The Mount of Transfiguration

158:1.1Early on the morn­ing of Mon­day, Au­gust 15, Je­sus and the three apos­tles be­gan the as­cent of Mount Her­mon, and this was six days af­ter the mem­o­rable noon­tide con­fes­sion of Pe­ter by the road­side un­der the mul­berry trees.

158:1.2Je­sus had been sum­moned to go up on the moun­tain, apart by him­self, for the trans­ac­tion of im­por­tant mat­ters hav­ing to do with the prog­ress of his be­stowal in the flesh as this ex­pe­ri­ence was re­lated to the uni­verse of his own cre­ation. It is sig­nif­i­cant that this ex­traor­di­nary event was timed to oc­cur while Je­sus and the apos­tles were in the lands of the gen­tiles, and that it ac­tu­ally tran­spired on a moun­tain of the gen­tiles.

158:1.3They reached their des­ti­na­tion, about half­way up the moun­tain, shortly be­fore noon, and while eat­ing lunch, Je­sus told the three apos­tles some­thing of his ex­pe­ri­ence in the hills to the east of Jor­dan shortly af­ter his bap­tism and also some more of his ex­pe­ri­ence on Mount Her­mon in con­nec­tion with his for­mer visit to this lonely re­treat.

158:1.4When a boy, Je­sus used to as­cend the hill near his home and dream of the bat­tles which had been fought by the armies of em­pires on the plain of Es­draelon; now he as­cended Mount Her­mon to re­ceive the en­dow­ment which was to pre­pare him to de­scend upon the plains of the Jor­dan to en­act the clos­ing scenes of the drama of his be­stowal on Uran­tia. The Mas­ter could have re­lin­quished the strug­gle this day on Mount Her­mon and re­turned to his rule of the uni­verse do­mains, but he not only chose to meet the re­quire­ments of his or­der of di­vine son­ship em­braced in the man­date of the Eter­nal Son on Par­a­dise, but he also elected to meet the last and full mea­sure of the pres­ent will of his Par­a­dise Fa­ther. On this day in Au­gust three of his apos­tles saw him de­cline to be in­vested with full uni­verse au­thor­ity. They looked on in amaze­ment as the ce­les­tial mes­sen­gers de­parted, leav­ing him alone to fin­ish out his earth life as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

158:1.5The faith of the apos­tles was at a high point at the time of the feed­ing of the five thou­sand, and then it rapidly fell al­most to zero. Now, as a re­sult of the Mas­ter’s ad­mis­sion of his di­vin­ity, the lag­ging faith of the twelve arose in the next few weeks to its high­est pitch, only to un­dergo a pro­gres­sive de­cline. The third re­vival of their faith did not oc­cur un­til af­ter the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion.

158:1.6It was about three o’clock on this beau­ti­ful af­ter­noon that Je­sus took leave of the three apos­tles, say­ing: “I go apart by my­self for a sea­son to com­mune with the Fa­ther and his mes­sen­gers; I bid you tarry here and, while await­ing my re­turn, pray that the Fa­ther’s will may be done in all your ex­pe­ri­ence in con­nec­tion with the fur­ther be­stowal mis­sion of the Son of Man.” And af­ter say­ing this to them, Je­sus with­drew for a long con­fer­ence with Ga­briel and the Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek, not re­turn­ing un­til about six o’clock. When Je­sus saw their anx­i­ety over his pro­longed ab­sence, he said: “Why were you afraid? You well know I must be about my Fa­ther’s busi­ness; where­fore do you doubt when I am not with you? I now de­clare that the Son of Man has cho­sen to go through his full life in your midst and as one of you. Be of good cheer; I will not leave you un­til my work is fin­ished.”

158:1.7As they par­took of their mea­ger evening meal, Pe­ter asked the Mas­ter, “How long do we re­main on this moun­tain away from our breth­ren?” And Je­sus an­swered: “Un­til you shall see the glory of the Son of Man and know that what­so­ever I have de­clared to you is true.” And they talked over the af­fairs of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion while seated about the glow­ing em­bers of their fire un­til dark­ness drew on and the apos­tles’ eyes grew heavy, for they had be­gun their jour­ney very early that morn­ing.

158:1.8When the three had been fast asleep for about half an hour, they were sud­denly awak­ened by a near-by crack­ling sound, and much to their amaze­ment and con­ster­na­tion, on look­ing about them, they be­held Je­sus in in­ti­mate con­verse with two bril­liant be­ings clothed in the ha­bil­i­ments of the light of the ce­les­tial world. And Je­sus’ face and form shone with the lu­mi­nos­ity of a heav­enly light. These three con­versed in a strange lan­guage, but from cer­tain things said, Pe­ter er­ro­neously con­jec­tured that the be­ings with Je­sus were Moses and Eli­jah; in re­al­ity, they were Ga­briel and the Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek. The phys­i­cal con­trol­lers had ar­ranged for the apos­tles to wit­ness this scene be­cause of Je­sus’ re­quest.

158:1.9The three apos­tles were so badly fright­ened that they were slow in col­lect­ing their wits, but Pe­ter, who was first to re­cover him­self, said, as the daz­zling vi­sion faded from be­fore them and they ob­served Je­sus stand­ing alone: “Je­sus, Mas­ter, it is good to have been here. We re­joice to see this glory. We are loath to go back down to the in­glo­ri­ous world. If you are will­ing, let us abide here, and we will erect three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Eli­jah.” And Pe­ter said this be­cause of his con­fu­sion, and be­cause noth­ing else came into his mind at just that mo­ment.

158:1.10While Pe­ter was yet speak­ing, a sil­very cloud drew near and over­shad­owed the four of them. The apos­tles now be­came greatly fright­ened, and as they fell down on their faces to wor­ship, they heard a voice, the same that had spo­ken on the oc­ca­sion of Je­sus’ bap­tism, say: “This is my beloved Son; give heed to him.” And when the cloud van­ished, again was Je­sus alone with the three, and he reached down and touched them, say­ing: “Arise and be not afraid; you shall see greater things than this.” But the apos­tles were truly afraid; they were a silent and thought­ful trio as they made ready to de­scend the moun­tain shortly be­fore mid­night.