Nearly a week after Peter’s confession of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, Jesus experiences the transfiguration. He also continues ministering to the needy and dealing with a tax collector. Let’s take a look:
1) V1-13 – 1After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. 3Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. 4Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If You wish, I will put up three shelters – one for You, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” 6When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” He said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. 9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” 10The disciples asked Him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” 11Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. 12But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” 13Then the disciples understood that He was talking to them about John the Baptist.
This mysterious episode in the midst of Jesus’ earthly ministry is simply called the transfiguration. It means that Jesus changed in figure, that He was glorified in a way He had not been beforehand. We read that Jesus led Peter, James, and John – the inner circle of His twelve disciples – to a mountaintop where they saw His glory, His majesty, reporting long after the fact – since Jesus told them not to tell until He was raised from the dead (v9) – that “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light” (v2). This is obviously recorded here in Matthew; it is also found in Mark and Luke, though none of these three authors were eyewitnesses to the event. It is perhaps not surprisingly omitted from John’s gospel, though he was an eyewitness. Nevertheless, Peter does testify to the validity of the even in his letter, “We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred mountain” (2 Peter 1:16-18).
They also saw “Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus” (v3), and the impetuous Peter suddenly wanted to build a shelter (tent, dwelling place, tabernacle, shrine?) for each of the three special men. Peter was interrupted, however, when God the Father spoke audibly, repeating the words He issued at Jesus’ baptism, reconfirming, or re-affirming Jesus’ identity and role. Perhaps this was a moment of energizing Jesus for the next portion of His ministry. He had accomplished the first part between His baptism and Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi; the next part would be similar, but with the cross at the end.
The audible voice of God dropped the disciples to the ground, but Jesus touched them, relieved their fear, and told them to get up, at which they no longer saw Elijah or Moses, and presumably Jesus appeared as normal once again. They descended the mountain and Jesus commanded them not to tell what they had seen until His resurrection, and they questioned Him. The disciples asked, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” They were presumably trying to understand the prophecies about the Christ, putting the expected events on a timeline of sorts. Jesus answered them, explaining that they were correct, that Elijah does come first to “restore all things” (v11). But Jesus added to their understanding, explaining that Elijah had already come and accomplished this, and that he suffered at the hands of ruling authorities, just as Jesus must now do. The disciples understood, then, that Jesus was referring to John the Baptist, and that he had restored all things through his message of repentance.
2) V14-21 – 14When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before Him. 15“Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.” 17“O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to Me.” 18Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment. 19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 20He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. [21But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.]”
Coming off the heels of His glorifying transfiguration, hearing the words of His Father from heaven, being visited by Moses and Elijah, and teaching His closest three disciples, Jesus immediately meets a man whose son was suffering with seizures. The man explains that Jesus’ other disciples could not heal his son, and Jesus makes a startling decree: “O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” The rhetorical questions need no answer; remember the context. Jesus had just been refreshed with glory from on high, and there was no place He’d rather be than in the presence of His Father. It’s a sigh with the mentality of “back to business, no rest for the weary.” He is probably also frustrated to some degree with His disciples, and perhaps even the people in general, for being unable to overcome demons due to lack of faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. This may have also been a way for God the Father to bring glory to Jesus as healer, for He “rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment” (v18).
The disciples came to Jesus later and asked why they were unable to drive out the demon and heal the boy. Jesus said they lacked faith, but He also said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” This famous saying is undoubtedly true, but it reveals how small a measure of faith we really possess. The mustard seed is among the smallest of tree seeds, so Jesus is saying that minimal faith goes a long way. The power of faith is incredible, and yet we seem to lack the quantity of faith needed to drive out demons. Jesus says a similar thing to the disciples in Luke 17:6, right after they said to Him, “Increase our faith!” Faith is a gift (Ephesians 2:8-9), and God gives it in different measures (Romans 12:3). But apparently, most of us – though we really do have the fullness of the same Holy Spirit by which Jesus did His work – lack even a mustard seed size amount of faith, for we do not often move mountains, at least in the physical, obvious sense. Perhaps, then Jesus refers to spiritual mountains; perhaps our faith, small though it may be, still brings us from death and hell to eternal life in heaven, and that’s quite a mountain to move!
V21 does not appear in many manuscripts, and it may only be found in the footnote of your Bible. We read that Jesus added, in regard to the demon the disciples failed to drive out, that kind of demon can only be exorcised with prayer and fasting. Perhaps it was an especially stubborn demon and required a deeper faith, a more significant focus than other, less challenging obstacles, such as mountains!
3) V22-27 – 22When they came together in Galilee, He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. 23They will kill Him, and on the third day He will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief. 24After Jesus and His disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?” 25“Yes, He does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” He asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes – from their own sons or from others?” 26“From others,” Peter answered. “Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. 27“But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for My tax and yours.”
Jesus once again declared the future to His disciples, and here they are “filled with grief” (v23) over His impending death. They don’t seem to understand the resurrection after three days part, for that is really good news; but there’s no way we could have grasped the good of that either. “They will kill Him” would have been all that we really heard.
The final episode in this chapter involves a run in with tax collectors. They approach Peter to ask if Jesus pays the temple tax, which implies that He hadn’t yet paid the annual fee (according to Exodus 30:13-16), though the due date must have been near. Peter explained that Jesus does in fact pay the tax, and he went into the house to find Him. Interestingly, this tax was continued even after the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 AD. The Romans collected the tax to allow the Jews to maintain a public identification with their heritage, thereby ensuring that a Jewish community would remain in the midst of a secularizing culture. One commentator says, “The principle is that we must sometimes engage in otherwise unprofitable pursuits for the sake of upholding our witness as citizens of the communities where God has placed us.” Would you pay the government for the right to be identify publicly as a Christian? Wow!
When Peter entered the house, Jesus was the first to speak, showing that He already knew the question asked by the tax collectors. Jesus asked Peter who should be required to pay these temple taxes; this tax was considered to be exacted by God Himself, and Jesus was pointing out that He deemed Himself tax-exempt here, because of His identity as Son of God. One commentator says, “Head or poll taxes normally listed specific exceptions who would not have to pay. Conquerors subjected conquered peoples, not their own subjects, to taxation. Priests were exempt from the two-drachma tax cited here; so in later times were rabbis. Most significant here, dependents of a king were naturally exempt from his taxes… He wishes to avoid unnecessary cause for misunderstandings (v27) that might turn people away from His gospel unnecessarily (compare 5:29-30; 13:41; 16:23; 18:6). Jesus has offended (literally ‘caused to stumble’) members of the religious establishment before (15:12-14), but this is an unnecessary ‘stumbling block’ because it addresses one’s own rights rather than the truth of God’s kingdom (18:6)… Jesus’ point here is similar to Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 9 and 10:29-33: one should sacrifice one’s own privileges for the sake of the gospel.”
So Jesus, though tax-exempt as a Son of God, in order not to offend the tax collectors, tells Peter to go fishing. The first fish he caught would have a coin in its mouth that would pay the temple tax owed by both Jesus and Peter. Again, the commentator notes, “Following an old Greek story, some Jewish stories of uncertain date speak of God blessing pious people by leading them to find precious objects in fish. If Peter knew of such stories, the moral of Jesus’ causing him to find money in a fish would not be lost on him. This is irony of a sort: the King’s children can pay the tax because the King gives them the money to do so. Jesus can take care of His people who walk close to Him.” So we tithe, because God gives us the money to tithe; and we pay our taxes, because God provides the money for that as well. God provides.
Bible text from
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International Bible Society.