When did Jesus turn his back on glory?

“And there appeared unto them Elijah and Moses: and they were talking with Jesus ” (Mark 9:4).

Jesus was standing in the full blaze and glory of His pre-Incarnate glory while the two representatives of the Old Covenant talked with Him about the issue which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 

Then He turned His back upon that glory, and came down from the Mount to be identified with fallen humanity, symbolised by the demon-possessed boy. Had He gone back into the glory which was His before the Incarnation having only reached the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have left the human race exactly where it was; His life would only have been a sublime ideal. 

There are many who look at the life of Jesus Christ as an ideal and nothing more—‘His teachings are so fine, we do not need to have anything to do with the Atonement, or with those crude doctrines of the apostle Paul’s about the Cross and personal apprehension; it is quite enough for us to have the Sermon on the Mount.’ I should think it was! 

If Jesus Christ came to be an Example only, He is the greatest torturer of the human race. But our Lord did not come primarily to teach us and give us an example; He came to lift us into a totally new kingdom, and to impart a new life to which His teachings would apply.


Chambers, O. (1930). Making all things new. Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott.