Dr Paul Allen

COLOSSIANS 2:6 Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live (walk) in him If we have received Christ in our inmost hearts, our new life will manifest its intimate acquaintance with Him by a walk of faith in Him. Walking implies action. Our religion is not to be confined to our closet; we must carry it out into practical effect that which we believe. If a man walks in Christ, he then acts as Christ would act; for Christ being in him, his hope, his love, his joy, his life—he is the reflection of the image of Jesus, causing people to say, “He is like his Master.” Walking signifies progress . Proceed from grace to grace, run forward until you reach the uttermost degree of knowledge about our beloved Lord that a person can attain. Walking implies continuance. There must be a perpetual abiding in Christ. How many Christians think that in the morning and evening they ought to come into the company of Jesus, and may then give their hearts to the world all day; but this is...

c. 1437-1446 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” ROMANS 3:28 As we’ve seen this month, the most serious problem facing the human race is not the destruction of the environment, crime, or the threat of nuclear war; it is sin . The former threaten us with physical death , the latter with spiritual death. Thus it follows that the greatest news ever known is that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). Hell may be the destiny of man, but that is not the desire of God ’s heart. Peter notes that the Lord “is patient ... not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” ( 2 Peter 3:9). Because of His great love for sinners, God sent His Son “to be the propitiation for our sins” ( 1 John 4:10). Since God’s gracious gift of salvation is appropriated by faith, it is not surprising that justification by faith is the theme of Romans (see Rom. 1:16–17). The apostle shows that all m...

Baptism of Christ. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River by John. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) We were saved by God ’s mercifully deciding to grant the washing of regeneration. When we were saved, we were cleansed of our sin, the decay and filth that is produced by spiritual deadness. Speaking of that truth in his letter to the church at Ephesus , Paul explains that we were cleansed “by the washing of water with the word” ( Eph. 5:26). James declares that, “In the exercise of His will He [God] brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures” (James 1:18). Peter reminds us that we “have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God”(1 Pet. 1:23). Palingenesia (regeneration) carries the idea of receiving n new life, of being born again, or born from above. Jesus told the inquiring Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and ...

Christ in Gethsemane (Christus in Gethsemane), oil painting by Heinrich Ferdinand Hofmann (Heinrich Hofmann). The original is at the Riverside Church (Riverside Church, New York City). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us . ( Romans 8:34 ) Paul asks if there is anyone who can issue a guilty sentence against believers. In light of all Christ has done and the fact that the Father “hath committed all judgment unto the Son” ( John 5:22 ), only Christ has the authority to condemn. Will Christ condemn those for whom He died? Obviously not, and Paul gives four reasons why the very suggestion is absurd. First: “It is Christ that died.” He is the very one who left heaven to die as a substitute for us. True, “the wages of sin is death” ( Romans 6:23 ), but “Christ died for our sins ” ( 1 Corinthians 15:3 ). Certainly, the one who b...

"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!" "Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt." "Wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin; how shall my tongue describe it, where shall its praise begin?" Christians love to sing of the saving grace of God —and rightly so. John tells us that out of Jesus' "fullness we have all received, grace upon grace" (John 1:16). Many of the New Testament letters begin and end with the writers expressing their desire that the grace of Jesus would be with His people. The very last words of the Bible read: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen" (Rev. 22:21). The Reformers understood the importance of the grace of God to the Bible's teaching on salvation. In fact, one of the slogans that came to define Reformation teaching wassola gratia, which is Latin for "by grace alone." Christians are saved by the grace of God a...

As the apostle Paul described gospel ministry to be “ God making his appeal through us” ( 2 Corinthians   5:20 ), the truth of Romans 8 to us is as if God himself were speaking directly to us.  They  are  God’s words to us, and we should just listen. Bring our minds and hearts into a “hungry readiness to hear the Lord himself speak kindly and deeply and powerfully to our souls.  In Christ , you are free from eternal condemnation. (Romans 8:1) My Spirit in you will one day give life to your mortal bodies in the resurrection. (Romans  8:10 –11) I executed the penalty for your sin in the crucified flesh of my Son. (Romans 8:3) My Holy Spirit is fulfilling in you the demands of my law summed up in love. (Romans 8:4) My Spirit’s power is the only means by which you can kill your sin. (Romans  8:13 ) My indwelling Spirit is the spirit of adoption, wakening the cry from your heart, “ Abba Father.” (Romans  8:15 ) As my ...

Habakkuk the prophet, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herds in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation .” ( Habakkuk 3:17-18 ) It is easy to be happy and cheerful in times of prosperity, when one has all the comforts of an affluent lifestyle and everything seems to be going well. The testing times come, however, when these material comforts are somehow taken away, and one feels defeated and all alone. Except for God! Whatever else may fail, God “will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” ( Hebrews 13:5 ). Since we still have the Lord (assuming we have trusted Him for forgiveness and salvation through Christ ), we can always “rejoice in the LORD, . . . in the God of my salvation.” Job, for ...

To help us understand the nature of the church, Scripture uses a wide range of metaphors and images to describe to us what the church is like.12 There are several family images—for example, Paul views the church as a family when he tells Timothy to act as if all the church members were members of a larger family: “Do not rebuke an older man but exhort him as you would a father; treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity” (1 Tim. 5:1–2).  God is our heavenly Father (Eph. 3:14), and we are his sons and daughters, for God says to us, “I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18). We are therefore brothers and sisters with each other in God’s family (Matt. 12:49–50; 1 John 3:14–18). A somewhat different family metaphor is seen when Paul refers to the church as the bride of Christ . He says that the relationship between a husband and wife “refers to Christ and the...

“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city”  (Heb. 11:16). The examples of faith given to us in Hebrews 11 show us what persevering faith looks like. They also tell us of the inferiority of the old covenant promise compared to the present new covenant reality in Christ . This reality we enjoy even now and we will enjoy to the fullest once Jesus returns and brings all things to consummation. In Hebrews 11:13 we see the inferiority of the position of the old covenant saints . However, though we are in a better position than they were because we live under the new covenant, our present situation is not wholly dissimilar to theirs. Verse 13 tells us that the old covenant saints were “strangers and exiles on the earth,” and this is how our present status is explained elsewhere in the New Testament (1 Peter 2:11). The theme of exile appears throughout the Bib...

English: Their are thousands of artworks created in the art world depicting St Paul. This painting was created by the famous artist called Rembrandt. It hangs on the walls of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God : therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” ( 1 John 3:1-2 ) We can scarcely imagine the joys in store for us in Glory. The apostle Paul had similar difficulty, yet he prayed that we might “be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ , which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” ( Ephesians 3:18-19 ). As we anticipate what is to ...

Ephesians 2 is filled with the good news of grace for both our justification and sanctification. The chapter begins by describing our natural condition—trapped in sin and by sin, rebelling against God to pursue our own ends on the one hand and suffering as the victims of those ends on the other—and then moves to how God loved us and rescued us by His grace , His sheer goodwill. The first half of the chapter focuses on what happened in the past—how God took pity on us and rescued His people, delivering us from our sin and His wrath. But the story doesn’t end there. As Peter O’Brien notes, salvation has already been described by Paul as relief from something negative: “a resurrection from the dead, a liberation from slavery, and a rescue from condemnation.” The chapter continues to verse 10, which centers on how God’s deliverance means we are created anew for lives of righteousness. The theme of Ephesians 2:8-9 is clear: grace. This theme was already mentioned in 1:4, when Paul ...