Meditations in Matthew Seventeen: Transfiguration Postscripts

The transfiguration (Matt 17:1–9) provides subtle confirmations of inmillennialism. As a vision (Matt 17:9), it showed the passing away of the Mosaic age. The law (Moses) and the prophets (Elijah) would disappear. The messianic age (Jesus) would take their place.

Peter linked this transition to Christ’s parousia (2 Pet 1:16–18). Inmillennialism’s definition of parousia fits this scenario well. It is Christ’s presence with his churches in the messianic age. We saw this in our last post (here).

Matthew’s postscripts to the transfiguration (Matt 17:10–21) supply two additional confirmations. One appeared in a question Peter, James, and John asked Jesus as they descended the mount. The other came when they rejoined the other disciples.

Elijah’s Coming (Matt 17:10–13)

Elijah’s presence in the transfiguration prompted a question. “His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’” (Matt 17:10 NKJV).

The ancient Jewish writers had said many things about Elijah’s return. He had ascended to heaven without dying (cf. 2 Kings 2:11). The scribes said he would come back just before the coming of the Messiah.

The apostate Jews used this teaching to show Jesus was not the Messiah. “They argued, that if he was the Messiah, Elias (i.e., Elijah) would be come; but whereas he was not come, therefore he could not be the Messiah.”¹ 

Perhaps the disciples wondered why Elijah had appeared to only them. Shouldn’t he have appeared to the whole nation to confirm Jesus as the Messiah?

Jesus responded to the disciples’ question by correcting the scribes’ interpretive method. They appealed to Mal 4:5–6 to support their teaching about Elijah. Their interpretation was too literal. God did not mean Elijah himself would appear. He meant one would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17).

Jesus explained: “Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased” (Matt 17:12). John the Baptist had fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy about Elijah’s coming.

This shows how Mal 4:5–6 fits in the Bible’s prophetic framework. It was a prophecy about the messianic age. Malachi said Elijah would “turn the heart of the children to their fathers” (Mal 4:6). Jesus said this meant Elijah (i.e., John the Baptist) had come to “restore all things” (Matt 17:11). Familial reconciliation was a part of the messianic-age restoration.

John Gill explains what this means:

The Syriac and Persic versions render it, shall perfect, or complete all things, that are prophesied of him; and shall put a period to the law and the prophets, and close the Mosaic economy, and direct persons to Christ; in whom are the perfection of the law, and the fulfilling of the prophets.²

Malachi’s reconciliation of fathers and children (the part) represented messianic-age perfection and completion (the whole). To enter the messianic age was to leave the Mosaic age and to “go on to perfection” (Heb 6:1; cf. Heb 12:28).

This view of Mal 4:5–6 agrees with what we said above about Elijah. He was a symbolic person in the transfiguration. His disappearance on the mount represented the Mosaic age passing away and the messianic age beginning.

Other factors in Malachi’s prophecy also establish this perspective. “Elijah” would appear before God brought judgment on apostate Israel. Here is a literal rendering of God’s words:

Lo, I am sending to you Elijah the prophet, Before the coming of the day of Jehovah, The great and the fearful. And he hath turned back the heart of fathers to sons, And the heart of sons to their fathers, Before I come and have utterly smitten the land! (Mal 4:5–6 YLT; emphasis added) 

John the Baptist fulfilled this prophecy. He said, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:2). He also spoke of “the wrath about to (Gk. mellō) break at any moment” (Matt 3:7).³ John said God had already laid his judgment-ax to the root of Israel’s tree (Matt 3:10).

The transfiguration showed the end of the Mosaic age and the start of the messianic age. While walking down the mount, Jesus explained Malachi’s prophecy about John the Baptist as Elijah. His explanation reinforced the message of the transfiguration vision.

Moses’s Description (Matt 17:14–21)

After descending the mount, Jesus, Peter, James, and John rejoined the other disciples. They met a desperate father concerned for his demon-possessed son. He said, “I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him” (Matt 17:16).

Jesus’s first response was one of rebuke. “Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?” (Matt 17:17). 

At first glance, this seems addressed to the disciples. But John Gill makes some important observations. This is 

a way of speaking, which is never used of the disciples, and indeed could not be properly said of them; for though they often appeared to be men of little faith, yet not faithless; nor were they so rebellious, stubborn, and perverse, as here represented, though there was a great deal of perverseness in them: but the characters better suit the body of the Jewish nation, who, on account of the incredulity of this man, and those that were present, being of the same temper with them, are exclaimed against in words, which were long ago spoken of their ancestors, Deut. 32:5 and from whence they seem to be taken.⁴

Jesus was using language from the Song of Moses (Deut 32:1–43).⁵ To appreciate the importance of this source, we must understand God’s purpose for this Song. A previous post (here) discussed it at length.

God designed this Song to serve as his witness against Israel (Deut 31:19). It would do so in her “latter days.” Moses said, “I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands” (Deut 31:29; emphasis added).

So, Jesus was quoting a Song designed for the “last days” of the Mosaic age. And, as we have seen, the transfiguration was all about this period. The Mosaic age was passing away and Jesus was establishing the messianic age. Jesus was using this ancient prophecy about this period to rebuke Israel’s unbelief.

In the Song, God had described latter-day Israel as “a perverse and crooked generation” (Deut 32:5). Jesus said this “faithless and perverse generation” (Matt 17:17) had arrived.⁶

In the Song, Moses said, “They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation” (Deut 32:5 ESV; emphasis added). When the “latter days” arrived, Israel after the flesh (1 Cor 10:18) would no longer be God’s children as they had been in the Mosaic age. In the messianic age, God’s children would comprise only those born of the Spirit (cp. John 1:11–13).

In the Song, God had said, “I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith” (Deut 32:20). He fulfilled this when he took the kingdom from apostate Israel and gave it to his holy nation (Matt 21:43; cf. 1 Pet 2:9). This transfer happened when Israel’s “end” came. This occurred when the Temple fell (Matt 24:1–3, 6, 13, 14, 34).

Conclusion

The transfiguration and the two discussions we examined in this post pertained to the disciples immediate future. Jesus said, “the Son of Man is also about to (Gk. mellō) suffer at their hands” (Matt 17:12 NKJV). He was “about to be (Gk. mellō) delivered into the hands of men” (Matt 17:22 ESV).

The transfiguration-vision was about the transition from the Mosaic age to the parousia (presence) of Christ with his churches in the messianic age.

The conversation on the way down the mountain reinforced this vision. Malachi’s “Elijah” (John the Baptist) had announced God’s wrath against Israel. It was “about to break at any moment (Gk. mellō)” (Matt 3:7).⁷

God was about to smite the land of Israel (Mal 4:6 YLT). In this way, John had prepared the way for the restoration of all things (Matt 17:11) in the messianic age.

The next conversation also reinforced the transfiguration vision. God was about to fulfill the Song of Moses. Israel’s “latter days” had arrived. The Israel to whom Jesus spoke was the generation of whom Moses spoke (Deut 32:5; Matt 17:17). It would soon end (cp. Matt 24:34).

The transfiguration and the two following conversations reinforce the inmillennial prophetic model.

1. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–1810; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 7:194.
2. Gill, “Exposition,” 7:194.
3. Kenneth S. Wuest, Expanded Translation of the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 6.
4. Gill, “Exposition,” 7:195. Emphasis added.
5. Friedrich Büchsel, “γενεά, κτλ,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-76), 1:663.
6. The image in this post is Moses Smashing the Tablets of the Law by Rembrandt (1606–1669). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
7. Wuest, Greek New Testament, 6.