Transfiguration and Transformation

Our Bibles consistently use the noun ‘Transfiguration’ with regard to Jesus but ‘Transformation’ with regard to the Christian – and yet it is one and the same verb, transliterated ‘metamorphosed,’ that is used in those places in the original text. Why is that so? Is there an important difference between them? And why does the noun ‘metamorphosis’ which is familiar to us never occur in the New Testament? And yet is there some connection between the Transfiguration of Jesus and the Transformation of the Christian?

Hywel R. Jones presents answers to these questions in this book. In the course of doing so he shows how the divine can penetrate the human without destroying it as in the Person of Christ, and how the human can become conformed to the divine without its ceasing to be human as in the case of the Christian. That kind of metamorphosis accords and exalts the Christian gospel over against the humanism of our culture, whether secularised or spiritualised.

There is a distinction between God and Man which will never be obliterated but preserved for ever – even in the glorified Christ in whom they are joined. But communion between the God-Man and his believing people will result in each Christian being fully conformed to the perfect humanity of Christ while retaining his or her own individuality. It will not result in a faceless absorption into the divine but face to face communion with the triune God for ever.

‘The transfiguration of Christ shows how the divine can penetrate the human without destroying it. The transformation of the believer shows how the human can become conformed to the divine without its ceasing to be human. This is the ultimate metamorphosis that is compatible with Christian truth.’ — HYWEL R. JONES

Publisher: Banner of Truth
Type: Hardback
ISBN: 9781800400870

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Hywel R. Jones is Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, Escondido, California. He has a B.A. from the University of Wales, an MA from the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. from Greenwich University School of Theology. Hywel Jones was ordained in the Presbyterian Church of Wales in 1963 and ministered in several pastorates in England and Wales over 25 years, including Grove Chapel, Camberwell, London, and Borras Park in Wrexham. During those years, he was a member of the executive committee of the British Evangelical Council of Churches, editor of its theological journal and chairman of its study conference. In addition he was co-chairman of the Westminster Fellowship of Ministers, succeeding Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The London Theological Seminary commenced in 1977 and Dr. Jones became its first principal in 1985, lecturing in Hebrew and Biblical Studies, Hermeneutics, and Homiletics. During that time he also taught in Romania, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and Italy. In 1995, he was Scholar in Residence at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, and since 1998 has been a member of the adjunct faculty at Puritan and Reformed Theological Seminary in Michigan. Before taking up his position at Westminster Seminary, California in 2000, he served for four years as editorial director of the Banner of Truth Trust.

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Linking the Transfiguration of Christ to our transformation as believers in Christ is intriguing to say the least. I’ll confess that I never thought of the connection before I came across this book. The connection isn’t fabricated as both spring from the same word in the New Testament...This book addresses more scholarly concerns than I am used to seeing in a BOT volume, but it is an interesting study. I always appreciate someone who can open the Bible and show me something I have never put together before. That is what happens here. Jimmy R. Reagan