Something Important About Your Future

Suddenly, two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared and began talking with Jesus. They were glorious to see.   Luke 9:30-31

Here is something really amazing—two men appeared in glorious splendor and they shared in the glory that was radiating from Jesus. This is full of significance for us. When Jesus gave the disciples a glimpse of the future, they saw that Jesus would be exalted in glory and that other human beings would share in that glory too.

This must have been absolutely staggering to the disciples. They had seen something of the glory of Jesus in his miracles, but who would have imagined that ordinary human beings could be transfigured into glory?

Moses and Elijah were great men, but they both had their failures. Moses had a murder on his record and was unable to enter the Promised Land because of another failure. Elijah had been part of a great miracle (calling down fire on Mount Carmel), but at one point he regarded his ministry as a failure and lost faith in the ultimate victory of God.

Yet here were these two men, centuries after their earthly lives had ended, sharing in the glory of Jesus. This is telling us something important about our future. God created you for eternity. You will never cease to exist, and you will never become somebody else. The Bible emphasizes the continuity between this life and the next. Moses is still Moses, Elijah is still Elijah, and you will still be you.

The disciples immediately recognized Moses and Elijah—we’re not told how. They certainly hadn’t seen photographs of them! But somehow God caused them to know the identity of these men from earlier centuries whom they’d never met.

Sometimes people ask if we will know one another in heaven. Of course! We will know others because identity continues in heaven, and because God’s purpose is to gather a great community of his people to share the joy of his presence. One of the greatest joys of heaven will be to see God’s reflected glory in one another.

For further reading, see Deuteronomy 34