Fr Jack (Khalil): The Transfiguration in the Teaching of the Apostle Peter

 Arabic original here.

The Event of the Transfiguration in the Teaching of the Apostle Peter

We read in the first chapter of the Second Epistle of the Apostle Peter a passage that summarizes our steadfast faith in the Lord Jesus as God and Savior and how we act according to His calling us and choosing us to be a chosen people and holy nation for Him.

God has promised us that in His kingdom we will be partakers of the divine nature and He has given us everything for life in knowledge of Christ.

On the basis of this profound knowledge and deeply-rooted faith, we flee the corruption of lust which is in this world, we expend every effort and offer in our faith virtue (2 Peter 4-5) so that we may bear fruit for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Peter does not stop reminding the faithful of the necessity of remaining steadfast in virtue and truth.

Truth, in the language of the Bible, is God's will, which we do not disappoint if we rely on it as the path for our life.

The Apostle is eager to remind because he feels the approach of his departure from this world and the end of his mission of sharing the good news of what he witnessed with his own eyes and heard himself from Christ.

The Apostle had already informed them verbally of his having beheld the greatness and glory of Christ-- that is, His divinity-- but he repeats the account of the transfiguration that he witnessed on the holy mountain in the company of James and John, because of the importance he attaches to this event on a personal level.

We thank God that we have in this passage an additional narrative of  the Transfiguration alongside the narrative of the Gospels, which makes for multiple testimonies, confirming the historicity of this event according to the standards of historians.

Nevertheless, believers do not need every letter written about Jesus to be confirmed, "for prophecy never came by the will of man," as the Apostle Peter says.

The event of Christ's divinity showing forth before the eyes of His apostles is a sign of power and proof of the never-ending life in Him.

The Apostle Peter looks at this event as a lamp shining forth in a dark place. That is, he walks in life following the light of this event, until daybreak.

Followers of Christ in every time and place must remember these things in order to struggle in virtue and persevere in truth.

The showing forth of Christ's divinity, His cross and His resurrection from the dead, unlike Greek mythology and the mythologies of ancient peoples, are not "fabricated myths" where we do not know who saw them or who reported them. Rather, they are established events that were witnessed and reported by servants of the word and eyewitnesses to them.

We believe that "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" and they reported the glory that they saw and the voice of the Father which they heard, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased."

This beloved Son is the truth in which we abide by faith, love and virtue.

Archimandrite Jack (Khalil)

Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology-- Balamand