The Lord is again praying alone, as we have found Him in previous parts of this Gospel, and indeed in others. So it was at His baptism, when the Holy Ghost descended on Him; and afterward in His ministry, when we are told that He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed. This was when multitudes came to hear and to be healed, whereon the power of the Lord was there to heal afresh. So also before He chose the twelve apostles, it is said, “He continued all night in prayer to God.” It was after men were communing to kill Him, and before the appointment of the apostles and the discourse on the mount.
Now He is about to disclose His death. The sense of His entire rejection filled His soul, because of the unbelief of the people; and the Father was about to give the most direct personal witness of His glory, as well as to show what was reserved for Him in the kingdom. He would own Him as Son of God now. He would display Him by and by as the Son of man. Accordingly “it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again.” This elicited from Peter, in reply to the direct question of the Lord— “Whom say ye that I am?” the confession that He was the Christ of God.
It is remarkable how Luke here omits what Matthew records. In point of fact He owned Him to be the Son of God as well; but this is peculiar to Matthew. The reason why it is given in Matthew seems to me because that is the title of Christ’s personal glory, which is the joy of the Christian. The Church of God delights in Christ as the Son of the living God; Israel will hail the Christ as the Son of David. The world, all mankind, will be blest by Christ as the Son of man but the Christian and the Church have their joy in him, as the Son of the living God. It is clearly the most elevated and properly divine of His titles. It is intrinsic and personal. Along with this we find in Matthew, and in him alone, the revelation from the Lord Jesus that upon this rock He would build His Church, that is, on this confession of His name. Consequently as Matthew is the only one who gives us His name, and the confession of it by Peter, so the Lord alone is represented there as about to build the Church.
All this disappears from Luke. Here Peter simply says “the Christ of God.” The Lord “straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing.” This is a remarkable word. Why withhold from people that He was the Christ of God? Why this reserve as to His Messiahship? It was useless to bring it forward. Some said one thing, and some another. No man had faith in Him except those that were born of God. Man as man rejected Him. The Jews rejected Him. The disciples confessed Him, Peter pre-eminently; but it was no use to go on preaching Him as the Christ or Messiah of Israel. He was the Anointed of God, but in truth He was going to suffer, and consequently the Lord introduces another title in connection with His cross. “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests and scribes, and be slain and be raised the third day.” It was particularly this very title that the Lord habitually gives Himself. So in Matthew: “Whom say ye that I the Son of man am?” Peter then confesses Him as really the Jewish Christ, but also “the Son of the living God.” The Lord intimates that they must drop the first. It was useless to speak about it, it was too late. Had the people received Him, He would have reigned as Messiah. But, morally speaking, that could not be. On the one hand man was unbelieving, wicked, and lost; on the other hand it was according to the counsels of God that Jesus was to be put to death on the cross, and to rise into a new creation in which He would have man His fellows. If Jesus had not been crucified, it would have proved that man was not altogether so evil as God had said. But as man really is profoundly bad, according to the word of God, it was a moral certainty that man would crucify the Lord Jesus, and so God predicted by His prophets. The Lord now reminds them that the old proclamation as the Christ must close. He was going to die as Son of man. He had His death always before Him. It was the settled counsel of God the Father, and the settled purpose of the Son. He came to die, not only knowing it, but with His heart fully devoted to the accomplishment of the will of God, cost what it might, as it did cost His own death and rejection. In His death He wrought atonement for our sins. Here, however, His death is simply viewed as rejection from man: “The Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. God’s part in the matter, either in judgment of our wickedness or in introducing redemption, is not stated. Assuredly it was then and there, as it was always destined to be; but sometimes the one side of truth, sometimes the other, is presented in scripture. He is rejected by the heads of the Jews. It was a sad and humbling fact that they should cast off their own Messiah, who was, adds He Himself, to “be raised the third day.”
This suffering of the Son of man at once defines the path for the disciple. “He said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself; and take up his cross daily and follow me.” It was in no way enjoyment of earthly things. That would be all suited and seasonable in the kingdom when He reigns as the Christ, as well as Son of man, according to the hopes furnished by the prophets. There we find every kind of proof of God’s beneficence, and men’s hearts will be filled with gladness. But such is not the character of Christianity. The cross shows us our true path. If Christ suffered, the Christian cannot expect to be above his Master. Christ was going to the cross; therefore if any man would come after Him, “let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?”
The truth comes out. Everything now depends on eternal life. It is no longer a question of living long on the earth. This was and will be all very well for the Jew. But the cross of Christ is the burial of all Jewish thoughts. Hence if a man is careful to save his life now, he will lose it. He may save it in a lower sense, but he will lose it in a deeper. He may save it in this world, but lose it for eternity. But if I am willing to lose it in the lower, I shall save it in the best — the eternal — sense. The death of Christ brings everything to a point: all then becomes the momentous question of eternal life and salvation. The Jews did not think of this. They panted for a great king that would raise them to the pinnacle of earthly greatness. Christianity shows us the One on whom all turns, Himself crucified; and those who come after the Crucified cannot escape from the cross. Each Christian must deny himself, and that not merely once, but daily taking up his cross and following Him. “For whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels.”
There lies the solemnity of the issue. If ashamed of One rejected and of His words, He will be ashamed of us in glory. We have not Christ personally, but we have Him by faith, His name, and also, as a test of our truth of heart, His words. A man might plead the words of Moses and the prophets; but these would not avail now. A man who merely attached himself to the words of the law and the prophets, to the exclusion of the New Testament, could not be saved. When God brings out the full revelation of Christ, I must go forward and be subject to what God gives. The Jews hold on to the truth of the unity of God in order to deny the truth of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. True faith now values all that God gives. It is not real if it does not value what He gives for the present time. Hence the test is truth freshly used of God for the actual moment, and not merely what was known of old. Unbelief is always wrong; it takes advantage of what is traditional to deny what was newly revealed.
“Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory.” There we find the proper glory of the Son of man. It is a rejected man who is exalted on high; but He will come in His own glory, and “in his Father’s and of the holy angels.” His being a man did not at all touch His divine rights. The angels were all subject to Him as man. He had a title above them because He was God; and He had won a title superior to them, because He had died on the cross. Thus by a double title the Lord Jesus has not only all mankind but angels subject to Him as man. “But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God.” This was a bright witness calculated and intended to strengthen those who were meant to be forward and at the head of things in God’s testimony and in the Church. The reference is to Peter, James, and John, who were permitted a sight of the kingdom of God before it comes in power.
Eight days after, when the glory was about to appear, the Lord prays. “And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.” Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who mentions His prayer here, and that, as He prayed, He was transfigured. “And behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias,” the representatives of the saints dead and raised, living and changed. Moses died and is here seen as risen, and Elias as the pattern of those who shall be changed. “Who appeared in glory and spoke of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” This is the great topic of heavenly discourse. There can be no fact above so precious as the death of Jesus. It will be the grand theme throughout eternity. It is the foundation of all the ways of God in redemption, the highest moral glory of God as it is the fullest proof of His love. “They spake with him of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” On earth Jesus takes the highest place, as alas! the lowest also for us and our sins, yet He is too the highest in grace, as He will be in the ways of God. It will be so in the days of the kingdom, when God’s counsels shall appear for the earth as well as the heavens.
“But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep.” They slept in the garden when Christ was going through His agony, and they were heavy with sleep when Christ’s glory was being revealed. Thus man is utterly worthless for communion, whether with suffering or glory, and this not man without life from God, but the chosen disciples, the future pillars of the work, the most worthy and excellent of the earth. Yet these, as they could not watch one hour when it was a question of the sorrows of Jesus, so they were oppressed with sleep when His glory in His kingdom was revealed. So wholly incapable of answering in his soul to God’s display is man of the grace of Christ or of the glory He intends for him.
“And having awoke (or kept awake), they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. And it came to pass as they departed from him, Peter said unto 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: not knowing what he said.” Indeed he did not know. It was sheer forgetfulness of the personal dignity of Jesus. “Let us make three tabernacles,” one for his Master and the other two for His servants, Moses and Elias. Would he then put his Master, the Lord of all, on the same level with the head of the law and the chief of the prophets? Peter thought this would be great honor for Him! He was altogether astray. The root of all wrong is depreciation of Jesus. The power for all that is good is faith in His glory. Thus Peter, in a human way seeking to honor Jesus, in reality lowers Him; and this God the Father would never allow, specially in a disciple. “While he thus spake, there came a cloud and overshadowed them,” the well-known symbol of Jehovah’s presence in Israel: it was not a dark, but a bright, cloud, as we are told in another gospel: “And they feared as they entered into the cloud,” meaning, I suppose, that the disciples feared as they saw Moses and Elias enter the cloud. They could not understand that men, even glorified, should be within the circle of the peculiar presence of Jehovah. The pavilion of His glory might tabernacle over man; but it seemed too much to them that men should thus be at home there, even though it were men in glory.
More follows: “There came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.” It is no longer a question of Moses and Elias. The law and the prophets were admirable forerunners, and not a tittle can fall unfulfilled to the ground; but the Son of God comes and necessarily takes precedence of all. “This is my beloved Son: hear him.” Do not put Moses and Elias on a level with Him. They were to be heard as the finger-posts which point to Christ; but when Jesus the Son of God is there, He is to be heard. This is Christianity. Almost every working of unbelief in Christianity now consists in lowering Jesus to the law and the prophets, or, at any rate, to man, the first man. No one born of God would slight the law and the prophets; but it is one thing to own them as having divine authority, quite another to put them on a level with the Son of God. They were divine witnesses, but the Son must have His own due supremacy. In all things He must have the pre-eminence. And so God the Father here insists upon it. “This is my beloved Son: hear him.”
“And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone.” This is really the very strength of our souls —that we have but one person who is or can be the full objective revelation of the mind of God to us. We honor most the Father, and we show best the power of the Holy Ghost when we have Jesus before us, and we are following Him day by day. “This one thing I do,” says the apostle. “And they kept it close, and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen.”