Why did Christ reveal his transfigured glory before the Passion?
Christ was 'transfigured' before three chosen disciples, to prepare them for the Passion and confirm his preaching of the Cross.
Christ was 'transfigured' before three chosen disciples, to prepare them for the Passion and confirm his preaching of the Cross.
Editor’s Notes
In this piece, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Christ fulfilled his promise that some would see the Kingdom of God in power.
That he chose Peter, James, and John to witness this mystery in solitude.
Why the Transfiguration prepared them for His coming Passion.
He shows us that Christ’s glory is inseparable from the Cross, revealing the path to His Kingdom.
Some Context
The Gospel of the Second Sunday of Lent (and Ember Saturday) is that of the Transfiguration of Our Lord (also celebrated on August 6th). Its reading at this time highlights this episode’s connection to the Passion, and its role in preparing the Apostles.
In addition, it may have been intended as an encouragement to those catechumens preparing for baptism at Easter, who may have been increasingly conscious that becoming a Christian meant the end of their old, comfortable lives.
The event occurs after the confession of St. Peter and Christ’s first explicit prediction of the Passion. It is situated within the later part of Christ’s Galilean ministry, as he begins to prepare the Apostles for his approaching suffering.
This remarkable mystery confirms His identity as the Son of God, with the testimony of Moses and Elias representing the Law and the Prophets. It also provides a foretaste of the heavenly reward promised to those who take up the Cross.
The Transfiguration
The Preaching of the Cross, Part I
Chapter III
St. Matt. xvii. 1–13; St. Mark ix. 1–12; St. Luke ix. 28–36
Story of the Gospels, § 83
Burns and Oates, London, 1886
Headings and some line breaks added.
Sung on Ember Saturday of Lent, the Second Sunday of Lent and the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6)
Part I: Why did Christ reveal his transfigured glory before the Passion?
Part II: Why were Moses and Elias at the Transfiguration?
Parts III: Why did Christ command secrecy about the Transfiguration until after Easter?
Interval before the Transfiguration
The Evangelists tell us that, within the short space of a week after the promise made by our Lord, that some of those who had heard His instruction about the necessity of taking up the cross and the like should not taste of death before they had seen the Kingdom of God coming in power, He fulfilled the promise in His own magnificent way, by the mystery of the Transfiguration.
‘And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and leadeth them up into a mountain apart by themselves, and went up into a mountain to pray, and was transfigured before them. And while He prayed the shape of His countenance was altered and His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white and glistening, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller upon earth can make white.’
The space of time is given by St. Luke as about eight days ‘after these words,’ but it is clear that he means the same space of time as that stated in the other accounts. The interval between the two days was six, without counting the day on which the promise was made, and the day on which it was fulfilled, which two being included make up eight days.
The mountain is commonly supposed to have been Mount Tabor, and it seems safe to adhere to the ancient tradition, without the authority of which we might be inclined, with some Catholic commentators and the great majority of modern writers, to suppose that it might have been Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in that part of the country, and not at all far from the scene of the Confession of St. Peter.
The chosen three
The Sacred Text speaks of the Transfiguration as having taken place before these three chosen witnesses only. They are the three whom our Lord took with Him on the few occasions when He made some distinction of this kind, as when He went into the room to raise the daughter of Jairus from the dead, and when He retired apart to pray in the Garden of Gethsemani at the beginning of the Sacred Passion. In the former instance it was for a very short time that the separation was made, and perhaps it would have been inconvenient to take with Him the whole body of the Twelve.
In the cases of the Transfiguration and Agony in the Garden, there were probably other and more spiritual reasons for a selection. In this case our Lord was granting a very special favour, and disclosing one of the great secrets of the Kingdom, which it was not expedient to communicate to all. Perhaps also He wished to exclude Judas from this mystery, and if Judas was to be excluded, it must be done in a way that did not mark him out as in any special way unworthy. This was brought about by the selection of a very few.
As our Lord’s companions were to be absent for at least the whole night, we may suppose that St. Andrew, who was more likely than any other to have been joined with his brother and the two sons of Zebedee in such a privilege, was left in a kind of authority, that the rest might have some one to look to as Superior in cases of emergency. But we cannot be mistaken in seeing in the selection of these three of the Twelve on the most solemn occasions of the Transfiguration and the Agony, a design of fitting them by their knowledge of the first for the great trial of the last.
The selection unobserved
It may probably have been our Lord’s way frequently to take with Him some two or three when He went into the mountains or elsewhere for the purpose of spending the night in prayer. Sometimes, on the other hand, He went up altogether alone, as seems to have been the case before He called the Twelve Apostles solemnly, and it is mentioned after the miracle of the Five Loaves that He went up to pray Himself alone, after sending the disciples away in the boat.
Thus the selection of the three may not have attracted any great amount of attention on this occasion. This would have prevented the three Apostles from being catechized on their return by the rest, as to what had passed in the night of their absence, and enabled them to keep the secret without difficulty. For there seem to be many reasons for thinking that the mystery took place during the night.
The prayer of our Lord
The connection between the prayer of our Lord and His glorious Transfiguration is specially noted for us by St. Luke. This feature is quite in keeping with the general spirit of the third Gospel. We are not, of course, told what was the subject of the prayer or contemplation of our Lord, though it perhaps might not be unsafe to gather it from the mystery which followed.
The Transfiguration is described with almost entire identity of language by the three historians. It is thought by theologians that the manifestation of the Face shining like the sun was an assumption on our Lord’s part of the gift of clarity, as it is called, which is to be possessed by all the bodies of the saints in the Kingdom of Heaven. This gift belonged to our Lord by two titles, for it was a natural consequence of the Hypostatic Union, and it also naturally belonged to a Body which was united to a Soul which enjoyed the Beatific Vision.
But it was the plan of God that our Lord should also merit this gift for Himself and all who belong to Him by the sufferings of His Body in the course of His life and especially by the sufferings of the Sacred Passion. Thus the manifestation of it on this occasion is closely connected with the doctrine which He had been laying down, of the Cross, and of the glory by which the bearing of the Cross was to be rewarded.
Gift of clarity—connatural to our Lord’s Body
We have spoken of this glory as an assumption of the gift of clarity, of course for a time only, but it is well to remember that it is thought that this gift, being connatural to our Lord’s Body for the reasons just now mentioned, was in truth rather held in check miraculously at other times in order that the designs of God in the dispensation of the Incarnation might be accomplished.
These designs required that our Lord should have a passible Body, and that the glory which belonged to it should not be manifested to those who saw Him and conversed with Him, lest the appointed mystery of the Passion might not be carried out. Thus the Transfiguration may be considered as the manifestation of what was always or would have always been seen, if it had not been for that concealment of glory which was necessary.
It is commonly thought that the glory of the Body has its root and principle in the glory of the Soul which dwells within it, a glory which shines through the temple and shrine of flesh and blood, in which the soul is placed as its principle of life and inseparable companion. The Gospels mention a difference between the splendour which was seen in the Face of our Lord and the splendour of His raiment. The difference is that which exists between the light of the unclouded sun, and the light with which the sun adorns the clouds through which he passes and which become as it were his raiment, and which shine, not with the same radiance as his, but with a perfect and ineffable whiteness from the light which shines behind them and through them. His Face was like the sun, His raiment like the snow.
What the manifestation proved
As our Lord in His promise of the vision spoke of this manifestation as that of the glory of the Kingdom of God, which He had mentioned as a motive for faithfulness in bearing the Cross and the like, we must take that account of it so given by Him as furnishing the motives for which He condescended to make the manifestation. We may consider that it was meant to confirm just those points of doctrine on which our Lord had insisted.
But these points were not few. The instruction which He had given implied that He was to come to judge the world in the glory of the Father, to render to every man according to his works. It called Him the Son of Man, and that name contained at least implicitly and inferentially the truth that He was the Incarnate Son of God. The manifestation of the glory which was seen in the Transfiguration did not in itself prove more than that His Body was the temple of a beatified soul, or at most the Body of the Incarnate Son of God.
It was not a direct manifestation of His Divinity which no man can see and live. And as we shall see, the glory which was seen in His Body was not, perhaps, different in kind as to appearance from that which was seen also in the glorified bodies of Moses and Elias. But, taken in connection with the instruction of which it was the promised sequel and authentic proof, it signified the other truths contained in that instruction. And it led on to still further and higher manifestations and declarations, which raise this mystery of the Transfiguration to a level with the very loftiest of the mysteries contained in the history of the Gospels.
In itself, then, it had the most direct connection with the doctrine of the Cross. It was designed to raise the courage and confidence of the Apostles, both to the taking up of their own cross after our Lord’s example, and to the sublime faith in His Divine Person which was required to override the approaching scandal of the Passion, to make them see, in the coming humiliation of Him Whom they knew to be the Son of God, not only no difficulty, but a truth which confirmed the great doctrine which to weaker minds it might seem to impugn, the truth that St. Paul refers to when he says that it was ‘fitting that God by Whom and for Whom were all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering,’1 and which our Lord Himself set forth to the disciples whom He joined on the road to Emmaus, saying, ‘Ought not Christ to suffer these things, and so, that is by means of them, enter into His glory?’2
It showed them the Body which was to be the Victim for the Redemption of the world, the Body which was to be subjected to every kind of outrage and disfigurement on the Cross, clothed with a beauty and majesty and glory such as to take them out of their senses and make them forget everything else in the world, in their delight at the vision.
The Kingdom of God
And it showed them also, as we shall see, that this glory was not for Himself alone, but was to be communicated to His saints. It is the ‘Kingdom of God,’ the ‘Kingdom of God coming in power,’ of which our Lord had spoken in His promise.
The Kingdom includes the subjects as well as the King. Thus the vision became a direct encouragement to themselves in their following of our Lord, as well as a confirmation of all that they believed concerning Him and His Mission. This would be true of the Transfiguration, even if we had not more truths to consider in this mystery. For the Transfiguration itself was but a part, and the first part, of all that was now manifested to the three chosen Apostles.
The Impression on the Apostles
We have hinted that the impression made by the vision of the Transfiguration on the Apostles who witnessed it, was not only immensely powerful at the time, but such as to remain with them as a perpetual and indelible motive for hope and expectation of heavenly glories for themselves and all Christians. The great St. James passed away from the scene of his earthly labours without leaving behind him any record which is numbered among the Apostolical writings. The two others, St. John and St. Peter, were the witnesses to the Church of what they had seen. ‘We saw His glory,’ says St. John, ‘the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,’3 that is, we saw a glory worthy to be the glory of the Incarnate Son of God.
St. Peter, in his last Epistle, written not long before his martyrdom, speaks of it also.
‘We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but having been made eye-witnesses of His Majesty, for He received from God the Father honour and glory, the Voice coming down to Him from the exceeding glory (and the rest.)’4
The doctrine of the glory of the body after the Resurrection rests on the truth of the possession, by our Lord’s Body, of the gifts of which theologians tell us in treating of this subject. But, if we ask when the manifestation of this possession was made, we find it rather in the mystery of the Transfiguration than in any of the appearances after the Resurrection, although it is undoubted that at that later time our Lord exercised these gifts. But that one which strikes the eye the most of all, the gift of clarity, is not mentioned as having been witnessed by the Apostles after the Resurrection.
St Paul’s language
Yet we find this doctrine of the glorification of the bodies of the saints more than once urged by St. Paul, who, not having been an Apostle at this time of the Transfiguration, must have heard of it from the others, and who, as is so constantly his manner, draws it out from theological reasons, instead of simply asserting it as a truth resting on testimony.
Thus, in the great passage in the eighth chapter to the Romans, he says that he ‘reckons’ or considers ‘that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.’ And he adduces three arguments, one from the expectation of the whole creation, which ‘waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God, for the creation was made subject to vanity,’ that is, to corruption, decay, change, ‘not willingly,’ that is, not by any intrinsic reason, but on account of the fall of man for whose use it was made, by ‘Him that made it subject in hope.’
And then, after speaking of the ‘groaning and travailing in pain of the whole creation,’ he adds that there is the same phenomenon in ourselves, ‘who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body.’ He speaks, therefore, of the glorification of the body after the Resurrection as the completion and final consummation of our adoption as the sons of God through our Lord.
And in this he may be understood as referring to the same filiation of which St. Peter speaks, our being made the sons of God by a participation of that incommunicable privilege of which the words of the Father heard out of the bright cloud spoke in this mystery. And St. Paul adds, in the third place, the groaning and prayer which the Holy Ghost Himself produces in us, ‘helping,’ as he says, ‘our infirmity, asking for us with unspeakable groanings.’5
And in another place, to the Philippians, after speaking against the men who make a god of their belly and the like, that is, the men who seek their satisfaction in the present enjoyments of the body, he adds:
‘Our conversation is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who will reform the body of our vileness, made like unto the Body of His glory, according to the operation whereby also He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.’6
These things show us at least the extent to which this mystery of the Transfiguration influences Christian belief with regard to the future glories of Heaven.
But this might have been true, if there had been no other partners in the mystery but our Lord and His Apostles….
In the next part, Fr Coleridge will tell us the significance of Moses and Elias appearing with Our Lord at this sacred moment.
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The Transfiguration
Part I: Why did Christ reveal his transfigured glory before the Passion?
Part II: Why were Moses and Elias at the Transfiguration?
Parts III: Why did Christ command secrecy about the Transfiguration until after Easter?
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Heb. ii. 10.
St Luke xxiv. 26.
St. John i. 14.
2 St. Peter i. 16.
Romans viii. 18-23.
Philipp. iii. 20, 21.