Daily Bible Reading 9th August 2026 // Luke 9:28-36
28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. 34 As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” 36 And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.
The voice speaking out of the cloud to Moses, the shekinah glory coming down on the mount, the 'unto him shall ye hearken' in Deuteronomy 18:15, the appearance on the Mount of Moses and Elijah - all this surely indicates that the Transfiguration is not something that stands in isolation from everything around it, but is integrally related to the whole of the divine revelation of redemption. Indeed, Moses and Elijah by their presence on Mount Hermon bore witness to the fact that both the law and the prophets find their fulfilment in Him, and leave Him in His unchallenged supremacy as the alone Saviour of men - reminding Him withal, so to speak, that the salvation of the whole of the old economy depended on the death He was to die at Jerusalem.
But there is also an association of ideas with other New Testament events which seems to be significant. On the one hand, the voice that spoke: 'This is My beloved Son' is also the voice that spoke at Jesus' baptism - so that there is necessarily a common significance in the two events. And since, at the Baptism, Christ took His place by sinful man, identifying with man in his need, and since, in the second place, Peter, James and John, who shared this experience with Christ, were also the three who were to share in the experience of the Garden of Gethsemane, it seems clear that we are meant to associate the Transfiguration with the sufferings of Christ. This is further emphasised by the fact that the story is linked with Caesarea Philippi and our Lord's teaching about the Cross. The words 'about eight days after' in 28 are a decisive link with the previous event. In relation, then, to what we have said about the twofold nature of our Lord's teaching, we see now that each part of His teaching is, so to speak, introduced by the words: 'This is My beloved Son...', and in each case it was the divine seal on His willingness to walk the way of the Cross.