The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ

by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

"A deeply learned and spiritually enriching book by a mature evangelical scholar that brings the doctrine of Christ and the human together at the point of the image of God. . . . Hughe's skills as both a biblical scholar and a historical and systematic th

Genres: Theology, Christian

444 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 1989

About the author

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes (Sydney, Australia, 1915 – Rydal, PA, USA, 1990) was an Anglican clergyman and New Testament scholar whose life spanned four continents: Australia, where he was born; South Africa; England, where he was ordained; and the USA, where he died in 1990, aged 75.

Dr. Hughes was born in Australia and received his B.A., M.A., and D.L.H. from the University of Cape Town, B.D. from the University of London, and Th.D. from the Australian College of Theology. From 1947 to 1953 Hughes taught at Tyndale Hall in England. From 1953 to 1956 he was Secretary of Church Society; and from 1959 to 1967 editor of Church Society’s journal, The Churchman. From 1964 to 1968 he taught at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. From 1964 he moved to the United States to teach at American seminaries, including Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA, and Trinity School for Ministry, Ambridge, PA.

Reviews

[Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hughes did a stupendous job with this one. The topic is a theological "heavy-hitter" - Christology. Therefore, there are many chapters that are necessarily dense and taken a bit slower than other sections of the work.

However, for such a complicated topic, Hughes handles the subject matter very well and constantly brings it to a point of modern relevance. I read several other works on Christology while reading Hughes' work, but Hughes' was the most impressive, straightforward, and I would argue - the most relevant lest Christ and Reconciliation by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen.

Hughes', in the midst of theology and Scriptural understanding, explored heavy topics such as Creation, The Problem of Evil, the Works of Christ, and the Person of Christ. You can imagine the amount of work required that went into this - and it shows.

Again, the book is dense (~450 pages with smaller print), so reading cover to cover would take some time. But the chapters themselves are shorter and highly focused, if one wished to seek specific information on a certain topic.