Dictionaries :: Transfigure

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

Transfigure:

"to change into another form" (meta, implying change, and morphe, "form:" see FORM, No. 1), is used in the Passive Voice

(a) of Christ's "transfiguration," Mat 17:2; Mar 9:2; Luke (in Luk 9:29) avoids this term, which might have suggested to gentile readers the metamorphoses of heathen gods, and uses the phrase egeneto heteron, "was altered," lit., "became (ginomai) different (heteros);"

(b) of believers, Rom 12:2, "be ye transformed," the obligation being to undergo a complete change which, under the power of God, will find expression in character and conduct; morphe lays stress on the inward change, schema (see the preceding verb in that verse, suschematizo) lays stress on the outward (see FASHION, No. 3, FORM, No. 2); the present continuous tenses indicate a process; 2Cr 3:18 describes believers as being "transformed (RV) into the same image" (i.e., of Christ in all His moral excellencies), the change being effected by the Holy Spirit.