“For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'”
The Mount of Transfiguration was a foretaste of Christ’s coming. Peter’s desire is for his readers to see beyond the first coming of Christ to His Second Coming. He gives a concise running commentary on his Mount of Transfiguration experience.
For He [Jesus] received from God the Father
The name “God the Father” is important because it distinguishes God the Father from God the Son. God the Son is equally God as God the Father.
Jn 6:27, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Ga 1:1, “Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead).”
Php 2:11, “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
2 Jn 3, “Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
All three members of the Trinity are equally God. They are one in essence. There are not three Gods but three persons in one being. Only one being is everywhere present, all-knowing, and all-powerful.
honor and glory
“Honor” means something of the highest value. God highly values Jesus in His humanity. “Glory” means to manifest excellence. Jesus’ body was transfigured right before Peter, James, and John’s eyes, and they saw his manifest excellence and distinction.
God gives honor and glory to His Son. That is whom God honors. God the Father loves to glorify God the Son.
He 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.”
when such a voice came to Him
The “when” here is the Mount of Transfiguration experience on the Mount of Olives.
from the Excellent Glory:
“Excellent glory” is greater glory. This excellent glory is the Father’s glory that reflects greater glory on Jesus Christ in His millennial kingdom.
‘This is My beloved Son’
“Beloved” means one who is loved. Jesus, the Son, is the object of God’s special affection. He is the object of God’s particular love and cherishing. He is the only one in this class (Mt 3:17).
Ro 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
Co 1:13, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”
‘in whom I am well pleased.’
God the Father made this statement that He was “well pleased” with God the Son twice, once when He was baptized (Mt 3:17) and once when He was transfigured (Mt 17:1-8).
When God, the Father, thinks of Jesus Christ, He is pleased. He takes pleasure in Jesus Christ. He has good thoughts about Jesus, for He is pleased with Him for who and what He did. He is pleased with the Son because His Son became a foreign missionary to a tiny planet called Earth in time and space. He came from a place of peace and blessedness to a place of crime, betrayal, sin, and devastation.
He 9:26, “He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
Because Christ came, forgiveness is possible. That forgiveness extends “… as far as the curse is found,” as the Christmas carol says.
PRINCIPLE:
God, the Father, has special love for and is pleased with His Son.
APPLICATION:
The Father never had any trouble with His Son. No parent on Earth could say that. We often hear someone say, “I never had a minute’s trouble with my child.” We take that with a grain of salt. We all have had trouble with our children. There was a time when I felt I knew more than my father did. As I grew older, I realized he was smarter than I thought.
