Context for Matthew 16:21-17:13
If we had the choice, we would not have chosen God’s way as the way for our salvation. In fact, in our sinful view, we would choose many different ways to reach Heaven. Is that not what everything from atheism to Zoroastrianism is all about?
Yet God chose one way to save us, through the sacrifice of His perfect, only begotten Son on the cross. It is only by faith in the nature of Jesus and His work that we receive the promise of salvation.
The Transfiguration revealed Jesus in all of His glory as God. At that moment, Peter, James, and John saw not only the man Jesus, with whom they had traveled, but the glorified Son of God.
Why was this revelation important? Because, at that moment, Peter, James, and John saw the fulfillment of their faith in God’s promise to send a Savior. Certainly, Jesus had yet to die, but at that moment, they knew more than ever before that Jesus was whom He said He was.
And what about us? This revelation is important to us because it provides us with the witness as to Jesus’ nature, confirming to us that He was the fulfillment of the same promise of salvation Peter, James, and John hoped for.
That fulfillment is the core of our faith, that Jesus came as God and Man in a single nature, lived the perfect life fulfilling the Law we could not live on our own, died as the punishment for our sins, and rose from the dead to conquer the last enemy of death. Without Jesus as our God, He was just another man. With Jesus as God, He is our Savior.
