2 Kings 23:25 English Standard Version (ESV) Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.

Only one king of Israel got it right according to the Law of Moses. There has never been his like again.

Romans 8:29 English Standard Version (ESV) For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Being conformed to an image makes us look like Jesus but it does not make us His firstborn, there is only one firstborn, no matter what we look like.

When Jesus came to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus He took on a different appearance. If He didn’t look like Jesus what did He appear to be? We don’t know.

When Jesus met Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration He appeared in glory like no one had ever seen before or since. His appearing to His disciples that night on the first day of the week after His resurrection, there was no indication that He looked any way other than what He appeared to be before His death.

The catching away in 1 Thessalonians makes no mention of us being changed at all, in any manner. We do not know what that will look like.

Our ultimate goal in all this is to put off these corruptible bodies and put on the incorruptible. Do we know what that looks like? Will we have a glorified body? Will we have something that does not resemble what we looked like in life? Will we recognize one another because we will look like we did in life?

The use of the word transfiguration was only meant to make us think about our own expectations of what is to come.

We will be what He wants us to be and not what we expect.

Matthew 17:1-2 English Standard Version

The Transfiguration

17 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. ² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

After He rose from the grave he appeared to two on their way to Emmaus.

Mark 16:12 English Standard Version

Jesus Appears to Two Disciples

¹² After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country.

John 20:19 English Standard Version

Jesus Appears to the Disciples

¹⁹ On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Philippians 3:20-21 English Standard Version

²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 English Standard Version

¹⁶ For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Please meditate upon these scriptures.

Tomorrow we will discuss why the term transfiguration was used rather than translated or conformed.