"Men Whose Eyes Have Seen the King" (Transcript)

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 2 - The Power and Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ

We read again Peter's words regarding the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, from his second letter, chapter 1, verse 16: "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the Majestic Glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: and this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were with Him in the holy mount. We have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts."

I would like to link with that his words in his first letter, in the first chapter, at verse 10: "Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them. To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things, which have now been announced unto you through them that preached the gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; which things angels desire to look into".

I think that there is very little need for me to retrace the course that we followed earlier, because what we have yet to say will so largely embrace what we have said. We concluded our earlier meditation at the point of the issue of the transfiguration. We saw that the word used here by Peter and in other places is a word that links the transfiguration with the coming again of the Lord Jesus, rightly translated 'power and presence' - the presence. That word, as you see, is applied to the transfiguration: the presence of the Lord Jesus in majesty, in power, in glory. That same word is used, and in the same way, concerning His coming again, it is called His 'presencing', His 'being present'; and we know that that presencing will indeed be in power, majesty and glory.

If these are the accompaniments of the presence of the Lord Jesus (as they are clearly seen to be again and again; we shall indicate some of these occasions as we go on) if these be the accompaniments of His presence, then the issue, not only in transfiguration and what it means and in the advent at the end, but surely in every occasion of His presence, the presencing of the Lord Jesus carries with it an impact upon the situation, the conditions, the place, where He is present.

We might indicate, even if we enlarge later, there is here, on the Mount of Transfiguration, an impact. These three who were there in His presence fell on their faces with great fear. The Lord Jesus had to approach and lay His hand on them, and say: "Arise, and be not afraid". The presence of the Lord Jesus will lay waste all our own strength; all our natural wisdom; all our pride; all our impetuosity.

Peter (and another evangelist recording it tells us that Peter said): "Lord, it's good for us to be here: let us make three tabernacles." The evangelist says: "not knowing what he said". Here he is, in his own impulsiveness again, obtruding himself into this situation, taking the speech into his lips, and the situation into his hands, wanting to organise this, and to perpetuate it, and to make something of it and: "I will make three tabernacles..." 'I'! Peter... "not knowing what he said", truly perhaps with the best intentions, nevertheless, nevertheless heaven had to rebuke him, and put him in his place, and this was a devastating experience for those men in themselves.

From one standpoint it is a glorious thing to see His majesty; from another standpoint it is always a fearful thing, that is, for the flesh, for the natural life. We cannot walk into this and take hold of it, to make something of it for our pleasure and satisfaction. There is an impact in it, that's the point; it registers. If we pray (as we are going to), and seek (as we are going to seek), a new vision of the exalted Lord, we must be prepared to be brought very low, and to have all our own natural energies wasted; to realise that that Majesty demands nothing other than that we shall be on our faces. That is a good place to be when it's before Him.

It was a tremendous thing when Stephen saw this Lord in majesty and glory. It carried him through the awful ordeal of martyrdom, of being broken, shattered, and slain, with all the hatred, the malice that was being poured upon him by those who gnashed their teeth and ran upon him. It was a glorious emergence for Stephen to see the Lord in glory as he did; but it was a tremendously devastating thing for at least one man there. More than that, we could say that it was devastating for that nation; for, in what they were doing, they were only setting their double seal to what they had done to the very Man in the Glory. Again, it's impact. What I am trying to say is, not that such and such things characterise a visitation or a vision, but we can never really, really see the Lord, and be in the presence of the Lord, without knowing it, and something happening - without it being tremendously effective.

Saul of Tarsus saw the Lord glorified, and no one will argue as to there being an impact on that occasion! John saw Him, when he was in Patmos he saw this Lord glorified, and he fell to the ground - see, it's like that. And, whatever might be the consequences and effects, we would all say, "Let's have it", rather than this impotent, helpless, weak, ineffective state in which we so often find ourselves. The issue of the transfiguration, that is, of the glorified Lord, of seeing, seeing, is always a tremendous thing in its effect. Now here, in his letter, Peter is affirming the fact, he's affirming:

The Fact Of The Transfiguration.

He is setting it over against what he calls "cunningly devised fables" - cleverly concocted reports, over against anything merely fictitious or imaginary and so on. He says, "This is a fact! We were with Him; we saw! We heard!" And he says this has been abundantly confirmed: "We have more sure the word of prophecy" - probably referring to what he'd said in his first letter that we've read. The prophets all pointed on to that, to that suffering and glory which met on the Mount of the Transfiguration, as Moses and Elijah spoke to Him about the exodus, His 'exodus', about to be accomplished at Jerusalem. There the suffering and the glory met; there on that mountain. Peter says that the prophets were all pointing to that, and seeking and searching diligently to know the time, what manner of time it would be. When they prophesied the sufferings and the glory, he says "They, the prophets, searched diligently". And then he crowns it all by saying, "Which things angels are desirous of looking into!" He said, "We've, we've got it! We've got it all in fulfilment! We were there on the mount, and we have seen it working out ever since! We are living in the light and the power of that combination of suffering and glory, glory and suffering. It's confirmed! The prophets, the word of the prophecy is confirmed, both in the event and in our history ever since the event - it's made more sure." Probably Peter meant more than that, but he meant that.

That is not the whole interpretation, but it is a part. But there it is! What I am trying to underline is this fact that Peter himself is affirming here - the thing had happened. But, when Peter adds his word about "more sure", you notice he carries it beyond the event, that historic event, that occasion on the mount. There is something added to this, something added to the (if we may call it) 'incident'; mighty incident! There's something more - it has been "made more sure" in our case. What is it?

An Inward Reality

Well, just this, just this which is so true in the other cases: it was not only something before Peter and James and John, it was something that happened to him, and afterward came into him. True, there was the event, the happening in time, at a certain place. But, something with it happened in Peter. This letter of his many years afterward, and you notice in the context, the immediate context, he is speaking of his departure: "Knowing that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle, even as the Lord hath shown me... I will seek that you have these things after my departure...". He is at the end of his life, at the end of his ministry; but something has happened that has carried him through; something has remained, not as a memory of an objective experience, but something happened in him.

Dear friends, this is more than a doctrine, more than a theory, more than even something in the Holy Scriptures - to see the Lord does something in us. Oh, I would like to spend all the rest of my time on that! Because, you know, we, we can get the 'truth' about anything and everything, all the truth that is available about the Lord Jesus Himself - His life, His birth, His life, His works, His words, His death, His resurrection - all that there is. We can have all the 'truth' about the church - the church, and what a lot there is available. We can have it all, know it all - nothing fresh to know about it; and any other thing you like to mention, in the Scriptures. We can know it all, and yet the fact can remain that nothing has happened in us as a result.

I ask you: what has all your knowledge of the church meant, as a happening in you, to do something? To put you in a new place, with an entirely new conception, revolutionising your whole life, so that one whole order of things just falls away as empty, and another heavenly order comes in? That's how it ought to be! True spiritual apprehension ought not to be just something in front of us - it ought to be something in us. It was with Peter, and we can trace this in his life. We shall indicate other things.

Take again his great contemporary, Paul. Here is this fact, that, on the Damascus road, Jesus appeared unto him in glory - "brightness above the brightness of the sun". It was a tremendous objective 'something' that was before him; it struck him as from the outside. But as you know, years afterward when he was speaking of it, he says: "it pleased God... to reveal His Son in me". It was not only to him - it was something in him. And the apostle Paul's whole life and ministry was based upon and sprang out of that double event: to and in. The majesty of the Lord Jesus, the majesty of the Lord Jesus became an inward thing with him, and therefore a tremendously effective thing.

The answer to the critics, who say that Saul of Tarsus was in a frenzy, and therefore was overtaken by a terrible hysteria, and he began to 'see things', and believed that they were real, and that's the explanation, the psychological explanation of the conversion of Paul. The answer is his life of endurance, and suffering, and service, and love; and his death for his testimony. You don't go that way, like that, on a dream, on an imagination, on an hysteria. I venture to say that a very small proportion of what Paul had to meet during the thirty years of his ministry would knock hysteria out of most men. No, something happened inside. The vision did something in him, as well as was something to him.

And so we could go on with the other people, like John, who saw the Lord in His glory. But that's enough. The thing happened to him, but it happened in him. It was an event, true; but it was also an abiding process. For, right on through their lives, this was the thing which was growing, it was growing - this wonderful greatness of the Lord Jesus. They didn't get it all at once, even in the wonderful event, but through their lives it was growing; it was the one mighty thing that was happening. Jesus, in all the greatness of His glorified Person and position, was dominating their whole horizon and the whole course of their lives.

Now that brings us to the principle of all this, which opens up a very large field, in which we can move, or could move, for a very long time. The principle is:

The Principle of True, Spiritual, Inward Vision.

Not 'visionariness', but inward vision, which is specific, which is definite. Visionariness can be very abstract, but what we mean by 'vision', spiritual vision, is very concrete; it is very specific. It is a Person Who is in view, and this Person is no abstraction. There is nothing unreal or imaginary, it's a mighty Person - we see the Lord Jesus.

I pause. I hesitate to just go on with words. Because, dear friends, they can, after all be but words. Let us weigh this whole matter.

You and I and the Lord's people, as we said earlier, need something very mighty to carry us through to the end. In our various places, various situations, various experiences, scattered and tried and pressed, things are becoming very grim, are they not? I don't want to make anybody feel bad, if you don't feel bad about things, but most of us are aware that we are in a most terrific spiritual conflict, and that the Christian life is not getting easier. Forgive me if I say a wrong thing, but I think many of you understand. It is becoming exceedingly difficult to just hold on, and keep on, and especially to be triumphant. So it was when Peter wrote his letter.

Now, we want more than words, and more than visionariness, to get us through. You know, dear friends, our Christian lives ought to be based upon something like this: our having seen the Lord. We'll only go through if that is true. By the operation and activity of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, we must have an inward vision of the exalted Lord. For all endurance, and for all service, that is essential. Life that has to go on without that, is just a drag; it's an existence. Work or service without that inward vision has nothing in it to lift us, to carry us on. For everything it is indispensable - in life and work and endurance - we have this inward vision of the Lord in majesty and glory, kept fresh, kept clear, constantly revived. With such a vision all the essentials of effectiveness are bound up.

Now look, first of all, what we need, what all Christians need, what the church as a whole needs, and what every part of it needs, is a mighty governing sense of purpose. Don't we?

A Sense of Purpose

There is something for which to live, and something for which to work, and something for which to endure and go on; a real master-purpose in our existence and in everything to do with it. Well, if you look into this matter you will find that in the New Testament, these men and the church were brought into this master-purpose. We are so familiar with the very word that it has lost its music in our ears - 'the eternal purpose' - 'called according to His purpose'. They were governed by this objective, this goal, this something toward which they were being moved, drawn, constrained, urged and held; which, again and again, when they were cast down, when it seemed that everything was hopeless, revived in them, and revived them, and brought them up again.

A sense, not a mentality, not a theory, not an idea, but what Paul calls "the power that worketh in us" - "according to the power that worketh in us". The word 'worketh' there, as you know, is energising; - 'the power that energises in us'. What was it?

Look again, and you will see that it had to do with that great, great end which God had fixed concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus, in universal majesty and glory and fullness. They had seen something of that in Him. It had become the great purpose which bound their lives, and drew them out with a sense of something; that life is not empty, meaningless; it has some great end. We see what it is - it is concerning the Lord Jesus. We must have that sense of purpose, or we shall not get very far.

Not only was it a purpose, but this inward spiritual vision gave the incentive to life. Through days and years of wearing out and wearing down, weariness and disappointment, and over many things: disillusionment and heartbreak. It is not difficult, it is not difficult to lose incentive, to ask, "Is it worth it? Is it all justified? Are we not spending our strength for nought?" We need incentive. And again it was this apprehension of Christ as having gone that way of weariness and devastation and triumph, and been glorified, and being there in the glory, which gave them the incentive; it imparted an incentive to life; a motive, a power.

Further, in this vision, there is that effect of cohesion. A vision is a very cohesive thing: that is, it has the power of drawing people together, holding them together, making them a 'together' people - going on together. They have one vision.

The great illustration of this is Nehemiah and the people of his time, with their one vision. Look at all the variety of people, and variety of gifts and qualifications - every kind of artisan and profession mentioned; every sphere of life; but they are one people, a solid whole, simply because they have got one vision. One vision: that wall and the rebuilding of the city dominated everyone's heart and everyone's mind, and brought them together in a wonderful unity. It's the only way of having unity. There is no other way but really to see the Lord Jesus, and have Him in view as over all, above all, as on the throne. It will bring us together.

And I have said that what we all need is the power to endure. And it is just there, as we have seen, that Peter introduces the transfiguration. He speaks about the trial of your faith, "The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold which perisheth" - the trial of your faith. "Manifold temptations" - he brings in the vision as the power for enduring and going through.

We are told that Moses endured, "As seeing Him Who is invisible". This is the power. Now, you can see this from the opposite and contrary standpoint. See the effects of loss of one vision, of a vision! As soon as the Lord's people lose the vision of the Lord, the Lord Himself, however many other visions they may have, as soon as they lose the vision of the Lord Himself, as Lord over all, as on the Throne, what happens? They lose their sense of purpose. They lose their awareness of a real objective in their existence. Isn't that true? It is true. They then have to have substitutes for that vision, to keep them going; they make other things their objective, but these things wear out and disappoint. The loss of vision always results in a loss of an incentive, a real incentive for life.

And it is true about this matter of cohesion, coordination; lose vision, and the result is always disintegration, division, separation, confusion - confusion and the loss of strength and stability. It is like that, dear friends, and we do not speak this as theory or technique - it's very true. Some of us do know - and that is why we speak like this and are speaking like this just now - we do know that when a people, when a people have really been gripped by the vision of the Throne, the majesty of the Lord Jesus, the authority of Christ, there's a wonderful, wonderful sense of purpose comes on that people, and a wonderful incentive, and a wonderful unity: they are a one people. It is the Throne that has done it, and their apprehension of that Throne. And when things take the place of the Lord - any thing that you like to mention - then the falling apart begins. Sooner or later the disintegration sets in, the confusion, the loss of heart, incentive, and purpose.

All I am saying is this, dear friends, that a real inward seeing of the Lord Jesus, as in the place of authority, and government, and majesty, is the answer to every need of ours, personally and collectively. It was of old; it is so now.

Do you notice how this transfiguration was the confirmation and complement of all the teaching? If you look again in Matthew at the record of the transfiguration in Matthew 17, these chapter divisions rob us of so much, and spoil so much for us. We have to have them I suppose, for some purpose or other, for reference, I do suggest to you that you make very little of chapter divisions as we have them, the writers never did that. Just go right on. Now, in chapter 16 of Matthew, everybody knows Matthew 16 and what it contains. What have we? Well, we have the four major things of the Christian faith and the Christian life.

First of all:

The Person of the Lord Jesus.

"Into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus said, Who do men say that the Son of Man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven."

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." I think that there it might be said that Peter didn't know what he was talking about again! It was a tremendous utterance: "Thou art the Messiah! Thou art the Messiah!" Both 'Christ' and 'Messiah' mean 'The Anointed One', and as such, the Son of the Living God. The basic fact of Christianity - the Person of the Lord Jesus. Do you know, for a man like Peter, a Jew, versed and saturated in the Old Testament and Jewish history, to say that, meant far more than we're aware of - the tremendous things that were bound up with that word 'Messiah'! Messiah!

There were three great conceptions of the Messiah in Israel. The first you have in the first part of the prophecies of Isaiah - the 'Son of David'; the Seed and the Son of David. You remember Isaiah's prophecies about the shoot of David, that was the first conception of the coming Messiah, the Anointed One, Who should take over the throne of David, and all that that meant.

In the second half of Isaiah, the Messiah is the Suffering Servant of Jehovah; King-Redeemer, Redeemer-King; and Isaiah 53 stands right at the heart of that conception of the Messiah. We see the throne, the redemption: how is it going to work out? In the third conception of the coming Messiah which you have in the book of Daniel, this is very wonderful if you'd like to look at it, in Daniel chapter 7, verse 9:

"I beheld till thrones were placed, and One that was the Ancient of days did sit: His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like unto wool; His throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousand of thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened..." Verse 13: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a Son of Man, and He came even to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and the languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

That was their coming Messiah: King, Saviour, reigning Lord for ever and ever, in universal sovereignty. When Peter said, "Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the Living God", all that, all that was present in the declaration. And Jesus said, "Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you. My Father knows the meaning of the Christhood, the Messiahship, the Sonship, and it's all that!"

Now, dear friends, I have mentioned that, included that, only with a view to trying to revive this conception of the greatness of our Lord Jesus; that's all, to help toward the vision. I would that, as we speak of it, and read of it, you should see that your Lord Jesus is no little, defeated Lord - defeated at the hands of the great enemy. Only as we have such a conception and apprehension of His Person shall we get through in triumph.

That's the first thing. The second thing is:

The Church.

The Person; and the Person always does lead to the church, in Divine sequence. "I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." Why? Well, for that very reason: it's His church, the church of this One - this One to Whom the Kingdom is given, and the Throne before Whom all nations shall bow. The church is the embodiment of the vision of the exalted Lord. That will make it a great church, a powerful church, if that is true. If this One - if this One of the transfiguration mount, if this One of Stephen's vision, of Paul's vision - if this One, by the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven, is embodied in the church - what a church! What a church! Is that the church with which we are familiar? Have we really understood that that is what is meant by the very term 'church' - the embodiment of Himself as Lord over all?

The second great intimation is the church. The third, of course, as you see in the sixteenth chapter, is:

The Cross.

"From that time began Jesus to shew unto His disciples, how that He must go up to Jerusalem... The Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men."

The cross - the third great thing in the Christian faith. His wonderful cross! I like that thought, that idea, that a certain brother has expressed when he has spoken of 'reigning and ruling by His Cross'. There is no doubt that that's right. What looked, humanly, so much to the contrary - defeat and failure, loss and despair, weakness and helplessness and all that - has proved in history to be the most potent force in this universe - the Cross of the Lord Jesus.

Saul, before his conversion, looked upon the cross as the very symbol of ignominy, of shame; something despicable, to be hated. Afterward he said: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ". From the shame to the glory. The transfiguration transfigures the cross. In other words, a vision of the glorified Lord will transfigure our sufferings, will altogether transform our afflictions. We see what that cross meant really in the mind of God.

The fourth is:

The Coming Of The Lord.

Here it is again in this sixteenth chapter:

"The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man according to his deeds."

The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father, that's the fourth great thing in our faith that constitutes us Christians; the coming again of the Lord.

Now, my point is this: that the transfiguration was the crown, and confirmation, and complement of all those four things. It was the crown of the Person: Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ!' Well, the mount of transfiguration bore good evidence to that fact as he saw Him transfigured. The Lord had said to him: 'I will build My Church'. The mount of transfiguration gave good hope for that church, if He, that One, was going to build it. If the Lord was speaking about the cross, the mount of Transfiguration will give an altogether new and different interpretation to the cross. If He has spoken of His coming again in the glory of the Father, the mount of transfiguration explains that, demonstrates that.

You see, to see the Lord in that way, glorified, is the confirmation of our whole faith; the establishment of our whole position; and the assurance of our final triumph with Him. The Lord give us a new vision of Himself - His power, His majesty and His presence.