The book focuses on four doctrines recommended to readers as “theological images” which, given their theoretical and practical importance, turn out to be genuine patterns for Reformed Protestantism. The four theological images investigated throughout the book—the image of marriage, the image of worship, the image of God, and the image of Moses (as pointing to salvation)—were extracted from the works of Reformed theologians belonging to the French/French Swiss and the English traditions: Guillaume Farel and Jean Calvin, John Bradford and Richard Hooker respectively.

Ferdinand Christian Baur’s thought about religion focuses on the idea of Gnosis in close connection with the notion of history, but rather than favor a traditional approach, he prefers a different path: a “new” understanding of religion which draws quite heavily on Hegel’s philosophy, promoting the idea that history is the realm where God and man exist and work together.