"We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,' we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:16-21 ESV)

What an amazing thing it must have been to be on the Mount of Transfiguration . . . to see Jesus in glory shining like the sun . . . to see Moses and Elijah . . . to hear a voice from a bright cloud saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" (Matthew 17:5) What an emotional high!

Why can't we have experiences like this? Then, our faith would be set in concrete, right? Wrong. Guided by the Spirit, Peter, who was on the Mount, sets us straight.

Shining faces and voices from heaven are amazing, but only temporary. Afterward, we are left with an elusive memory: "Did I really see that? Was it a dream?" Faith cannot be built on sensory experiences or emotions.

Yet, there are churches that do just that. They want us to prove that we are born again by pointing to some physical or emotional experience. However, what if we don't feel saved today? What if we cannot recall that born-again experience? It can only leave us in doubt.

Peter tells us that "we have something more sure" (verse 19) than a momentary experience, more solid than emotion. We have the living and abiding Word of God. God did not say, "This is My beloved Son. Look at Him!" He said, "Hear Him." It is the light of His Word that shines like the morning star and illuminates the darkness of our hearts.

The disciples had to come down from that amazing, mountain experience, down into a valley of sorrow. There they would see Jesus despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, arrested, beaten, condemned, and nailed to a cross. Did the memory of the Mount of Transfiguration bolster their faith on the Mount of Calvary? No. Instead of saying, "It is good for us to be here" (Matthew 17:4), they ran away from Jesus.

What, then, is the greater glory? That on the Mount or that in the cross? It was not on the Mount of Transfiguration that our Lord paid the price for our sins. It was on the cross; there the real glory of Jesus was shining forth. It was the glory of infinite love, the glory of a Redeemer. No sensory experience or emotion reveals this great truth. It is only the Word of God.

That Bible in your hands is more certain than all experiences and emotions. It is solid. It doesn't change with emotional highs and lows. When you are in doubt, it is the unchanging, solid Word that reassures you. When you are suffering, the unvarying Word brings comfort. When you are staring death in the face, it is the Word that says, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.'" (Revelation 14:13)

As amazing as the sights and sounds on the Mount of Transfiguration were, much more amazing is the unchanging, life-giving, eternal Word of God.

Hear Him!

John Pfeiffer is retired from the pastoral and teaching ministry. He is a former president of Immanuel Lutheran College.