A Life-Altering Transformation

The transfiguration of Jesus is one of the most breathtaking moments in all the Gospels. Peter, James, and John climbed a mountain with Jesus and came down forever changed by what they saw. But Matthew 17 is not just about what happened to Jesus on that mountain — it is about what God intends to happen to every one of us.

The Glory They Saw

Matthew records that Jesus "was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light." (Matt 17:2) That word transfigured in the original is metamorpho — the same root we use for metamorphosis. A caterpillar goes in, a butterfly comes out. The change is total. What the disciples were seeing was a glimpse of the glory Christ had set aside when He took on human flesh. Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that Christ, "being in the form of God," emptied Himself and came "in the likeness of men." (Phil 2:6-7) On that mountain, something of that original glory was being shown again. John would later see a similar sight in the vision recorded in Revelation 1, and he "fell at His feet as dead." (Rev 1:17) That brightness — the light, the radiance — is simply what the heavenly looks like.

Hear Him

When Moses and Elijah appeared alongside Jesus, Peter's instinct was to build three tabernacles — one for each. But that was not what this moment called for. God answered from the cloud: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him." (Matt 17:5) At that, Moses and Elijah were gone, and there stood Jesus alone. The Hebrew writer echoes that same point: God "has in these last days spoken to us by His Son." (Heb 1:1-2) And the warning follows immediately — "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Heb 2:3) The Law and the Prophets were good and useful. But the voice from the cloud did not say hear Moses. It said hear Him. Jesus is the one we answer to.

The Transformation That Belongs to Us

Now here is where this becomes deeply personal. The same word — metamorpho — that describes what happened to Jesus on the mountain is the word Paul uses when he writes to the Romans: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Rom 12:2) And again in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." This is happening. It is an ongoing process. As we conform our lives to God's word, we are being transfigured — starting to look like Jesus in a spiritual sense.

That process begins with repentance — a word that carries its own sense of change at the root. It begins when God's word produces faith, and that faith moves a person to relent and turn back to God. On the day of Pentecost, Peter told those pricked in their hearts to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). Paul reminds the Corinthians that some of them had been fornicators, idolaters, drunkards — "and such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6:11) That is transformation. That is transfiguration. Romans 6 puts it plainly: we were buried with Him through baptism into death, "that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Rom 6:4) Something has changed. Something new has begun.

The Grand Transformation Still to Come

But this is not the end of the story. One day the trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will be raised. Paul says the body "is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory." (1 Cor 15:42-43) And John closes the thought beautifully: "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2) We shall be like Him — like what the disciples saw on that mountain, like what John saw in Revelation. That is the destination of this transformation.

Do not give up on being transfigured. If you have wandered, come back and let the Spirit do His work. If you have never begun, the invitation is simple — relent, repent, be baptized, and walk in newness of life. The grandest transformation of all is still ahead, and I want that for every one of us.