. Rev. xxii. 20. * In the preceding chapter, we read of the disciples reporting to Jesus the various conjectures abroad respecting him-that he was John Baptist raised from the dead-Elias-one of the prophets. Now of these floating rumours, there were two which had their foundation in Scripture. Before the coming of the Messiah, Elias was, according to Malachi's prediction, destined to visit Israel, and to restore all things.† Again, the coming of the Messiah himself was represented as the raising up of one like unto Moses; and this is alluded to in the expression 'that prophet,' or 'the prophet.' It is not unlikely, indeed, that, joining the prophecy with the recorded fact that there was a mystery about the sepulture of Moses, and that no one was permitted to know where his body was,§ the Jews might have supposed Moses, like Elias, to have been taken up into heaven, and, like him, designed to be restored to them on the restoration of their theocracy. To correct this, or misinterpretations of prophecy like this, might have been one purpose of the Transfiguration. Peter had evinced faith enough when the apostles were asked, ' And whom say ye that I am?' to reply, the Christ;' but it by no means followed that this confusion of thought was removed even from *21-28. Deut. xviii. 15. + Chap. iv. 5, 6. || The Jews have a fiction that Moses shall come with Elias, when Elias himself comes.'-LIGHTFOOT on Luke ix. 30, who traces it in Nahum i. 3. his mind. To improve then, as well as to reward, his incipient faith, and the faith of the other apostles, Elias and Moses were miraculously exhibited to their view. This must have convinced them, that Elias did not really come in the person of John the Baptist, any more than that Jesus was only Moses revived; and hence the question that followed the spectacle, 'Why say the scribes that Elias must first come?' Hence, too, as Jesus could now apply the prophecy to John without danger of misapprehension, he tells them, that in his coming the prophecy was fulfilled. But the more important object of the vision seems to have been, not that which warned the apostles against identifying John with Elias, or Jesus with Moses, but that which confirmed Peter's assertion that Jesus was the Christ. A change came over the Lord, 'he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.' This mysterious brightness was the shechinah-the glory of the Lord -the well-understood emblem of divine manifestation. On two favoured servants of God this mark of His presence was known to have rested, and on two only -on Moses after he came down from Mount Sinai, and his face so shone that he wore a veil ;* on Elias, or Elijah, when he was borne away from mortal sight seated on a cloud so irradiated.t By these marks, the disciples may have recognized Moses and Elias, whom *Exodus xxxiv. 33. † 2 Kings ii. II. they had never seen, but with whom, so characterized, their Scriptures made them acquainted. They now saw them in glory'-to these servants of God, even as to Jesus, the shechinah was attached. Were they then Immanuels too? Let us make three Tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias. Were Moses and Elias to be considered as Beings of the same order as their Master? Not so. 'This,' said the voice from the cloud, 'is my beloved Son, hear him.' Twice to our Lord this glory had been attached, and on each occasion that same voice accompanied it, as if to guard against the possibility of its being supposed to denote no more than in the case of Elias or Moses. This must have been one great purpose of the Transfiguration. It declared Jesus to be, not like Elias, or like Moses, an inspired man-but the Immanuel-the Christ-the anointed with the Holy Ghost-the Son of God.* And hence its place in the sacred narrative is immediately after the Lord's conversation with the apostles about the rumours afloat concerning him, and Peter's confession that he was the *This expression must be interpreted by reference to a common Hebrew idiom, the application of which was very wide, and extended alike to inanimate and animate objects. Thus, Isaiah xxi. 10,- O my threshing, and the corn of my floor,' is in the original, 'the son of my floor.' On this principle we meet with 'the son of perdition,' 'the son of peace,' 'the sons of disobedience,' and the like. The analogous expression of the Son of God can only in fairness be interpreted in like manner to mean a divine man—an Immanuel. Christ. Hence, too, it is followed up by the same injunction as that confession, that they should not make him known publicly. Hence, too, it seems to have led, as in the former case, to hints of his death and resurrection. That the apostles, however, should, at first, have considered it as the opening scene of God's new kingdom, and have therefore suggested the erection of the three tabernacles, is natural when we look back to the discourse of our Lord which had but just before taken place, respecting his coming in the glory of his Father,' and his promise that some present should witness it during their natural lives. 6 THE IMPRESSION MADE ON THE APOSTLES BY OUR LORD'S PREDICTION OF HIS BETRAYAL, DEATH, And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean.- -And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it. For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him. This scruple of the apostles, respecting the predicted betrayal, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is easily understood, when we remember that, even after his |