Law, Prophets and a New Testimony

Christian theological tradition has long read the Transfiguration as a deliberate revelation of Jesus's divine glory to his closest disciples, offering them, and through the Gospel text later readers, a preview of the resurrected and glorified state the crucifixion and resurrection would eventually bring about, understood as strengthening the disciples for the difficult events the Gospels describe as following soon afterward.

The presence of Moses and Elijah is read as positioning Jesus in direct continuity with, and as the fulfillment of, the Law and the Prophets, the two major divisions of Hebrew scripture as understood in Jewish tradition of the period, a framing consistent with the wider Gospel argument that Jesus's ministry represents the culmination rather than the rejection of Israel's scriptural tradition.

The feast is kept on 6 August in both Eastern and Western liturgical calendars, a relatively late addition to the shared Christian calendar compared with feasts tied to Jesus's birth or death, and Eastern Orthodox tradition in particular treats the Transfiguration as one of the most theologically significant events of Jesus's earthly life, closely connected to Orthodox teaching on the uncreated divine light believers may come to perceive through contemplative prayer.