THE REVEALING ON THE MOUNTAIN

Moses and Elijah were on the mountain where Jesus was about to be transfigured, or as the last commentary related, metamorphosed. The Invisible Image of God overshadowed them all three: Moses, Elias, and Jesus.

Peter suggested that they build three tabernacles for them. Jesus disregarded Peter’s suggestion without comment, but the next activity was the ‘Voice’ saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear you Him” (Mat 17:5). Only one tabernacle was necessary, and Jesus would identify Himself as the Temple of the Holy Ghost that would arise once Herod’s Temple perished. (That occurred in AD 70, not by Titus as it is believed, but by the zealous Jews, as Jospehus wrote.)

Jesus then said to them, “Tell the vison to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead” (Mat 17:9).

Peter seemed to think that Elias and Moses had been raised from the dead, but not so; the two were indeed talking to Jesus as if they were alive. Jesus called it a ‘vision’ in verse nine. However, vision is just one translation. It was not an imaginary picture, but they really did see Elias and Moses; however, they too were ‘glorious’ — of another substance — and subsequently disappeared just as Jesus would do on the Emmaus walk.

Jesus asked that none of the apostles who were there reveal what they had seen (verse 9).

After much thought, I wrote years ago that Moses’s appearance was so that he could finally see the Face of God, in that never before had he seen it, but only the backside of Yahweh.

Upon making the tablets of stone, obviously to write upon them the Commandments, “And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the Name of the LORD” (Exod 34:5). That was long ago.

Moses appeared to Moses in a cloud to proclaim the Name of the Lord — the ‘Sem’ of ‘Yehova’ in the Hebrew. The ‘Name’ wrote the Commandments on stone, to wit: “And the Lord delivered unto me (Moses) two tables of stone written with the finger of God…” (Deut 9:10), or by his hand.

As it turns out, the Image of God on Earth is Christ, called ‘Jesus’ (Mat :25). Jesus is the theophoric Name of God, ‘Ya Preserves.’

The location of the Mount of Transfiguration was not revealed in scripture, but many believe that Jesus met Moses on Mt. Sinai, where they had met before. That does make sense! Why so?

He came to Moses that day the same way that He came so many hundreds of years before. In both cases the LORD GOD came in a bright cloud. In the first case, the LORD came to Moses to proclaim the Name of Himself and did the same thing on the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses came for the final revealing of the Name before the Name was put to death. The Name of the Lord, once called ‘Jesus’ was shown to be the LORD GOD, as it had been all the time.

The angel had told Mary that her son “shall be called the Son of the Highest” (Luke 1:32). The LORD GOD came to the Mount of Transfiguration for what reason? To proclaim Jesus as “My beloved Son” (verse five). The LORD GOD revealed to Moses the Name that He chose for Himself while in the world, but also revealed that Jesus is His very Image, using the word, ‘Son’ (in the English), or Huios (in the Greek). Jesus was not the ‘Son of God’ in a natural sense, but the posterity of the Father.

The Romans used the word, gens, in the same context; for instance, Julius Caesar was the ‘son,’ or ‘gens’ of Julii, his ancient ancestor. Just as Jesus was not the literal ‘son of David,’ neither was He the literal ‘Son of God,’ but the very Image of God who was God in all respects, having the same Substance in His Genome.

The LORD GOD revealed Himself to Moses, Elias, and the apostles in a bright cloud. That was the ‘Image’ that Moses had seen so many times before. Then that Cloud shined on Jesus much like putting a spotlight on an Image.

Imagine now, if you can, the Shekinah Light of God in the darkness shining on Jesus. What would you see? The Shadow of the Person, Jesus. The inner Image of the Man Jesus would be revealed as a Shadow.

The Image of God in the beginning from which the first man, Adam, was made, was a ‘Shadow,’ or ‘Phantom.’

Jesus had received the Holy Ghost at the baptism by John. The LORD GOD came to show both the apostles and the prophets that the ‘Shadow’ whom they worshipped in times past was indeed the Person of Jesus.

What is truth? In Platonian terms, truth is that a shadow on the wall, or on material earth, is a fragment of the real Thing. The LORD GOD used that Platonian allegory many times in scripture to reveal the truth. The truth being that the Light of God, the Persson of God, and the Phantom of God are the One Almighty LORD GOD — the ‘Godhead’ or ‘Holy Trinity.’

Next, we shall consider why Elias (Elijah) was invited to the revealing.