Matthew 17:1 says, “And after six days Jesus takes with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and brings them up into a high mountain apart.” Since the Lord’s transfiguration transpired six days after the revelations concerning Christ and the church in chapter sixteen (given at the very foot of Mount Hermon), the high mountain here must be Mount Hermon. To receive the revelation concerning Christ and the church we must be far away from the religious environment; but to see the vision of the transfigured Christ we need to be on a high mountain, far above the earthly level.
Verse 2 says, “And He was transfigured before them, and His face shone as the sun, and His garments became white as the light.” Not many Christians realize that Christ’s transfiguration was His coming in His kingdom. In the past we pointed out that the Lord’s coming will not take place suddenly; rather, it will come gradually. In a sense, the Lord will come back from heaven; but in another sense, He will come out of us. When He fully lives Himself out of us, that will be the time of His coming. According to Matthew 17:1 with 16:28, His coming was His transfiguration, and His transfiguration was His glorification. When He was transfigured, He was glorified.
Now we must see what it means to be glorified. When Christ, who is God, became a man, His divinity was incarnated in His humanity. He was a unique person, one possessing both divinity and humanity. His divinity was concealed within His humanity. Outwardly, He was a man, but inwardly He was the very God. God was hidden, contained, concealed, within this man. Glory is God manifested, God expressed. It is nothing other than God Himself manifested and seen by man. The God hidden within the humanity of Jesus was the very glory. Thus, the glorious divine element was concealed within the human element of Jesus. As He walked on earth, no one could see His glorious divinity. Many saw the miracles and realized that He was someone extraordinary, but prior to His transfiguration no one had ever seen the glory concealed within Him. Then one day He brought three of His most intimate disciples to a high mountain, and was there transfigured before them. For the Lord Jesus to be transfigured meant that His humanity was saturated and permeated with His divinity. We may say that His humanity was soaked with divinity. This transfiguration, which was His glorification, was equal to His coming in His kingdom. This indicates that Christ’s coming in His kingdom is linked with His transfiguration. Where His transfiguration is, there the coming of the kingdom is also. The coming of the kingdom is the Lord’s glorification, His transfiguration; and His glorification is the saturation of His humanity by His divinity. This is the meaning of transfiguration. Because the Lord has been transfigured, He is now in glory.
In Christ’s transfiguration, His humanity was glorified; it was brought into God’s glory. Before that time, God was in Him, but His humanity was not in God’s glory. In His transfiguration His humanity was thoroughly saturated with His glorious divinity. In the coming manifestation of the kingdom, Christ will be like this. He will be the very Christ with both divinity and humanity, but His humanity will be soaked with His divinity.
The day is coming when we shall not only see this, but also experience it ourselves. We now have the divine life with the divine nature within us. However, we still have our natural humanity. No matter how spiritual and holy we may be, our humanity is still natural. It has not yet been saturated with the divine glory. But at the time of the manifestation of the kingdom, our humanity will be glorified by the glorious divinity within us.
Perhaps the opposers will label this evolution into God. But this is not evolution into God—it is glorification. The opposers need to read Romans 8:30: “And whom He predestinated, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” I would like to ask the opposers what they think it means to be glorified. Do they think that to be glorified is merely to enter the realm of glory? This is a very superficial understanding of glorification. To be glorified is to be saturated with God’s glory. It is to be transfigured, not from without, but from within. One day we shall be a great surprise to the unbelievers. Second Thessalonians 1:10 says, “When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” The unbelievers will be shocked by our glorification. Because in our humanity we are the same as the unbelievers, they can see no difference between us and them. But the day is coming when they will see a glorious difference, for our humanity will be saturated with divinity, and we shall become a glorious people. We shall not just be spiritual, holy, pure, and clean. We shall be glorious. This is the coming of the kingdom. We are waiting for this to take place.