The Transfiguration #19

The Transfiguration was a moment in which Jesus’ divine glory was briefly and visibly revealed to three of His disciples on a mountainside, an event Matthew, Mark, and Luke each place shortly after Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ and Jesus’ first prediction of His death (Matthew 16:13-21).

The Three Synoptic Accounts

Matthew, Mark, and Luke each record the Transfiguration, and each includes small differences worth noting rather than blending into one composite scene. Matthew says Jesus took Peter, James, and John “up into an high mountain apart” after six days, “and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Matthew 17:1-2). Mark, also counting six days, does not mention Jesus’ face but says “his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them” (Mark 9:2-3). Luke alone gives a slightly different timeframe, “about an eight days after,” and alone notes that Jesus went up the mountain to pray and that Peter, James, and John were “heavy with sleep” before they saw his glory (Luke 9:28-32).

All three name Moses and Elijah as appearing with Jesus, though only Luke records their topic: they “spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31), using the Greek word for “departure” that is sometimes rendered “exodus.” Peter’s offer to build three shelters is worded slightly differently in each Gospel — “Lord, it is good for us to be here” in Matthew (17:4), “Master, it is good for us to be here” in Mark and Luke — and Mark and Luke both add that Peter spoke without knowing what he was saying (Mark 9:5-6; Luke 9:33). A cloud then overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from it: Matthew records the fuller form, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Matthew 17:5), while Mark and Luke record the shorter “This is my beloved Son: hear him” (Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35). All three agree that when the disciples looked up, they saw Jesus alone, and that he instructed them to say nothing of it until after his resurrection.

Theological Significance

The presence of Moses and Elijah is generally read as symbolically linking Jesus to the Law and the Prophets, presenting him as their fulfillment rather than their replacement, while the divine voice echoes the declaration at Jesus’ baptism, affirming his unique sonship (see The Baptism of Jesus). Jesus’ shining face and garments recall Moses’ own face shining after he spoke with God on Sinai (Exodus 34:29-30), a parallel many readers take as deliberate. For the inner circle of disciples, the event is understood in Christian teaching as a glimpse of Jesus’ divine glory ahead of his suffering, meant to strengthen their faith for the ordeal of the crucifixion to come.

Writing decades later, Peter appeals to the Transfiguration as firsthand confirmation of what he preached about Christ, insisting he and the others “have not followed cunningly devised fables” but “were eyewitnesses of his majesty” when the voice came “from the excellent glory” and they were “with him in the holy mount” (2 Peter 1:16-18). Christian tradition has long debated the mountain’s location — Mount Tabor in Galilee and Mount Hermon near Caesarea Philippi are the two most commonly proposed sites, since the Gospels themselves do not name it, only calling it “an high mountain apart.”