Through The Bible in a Year - June 25, 2026

"After six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them... And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him." - Matthew 17:1-3

Why Moses and Elijah? Of all the people who could appear on that mountain with Jesus, why those two?

Because Moses represents the Law—the entire revelation of God's commands for how His people should live. And Elijah represents the Prophets—the whole tradition of God's messengers who pointed forward to a coming Redeemer. Together, they represent the entire sweep of the Old Testament as it reveals God's unfolding plan to redeem his people.

Moses and Elijah appear not as Jesus’s equals, but as representatives of all that has preceded him and points to Him. He is the fulfillment of everything their ministries anticipated.

When Jesus would later walk with two disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection, Luke tells us about their conversation: "Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus explained what was said in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." The Transfiguration shows us in image what that conversation explained in words: all of the Bible—every law, every prophet, every promise, every covenant—points here. To Jesus.

This Bible is not a collection of moral fables. It's not a rule book to stay on the right side of God. It's not a magic book of incantations to get God to perform for you.

From beginning to end, it is one story told by God himself: "You are not your Redeemer, but I am sending One. He is My Son, and He will save you from your sin."

Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, and God promised a seed from the woman who would crush Satan's influence. God repeated this promise in various ways to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, and to the prophets represented by Elijah. Ultimately, the prophets would give remarkably accurate and blessed details of the Redeemer’s coming: what country, what town, what ministry, what death, what ultimate victory.

So, when Jesus stood on a mountain, shining like the sun, with Moses and Elijah beside Him, God was saying to Jesus’s disciples and to us: "This is Him."

A former Muslim who came to faith said something extraordinary about how God’s plan unfolds in Scripture: "I read the Bible and was convinced by how God’s covenant with Abraham kept expanding to include a Redeemer for all nations. That convinced me that the Bible was not about random stories but about a God who had an eternal plan that included me. And that brought me to faith."

The plan is big enough to include you too.

Respond: When you feel like your life is too small, too broken, too insignificant to matter to God—remember the Transfiguration. The God who orchestrated thousands of years of history to point to one moment on one mountain in one obscure corner of the ancient world to make clear the identity of our Redeemer is the same God who has an eternal plan that includes you specifically.

This week, read your Bible not simply as a rule book or a self-help guide, but as a love story that goes across nations and generations to reach you. Ask as you read: How is God pointing to my nature that requires Jesus and God’s nature that will ultimately provide Jesus? How is He showing that you are not your own Redeemer, but He that has prepared One – for you long before you could have known or deserved such care?

The plan has always been for people who do not deserve Him. That includes you and me. And it's a better plan than anything we could devise because it is the ultimate revelation of God’s wisdom and his heart.

Prayer: Lord, thank You that Your plan didn't start with me and doesn't depend on me. From the Garden of Eden to the Mount of Transfiguration, from Moses to Elijah to Jesus, You have been working a plan of redemption for people who do not deserve it. I am one of those people. Help me read Your Word as the story it truly is—one great, unfolding plan that leads to Jesus’s care for me. And help me trust that plan that reveals your wisdom and heart for me. In Jesus' name, Amen.