भाष्य सध्या फक्त इंग्रजीत उपलब्ध आहे. मराठी भाषांतर प्रगतीपथावर आहे.
Matthew 17 — This Is My Beloved Son: Hear Ye Him
After six days Jesus takes Peter, James, John up a high mountain. Transfigured — His face like the sun, garments white as light. Moses and Elijah appear. Peter's tabernacle suggestion. The bright cloud, the Father's voice — This is my beloved Son... hear ye him. Coming down, He charges them to tell no one until after the resurrection. A demonized boy the disciples could not heal; if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed. Second passion prediction. The temple tax — coin in the fish's mouth.
“While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”
— Matthew 17:5
- v.1-13 The Transfiguration
- v.14-21 The demonized boy
- v.22-23 Second passion prediction
- v.24-27 The temple tax
Hear ye him. The Father's climactic command. Moses and Elijah — law and prophets — have stood with the Son; now they recede. The voice from heaven directs all attention to Christ.
Christianity is the religion of listening to Christ. Whatever the law and prophets pointed to, the Son speaks. The deepest authority in the universe says — listen to Him.
Faith as a grain of mustard seed. The smallest seed; the largest power. The point is not the size of the faith but the size of its object. A little real faith in the Almighty does more than great fervor in the wrong place.
The verse is often pulled from context. Christ is rebuking the disciples' failure to cast out the demon, not promising arbitrary miracles on demand. The faith here is for what God has assigned, exercised at His direction.
Verse 5 is the simplest summons in the Bible — hear ye him. Many Christians have read Christ's words for years without doing them. The Father's command is not to admire but to obey. Take a saying of His this week and put it into practice. That is what the voice from the cloud asks.
On the mountain Christ's glory is unveiled; in the valley a tired father's plea is met. The same Lord rules both scenes. The transfiguration is the Father's endorsement just before the cross — Christ goes down from the mountain to die, with the Father's public hear ye him still ringing.
The veil of the flesh is briefly lifted. The disciples see, in time, what Christ has been from eternity — the radiance of God's glory (Hebrews 1:3). They are seeing what He covered to dwell among them.
A glimpse the disciples will need to carry. Peter recalls it in his epistle (2 Peter 1:16-18). The cross is days away; the glory shown here is the reality the cross has not changed.