The Transfiguration of Jesus was a taste of future glory. Jesus ascended the mountain to pray, leading Peter, James, and John to join him. While there, the form of Jesus’ face changed and his clothes turned white, like flashing lightning (Lk 9.29). Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke to Jesus about the exodus that he was to accomplish soon in Jerusalem (Lk 9.31). This exodus event would involve his suffering, death, and resurrection, something about which Jesus spoke to his disciples before ascending the mountain (Lk 9.21-22). If any man desired to participate in the exodus and future glory of Christ, he would have to take up his cross daily and follow Christ (Lk 9.25-27).
Before Jesus ascended this mountain to receive a foretaste of future glory, he ascended another mountain. On this mountain, he wasn’t leading disciples. He was being led. On this mountain he would also be promised glory, feasting his eyes on all the kingdoms of the world. But this mountain-top experience was the anti-transfiguration, for it was the promise of the devil.
Luke records that the devil led Jesus up the mountain in the wilderness to show him all the kingdoms of the earth in a moment of time. He promised Jesus authority over all of these kingdoms and their glory if he would bow before him, acknowledging him as his god.
Everything the Father promised Jesus as his Son was within his sight and grasp. Had not the Father promised his Anointed One, his Son, that if would but ask that he would give him the nations for his inheritance (Ps 2.8)? Here they are, immediately after his anointing. Why not take them now?
The answer is, this was not the time nor was it the way for Jesus to inherit his glory. To have the glory that the devil would give him, he would have to play by the devil’s rules. The plan for the Son was to inherit the nations but to do so in a way that transformed them from death to life. To submit to the devil would be to keep the same sin-death system in place that kept the world moving into deeper darkness. Jesus would have authority and glory immediately, but he would only be a new Caesar, Herod, or corrupt high priest. He would be a new face, but nothing in the world would change.
God’s plan was to destroy that system that kept the world in bondage to sin and death and then bring it to the glory he intended from the beginning. The Son would enter into this glory, but he must do so through the cross. As we learn from his scolding of his disciples on the Road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory” (Lk 24.26)? The only way to transfiguration glory is through the cross. If Jesus grasps for authority and glory now, he will fall short of the glory of God.
As we follow Christ, we too must come to peace with the fact that there is no avoiding the cross if we are to inherit the glory God has promised. We follow Jesus to glory through the way of the cross.
The temptation to sin in grasping for cheap, temporary glory surrounds us every day. Everybody with a phone nowadays can record himself doing something stupid or immoral in order to become famous. The glory of fortune can be seized instantly through a plastic card or ruthless business. The glory of intimacy can be grasped through pornography, hook-up apps, and even sex robots. You can have everything you want immediately. Besides, God created these desires in you, and he certainly doesn’t want them to go unfulfilled. Seize them now!
All of these things will gratify you … for a brief period of time. There is pleasure in sin, but it is only for a short time. The glory achieved through sin is short-lived and leaves you empty, hopeless, and dead in the end.
God has called us to faith in him; to pursue glory in his time and his way. He will glorify us, but it will only be as we persevere on the road of patient obedience to him, traversing the way of the cross. This is the faith that denies instant gratification for future reward. It is the discipline of an athlete who reins in his desires daily with his eye on the prize. It is the perseverance of the farmer who does the daily tasks without seeing instant results because he knows that there will be a future harvest. It is the fortitude of a soldier who refuses to entangle himself with the affairs of civilian life so that he may please the one who called him (cf. 2Tim 2.3-7).
Don’t settle for cheap, transient glory. Your heavenly Father has glory prepared for you beyond anything that you can see in the present. Take up your cross daily and follow Jesus. Resurrection glory is at the end of this road.
