We Saw His Glory — Anton Bosch

The Kingdom Revealed in the Transfiguration

And we're in Luke chapter 9, Luke chapter 9, and I'm going to begin reading in verse 27 through 36, Luke chapter 9, verse 27 through 36. But I tell you truly that there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God.

Now it came to pass about eight days after these sayings that he took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the appearance of his face was altered, and his robe became white and glistening.

And behold, two men talked with him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his decease, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep, and when they were fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.

Then it happened as they were parting from him that Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here, and let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, not knowing what he said.

And while he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were fearful as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved son, hear him. When the voice had ceased, Jesus was found alone, but they kept quiet and told no one in those days any of the things they had seen.

Now, you'll notice that I began in verse 27, and if you have a more modern translation like the New King James or ESV or NIV, you'll see that the next section starts in most Bibles in verse 28. And verse 27 is part of the previous section where Jesus speaks about the fact that if you want to follow me, you need to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him.

But this verse is a difficult verse because what exactly is Jesus speaking about? He says that there are those who are here who will not die. In other words, some of those who are of the twelve who will not die until they see the kingdom of God.

Now, the reason I link it with the section that we're going to deal with this evening is because I believe that in Jesus revealing his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, that in that, he begins to reveal the kingdom.

He's been preaching the kingdom, but the kingdom has not been visible. And of course, the kingdom ultimately will only be visible in its fullest sense in the millennial reign, in the millennial kingdom.

But the kingdom is gradually being unfolded and being revealed to those around him. And as he is transfigured, he reveals the glory of the kingdom for the first time. And so I connect the seeing of the kingdom to the glorification of the Lord Jesus in this passage.

Jesus’ Fellowship With the Disciples

So let's deal with a passage, and it's a longish passage, and there is a tremendous amount here. This is one of the most glorious and most wonderful passages in all of the Gospels, because here we see Jesus in his glory.

And so it came to pass about eight days after these sayings that he took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. You remember that he does exactly the same in the Garden of Gethsemane.

About a year from then, in the future, they would come to the garden, and again, he would take these three with him. They were of the inner circle. Remember, there were these different circles. There was the three, and then there was the twelve, and then there was the disciples, and then there was the crowd, and then there was the rest of those who opposed him.

And so he takes them with him, and he is taking them, obviously, because he needs fellowship. He needs company. Jesus is a man while he is God. He is in the flesh. He is subject to all of the emotions and the things that we experience.

And one of the things that we experience and that we need as people is that we need fellowship. We need company. And so Jesus takes them with him, but he is also taking them with him for two other reasons.

The second is because he is teaching them to pray. He is teaching them to have a relationship with the Father. Unfortunately, they don't get the lesson very well, because we see that they fall asleep.

And this would be exactly the same thing a year later in the Garden of Gethsemane. Again, they would just fall asleep while Jesus is praying. What a sad statement about these three. And they, in fact, are, if you will, the best of the best.

They are the ones that Jesus has taken out from the twelve, and the twelve are the ones he has selected from the rest of the followers, the rest of the disciples. And so they are just like us. And I think that that's really the point.

They are no different to us. And yet when the Lord Jesus transformed them, and particularly after the Day of Pentecost, they are changed and they are transformed, and everything changes in their lives.

And so as he prayed, the appearance of his face was altered, and his robe became white and glistening. So he is glorified. He is now beginning to show his future glory. This is a difficult passage to understand theologically, because obviously Jesus is still a man.

He still has to die on the cross. He still has to be buried and rise again on the third day, and then he is glorified. And so this seems to be something that is out of sequence, out of time, something which is destined for way in the future, not just in the resurrection, but in the ascension.

And so the glory that he now has with the Father, some of that glory, or even all of that glory, and obviously he had that glory from the beginning. So he has this period of what we call the humiliation, this period while he is living as a man.

Before that, he shared the glory of the Father. After that, as he ascended, he still has the glory, and he is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. And so some of that glory is brought here into his human existence.

The Apostolic Witness to Christ’s Majesty

And why is it brought in here? Particularly as a message to the disciples. This is not for Jesus' benefit. Jesus is in a relationship with the Father. He doesn't need proof like we need proof. This is specifically for the twelve.

And you'll see that both Peter and John are dramatically transformed through this, and this is one of the things that they never forgot. And so John writes in John 1 .14, he says,. And then Peter, in fact, we're going to deal with that in 2 Peter 1 and around about verse 16.

We'll get there in a few weeks' time. Peter says, we haven't told you cunningly devised fables. We haven't sucked these things out of our thumbs. But he says that we were eyewitnesses to His Majesty. We were eyewitnesses to His Majesty.

And then he links it to when this happened on the Mount, and we heard this voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son. Now, those words obviously appear twice, at the baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And so when Peter refers to that, he's clearly referring because he tells us it was on the mountain that we saw His Majesty or His glory, and that we heard this voice. So why does he take three? Because the law required that there be two or three witnesses.

By the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word will be confirmed. He brings Moses and Elijah, and I'm jumping ahead by just trying to deal with this aspect. Why does he bring Moses and Elijah? Why doesn't the Father just transfigure Him and glorify Him, and the disciples are able to see Him glorified?

Why does He bring Moses and Elijah? Well, I think that there are a few reasons, but the main reason He brings Moses and Elijah is also as witnesses, as witnesses. And so they are witnesses to the conversation.

They are witnesses to the ministry of the Lord Jesus. And it says, Behold, two men talked with Him who were Moses and Elijah. So how did they know this was Moses and Elijah? Well, Moses had two horns on his head.

If you go to Forest Lawn in Glendale, you'll see there's Michelangelo's Moses, and he has two horns. So Moses—no, Moses doesn't have two horns. The reason Michelangelo put two horns on his head is because of a problem in the Latin translation that speaks about the fact that Moses' face shone, and the Latin word speaks about horns, and so they got it all wrong.

How did they know? Well, one commentator says that they knew because Jesus introduced them. Jesus says, Well, you know, Moses—this is Moses, this is Elijah, this is Peter. Well, I don't quite buy that.

This is God intervening in the course of man, in the events of man, and He is changing the rules. He is bringing Moses and Elijah out of heaven. He is glorifying Jesus out of due time. So does He need Jesus to introduce them to one another?

I think that's a little bit foolish. So how would they know? Oh, they had name tags. No. I believe it's the Spirit revealed to them. They just knew by the Spirit. Remember, it was eight days before this that Peter says, You're the Christ.

And Jesus says, Flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you, but my Father revealed it to Him. So if the Father through the Holy Spirit could reveal to the disciples that Jesus was the Christ, then is it so hard for the same Spirit to reveal to them that this is Moses and this is Elijah?

I think that that's the explanation. Now, of course, we can debate about why is it Moses and Elijah. I told you why I think it's two people, because they're witnesses. Well, Moses and Elijah represent, obviously, the law and the prophets.

Moses was the lawgiver. Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament. Moses received the Ten Commandments and the other commandments in the mountain, wrote the tablets of stone and then broke them, and God writes the second set, and so on.

So Moses represents the law. Elijah represents the prophets. Now, obviously, there's overlap, because Moses is also a prophet, but Moses primarily represents the law. Elijah represents the prophets. He is one of the greatest, and many regarded him as the greatest of the prophets.

What was the function of the prophets? The function of the prophets was to uphold the law, to call Israel back to the law. Remember, we get this all wrong. We say, well, prophets, their job was to foretell the future.

That was a very small part of what they were doing. Their main job was to call people back to God, to call Israel back to their relationship with God, to call Israel back to the law and away from the idols and all of those kinds of things.

And so Moses is the law-giver. Elijah is the law-upholder. So they both represent the law in that sense. And so in those, we find then all of the Old Testament represented. So they are representatives of the law and the prophets of the Old Testament.

I believe they will come again, and this is a side issue, and you may have a different view, but you may remember that the book of Revelation speaks about two witnesses who will preach in Jerusalem, and they will perform various signs and miracles, and those miracles that they perform are the same miracles that Moses and Elijah performed.

But the New Testament, the Revelation does not tell us the names of these two witnesses. And then they are killed, and they are exhibited in the streets of Jerusalem, and they are then raised, and God calls them up into heaven.

And so I believe that they are Moses and Elijah, but that's my opinion. We don't have any scripture to say, well, it is Moses and Elijah, and other people have, and you may have a different idea on that.

Now, the other thing about Moses and Elijah, and I don't want to get too sidetracked on Moses and Elijah, because we want to focus on Jesus and on His glory. But the other reason is because both of these men died in unnatural situation, if you will.

Moses died, but his body is taken by the archangel, and there's a conflict between Satan and the archangel, and God takes the body of Moses and buries it. And remember, Moses is on the mountain also. Interesting, the fact that he now again appears on the mountain, not to say mountain.

He overlooks the promised land, and God takes him, and he is buried. Elijah is raptured, if you will, if we use the New Testament term. Elijah is walking along, speaking to his disciple, Elisha, and there's this mighty whirlwind and chariot, and he is grabbed, and he is literally raptured and taken up into heaven.

Now, don't ask me what bodies they came in. I don't know. The scripture doesn't tell us. I don't believe that they had their resurrection bodies, because we're still, and they, together with us, are waiting for the resurrection, which will happen at the same time as the rapture.

So I assume that they, again, the same way as Jesus receives a glorified body, or he is glorified out of sequence, out of order, out of time, in the same way God somehow gives them a temporary body to appear.

And again, they don't have to have a physical body. They're able to appear, and God is able to make it appear that they are physically present, when in fact they are only there in spirit. I don't know.

The scripture doesn't tell us, and we've got to be very careful about building all sorts of theories and doctrines and ideas about things that the scripture does not give us the answers to. But what we are absolutely sure of is that Jesus was there, and Moses and Elijah were there.

And these two men are also in a glorified state. So they are not in their human state. They are not in their flesh, obviously, because their flesh is no longer. All right. So let's get off that and get into the real thing.

And so they appeared. Who appeared? So this is Moses and Elijah. Let's get back to the text. Behold, two men talked with him. We were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory. So they were glorified and spoke of his decease, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

So it's interesting, then, that Luke tells us what the conversation was all about. It was about the death of the Lord Jesus. Some translations use the word departure. I think the word decease is the right translation of this word.

The Cross and the Glory of Christ

And so where have we been? Let's go back. You see, here's part of the problem. When we're preaching this way, we're dealing with a passage, and then we have a week and sometimes several weeks before we get to the next thing, and we've forgotten what we dealt with last time.

And even when we read, we read a little section, and we forget the connection, and we forget the context. The context is that they confessed who Jesus was. You're the Messiah. You're the Christ. And he immediately begins to reveal his suffering.

And, of course, they can't accept this. And so now he takes them into the mountain, and he shows them essentially two things. He shows them his glory, and he brings witnesses to his death. Prophetic witnesses.

The disciples just could not accept. And you remember Peter, when Jesus says to him, I have to go and die, Peter says, don't do it. Far be it from you, Lord. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. A very, very confrontational experience.

They could not accept that Jesus was going to die because, remember, they saw him as a earthly Messiah, a political Messiah who would set up the kingdom and all of those things. And so he is preparing them, he's teaching them, he's training them, and he's telling them that he has to die.

And now he's bringing two witnesses to confirm the message of the cross. But he is also revealing his glory. And remember, those two things go together all the time. And I remind you again, and I'm sure most of you can see the stained glass above here, the crown and the cross.

These two things go together. There is no crown without the cross. There is no cross without a crown in Christ. And so if we suffer with him, we will reign with him. He will glorify us as he has been glorified.

But those two things, you cannot have one without the other. Unfortunately, as human beings, Israel wanted the crown and not the cross. And Christians today, the vast majority, want the crown. They want Jesus to rule and reign and set up his kingdom and have dominion, but they don't want the cross.

And remember the context. If you want to follow him, Jesus says, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross. Can you see how these two things are connected again? The very essence of the gospel, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, is the death and the resurrection.

Those two things, the cross and the glory of the resurrection. The gospel with only the cross would be a miserable gospel. That would be the gospel of the Old Testament, in fact, which spoke about sacrifice, but really could not speak about the resurrection.

But even the gospel with the resurrection without the cross would be of no value to us either. Why would it be of no value? Because the resurrection cannot happen without the atoning work on the cross of Calvary, without Jesus paying the price for our sin at the cross of Calvary.

And so we become entitled to be partakers of his resurrection. We cannot become partakers of his resurrection unless we've been partakers of his cross. And so Paul defines the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 in that way.

He defines the gospel in Romans in the same way that we have died with him and we have been raised to walk in newness of life. And so these two things always go together. So they're talking about his decease, which was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

And as I said, this is about a year before the time in my reckoning. Here is my favorite word. But Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep. What a sad statement. Jesus is glorified. He is opening, he's pulling aside the veil for a moment of eternity and revealing his true nature as the Son of God.

But they're fast asleep. And I wonder how many times Jesus is wanting to reveal himself to us in the reading of the Scriptures, in the preaching of the gospel. But we're asleep. We may not be physically sleeping, but we're not awake.

And we miss it. The same thing happened in Gethsemane. And we say, well, that wasn't a great thing to be partakers of. But yes, it was an essential part of the atonement. And Peter and James and John could have witnessed something which was life-changing.

But they're tired and they're sleeping. And so they were asleep. And when they were fully awake, one of the other gospels says that Jesus actually woke them. Remember that in Gethsemane, he wakes them three times.

They saw his glory. And the two men who stood with him. They saw his glory. The only description that Luke gives us, and that any of the gospel writers give us, and obviously, as we said, John says we beheld his glory.

Peter says we beheld his majesty. But if we go back to verse 29. That's all it tells us. We don't know any more than that. Why doesn't it tell us any more? Because I think that it's impossible to explain it in human terms.

It's impossible to explain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Father in human terms. If someone is blind and they've never been able to see, how do you explain to them the brightness of the sun?

It's impossible. You can try and put words to it. The power of the sun, it's so bright you can't look into it. And Jesus' glory is indescribable in human terms. And so there are areas in the scripture where a veil is drawn, in a sense, because the spirit is not even able to put it in Greek or in Latin or Hebrew or in English.

And so it just draws a veil. Remember this cross, there's a veil over the cross. We get a glimpse of his suffering. But we don't have a clue as to what was happening. As he who knew no sin becomes sin for us.

But they saw his glory. I think that we can get some idea of this glory when we go back to the Old Testament. And what Jesus is doing here is he is revealing the cross. He's revealing the glorification in the ascension and the future kingdom.

Glory Revealed Through the Old Testament

But he is also connecting that with the past, with the Old Testament. That's why the two men, Moses and Elijah, are there. There's this continuum between the Old and the New. They are not two different Bibles.

They are not two different things. But the one is a continuum of the other. Unfortunately, there are too many Christians who don't read the Old Testament. They say, well, that's the Old Testament. We're in the New Testament.

And that doesn't apply. It has nothing to say to us. No, while there's a clear mark, a clear line between Old and New in the cross and in the resurrection, they are the same message. And so in the Old Testament, we see his glory in creation.

And I'm not meaning in the beauty of the mountains and those kinds of things. But you remember the very first thing that happens is that God creates light. And everybody is, well, there was no one there.

But if you were, you would be able to see things out of the darkness. There was darkness, the Scripture says, but suddenly there's light. But that was before the sun was created. What was that light? Jesus is that light.

And so he radiates his light over the face of the earth. And he hides his glory at the night, during the night, because already then there's night and day. And he separates night and day. And then we come to the Exodus.

And again, God reveals himself in the pillar of fire and the cloud. And you remember the pillar of fire was there to lead them, but also to give them light during the night so that they could travel. Because you couldn't, you had to keep moving.

They were moving with animals and with children and with possessions. And so they would move for a period and then they would stop. And so it seems that they moved during the night. And remember the climate there is very much like here, in fact like the high desert, because they're going through the Arabian desert.

And so it seems that a lot of the time they were traveling at night. But God is present with them in this fiery pillar that changes into a cloud to shade them during the day. And then he gives Moses the plans.

Well, before that he meets with Moses up in the mountain. And he wants to reveal himself to Israel. And he begins to speak to Israel, the Ten Commandments. And Israel said, no, this is too much. God wasn't showing himself.

He was just speaking. It was just his voice. And they said, no, we can't handle this. And so they delegate Moses. Moses goes up into the mountain and Moses meets with God. And Moses comes down from the mountain and his face is radiant.

Not radiant like we say an expectant mother is radiant. No, it's not radiant. His face is literally shining, reflecting the glory of God. It's not the glory of God. He's like the moon that reflects the glory of the sun.

He is simply reflecting a little bit of the glory of God. And Israel says, we can't handle this. Put a veil on your face, Moses. And God takes that veil off Moses' face and puts it upon their hearts. But God reveals his glory to Moses in the mountain.

And Moses says, show me yourself. God says, I can't show you myself. You can't see me. But I'll pass by you and you'll see the afterglow. You'll see the hind parts of me disappearing in the distance, as it were.

So God reveals himself to Moses. Moses says, I want to see you. And then Moses builds the tabernacle, or they build the tabernacle. And one of the most wonderful passages, and I've told you this is one of the most wonderful passages.

The passage in the last chapter of Exodus is equally glorious. Because it tells us about the completion of the tabernacle. And Moses put everything in place as the Lord commanded Moses. Remember seven times in that chapter it says he put the lampstand as the Lord commanded Moses.

He did this as the Lord commanded Moses. And when everything was finished, the glory of God came down. And it says that they could not stand in his presence. And God's glory presents itself in a little way.

Between the cherubim in the holiest of all. The holiest of all had no light. It had thick curtains and skins on the outside. It would have been dark inside, but the glory of God is there. But nobody can see it, except the high priest who enters there once a year.

And then you remember that under Eli the priest Israel becomes decadent. Israel becomes apostate. And the ark is captured. They take the ark, use it as a talisman, as a lucky charm in the battle. And Eli has a grandson born and he names his name Ichabod.

The glory has departed. God is gone. And I wonder when I look at the church and the world today, whether it is not Ichabod. Whether the glory is not gone. Whether God has not departed from us. And the reason is because we have not built the way that he has told us to build.

We are not building our lives according to God's plan and pattern. We are not building our churches according to God's plan and pattern. And we wonder why there is no glory. And then Solomon comes and he builds the temple.

And again he builds it on that pattern. It is not the same size. It is much bigger. It is more grandiose. It is more wonderful. But it is the same pattern of the altar court and the holy place and the holiest of all.

And the lampstand and the table of showbread and the altar of incense. And in the holiest of all, the ark of the covenant. And again when everything is finished, the glory of God comes down. And again it says they can't stand in his presence.

As God reveals his glory and presences himself amongst them. And then we go forward to Ezekiel chapter 7 and 8. Difficult passage to understand. And I would encourage you to read it and just get the bottom line of that passage.

But what Ezekiel sees is the wheels. And we get hung up on the wheels. But what he sees is the glory of God being taken up. The glory of God is removed from Israel. And God no longer reveals himself to Israel for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

For hundreds of years again the glory is gone. And then finally Jesus comes. And that's why this is an incredibly significant passage. Because it's connecting the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. To the building of the tabernacle.

To the building of the temple. And in between the departure of God's glory. And it's bringing his glory back again. But not this time in a human temple or a human tabernacle. But in the man, Christ Jesus.

And so his glory is being revealed. And I'm pretty sure that the three disciples who knew the law. And the prophets who knew the Old Testament were able to make this connection. The connections that I have tried to draw for you this evening.

Peter’s Desire to Contain the Glory

And so they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. And then it happened as they were parting from him. That Peter said to Jesus, Master it's good for us to be here. In other words we have some purpose around here too Lord.

Let's make three tabernacles or tents. One for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. Not knowing what he said. Again Peter just represents us. We say things and we don't know what we're saying. This was a time of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles.

And I'm not going to get into that. You can read that in the Old Testament. The Feast of Tabernacles is one of the feasts that will be celebrated again in the Millennial Kingdom. And maybe Peter has made those connections with the Feast of Tabernacles.

And the Feast in the Millennial Kingdom. And he's saying well you know since the kingdom has now come let's build these tabernacles. Let's build these booths in some translations. And I think that most preachers, and I'm not going to preach that message tonight because I don't believe that that's the message from this passage.

But most preachers will preach from this passage about the fact that Peter is so earthly minded and he wants to nail down the glory of God. And Jesus is saying no we have work to do. Let's get down from the mountain and let's keep on preaching the gospel.

I don't believe that that's the point here. The point of this passage is the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is the point. And he's simply contrasting that with Peter's foolishness.

With our foolishness. That we think that we can capture God's glory in a tent. Does that sound familiar? You see I told you about when Israel takes the Ark of the Covenant as a lucky charm, as a talisman into battle.

Hoping that somehow they'll win the battle. Well in fact what was going on in their minds was they thought they had God in that box. And if God is in the box and we take the box with us, God will go with us.

But God doesn't live in a box. He doesn't live in the Ark of the Covenant. Did I say the tabernacle? I meant the Ark of the Covenant. He does not live in the Ark of the Covenant. He does not dwell in temples made with hands, Paul says in Acts.

And we cannot contain his glory in an earthly structure. This building can never contain the glory of God. But you see we reduce his divinity, his glory, his wonder, his awe, his majesty. We try and reduce it into things that we can deal with.

Doesn't Paul speak about that? I've quoted that several times in recent weeks. That we change the glory of the incorruptible God. And we make it like unto man and creeping things and four-footed beasts.

You see we can't handle God the way he is. So we have to change him to be like we want him to be. But you can't put him in a box. You can't put him in a tabernacle. And you cannot capture God's glory using earthly means.

God’s Sovereignty in Revealing His Glory

Folks, there is tremendous emphasis these days on revival in America. People are doing marches and they're doing prayers and they're doing solemn assemblies and they're doing this and that and the other thing.

Trying to somehow recapture the glory of God. Using human devices, human means, tabernacles, tents. And they think that if we can build a tent we can capture God's glory. No, God is sovereign and he reveals his glory as and when he chooses.

There is nothing we can do. Yes, we must pray, we must humble ourselves, we must repent, we must do those things. But we can only do them individually. We cannot do them nationally. We cannot do them even as a church.

We have to do them personally and individually. But when he chooses to reveal his glory, that is his sovereign choice. And I thank God that we will see his glory. Not just what Peter and James and John saw.

But we'll see him in his fullness. I think what they saw was just a glimpse. Because remember, here's the problem. God says to Moses, nobody can see me and survive the experience. I'm paraphrasing. No one can see me and live.

You can't survive that experience. In the old days in the Air Force, I don't think they use them anymore. They just use them for promotional purposes today. We had these massive spotlights with an arc, carbon arc lamp.

Which they used to find enemy planes up in the sky so you could shoot them down. But they are amazingly powerful. And I've never seen anything outside of the sun that is more powerful than that. And if you were to look into that light, you would be blinded instantly.

And I remember watching how the moths come. And how they come and are attracted to that light. But the moment they fly into that light, they are vaporized. They are literally incinerated in a flash. They are gone.

There is nothing. And that's what would have happened to Peter, James, and John if Jesus had revealed, if he had turned on, if you will, his full glory. So he only shows them a little bit of his glory.

He only shows Moses the hind parts, the afterglow. But we will see him face to face. We will see him in all of his glory. Because the veil will be taken away. We'll be transformed. We'll have new bodies that are able to deal.

We're able to cope with the shock and the awesomeness of seeing God. Peter and John and James, they're just getting a sample. Just a foretaste of that which we're looking forward to. Folks, let's forget about building tabernacles down here.

Let's have our eyes fixed on the day that Jesus comes. And revelation reveals him to us. And remember, here's the problem. Here's the thing that I've spoken about so many times. And I'm reminding you again.

Is that, unfortunately, the picture that we have of Jesus is too much based on the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, where we see Jesus in his humiliation. But that's not who he is. That's who he was.

Who he is is revealed to us in the book of Revelation. In the book of Revelation, John says, I saw his face shining as the sun. That's who he is. That's who he is now. And while he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them.

Hear the Son and Embrace the Cross

And they were fearful as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved son. Hear him. Same words that the father said of the Lord Jesus at his baptism of John. Here are the same words again.

What is Jesus saying that they need to hear? He's saying the cross. And that they did not want to hear. They wanted to hear about the glory. They wanted to hear about the ascension. They wanted to hear about the kingdom.

They did not want to hear about the cross. And the father speaks from heaven and he says, You better listen when my son speaks. Because what have they just been talking about? He's deceased. They've just been talking about the cross.

And again today, people don't want to hear about the cross. Particularly not the cross we spoke about last week. Our cross. If anyone wants to follow me, deny yourself and take up the cross. We don't want to hear that message.

And yet the father attests to the message from heaven itself. And he says, This is my son. You better listen to him. You better hear him. Not hear what you want to hear. But hear what he is saying. And then the last verse, when the voice had ceased, Jesus was found alone.