Moses and Elijah

Does the appearance of Moses and Elijah at Christ’s transfiguration (Matthew 17:3) prove that the saints of olden days are now in heaven?

The case of Elijah is easy when we remember that Enoch and Elijah never died, but were translated to heaven (Hebrews 11:5; 2 Kings 2:11).

Moses, however, did die (Deuteronomy 34:5); but then something very interesting happened. Jude 9 mentions a dispute between Michael and the devil over the dead body of Moses. The devil was rebuked, and the Lord’s plan prevailed. Deuteronomy 34:6 says that Moses was buried, “but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.” David, on the other hand, “is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day” (Acts 2:29). Why the difference? Moses’ appearance on the mount of transfiguration indicates that he was bodily resurrected from the dead.

Moses did not go to heaven as a bodiless spirit; the Lord claimed his body as well (Jude 9). Neither did Elijah leave his body on earth; for fifty strong men searched for him for three days and found nothing (2 Kings 2:17). Jesus Himself ascended bodily to heaven. In all the Bible there is not a single example of anyone ever going to heaven except as a living body.

Moses is not the only one who has been resurrected and taken to heaven. When Jesus died, “many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection” (Matthew 27:52, 53); so that “when he ascended up on high, he led a multitude of captives” (Ephesians 4:8, margin).

The fact that Moses was alive and bodily present when Jesus was transfigured provides support, not for the doctrine of natural immortality, but for the doctrine of the resurrection.