ell among men, solemnly
affirmed: "And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of
the Father, full of grace and truth."[783]

The divine purpose as shown forth in the Transfiguration may be as
incomprehensible to the human mind as is a full conception of the
attendant splendor from verbal description; some features of the results
achieved are apparent, however. Unto Christ the manifestation was
strengthening and encouraging. The prospect of the experiences
immediately ahead must naturally have been depressing and disheartening
in the extreme. In faithfully treading the path of His life's work, He
had reached the verge of the valley of the shadow of death; and the
human part of His nature called for refreshing. As angels had been sent
to minister unto Him after the trying scenes of the forty days' fast and
the direct temptation of Satan,[784] and as, in the agonizing hour of
His bloody sweat, He was to be sustained anew by angelic ministry,[785]
so at this critical and crucial period, the beginning of the end,
visitants from the unseen world came to comfort and support Him. What of
actual communication passed in the conference of Jesus with Moses and
Elijah is not of full record in the New Testament Gospels.

The voice of His Father, to whom He was the Firstborn in the
spirit-world, and the Only Begotten in the flesh, was of supreme
assurance; yet that voice had been addressed to the three apostles
rather than to Jesus, who had already received the Father's
acknowledgment and attestation on the occasion of His baptism. The
fullest version of the Father's words to Peter, James, and John is that
recorded by Matthew: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;
hear ye him." Aside from the proclamation of the Son's divine nature,
the Father's words were otherwise decisive and portentous. Moses, the
promulgator of the law, and Elijah the representative of the prophets
and especially distinguished among them as the one who had not
died,[786] had been seen ministering unto Jesus and subservient to Him.
The fulfillment of the law and the superseding of the prophets by the
Messiah was attested in the command--Hear ye _Him_. A new dispensation
had been established, that of the gospel, for which the law and the
prophets had been but preparatory. The apostles were to be guided
neither by Moses nor Elijah, but by _Him_, their Lord, Jesus the Christ.

The three selected apostles, "the Man of Rock and the Sons