Dr Paul Allen

Octavius Winslow once famously said, “Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy—but the Father for love.” 1  We could just as easily edit this statement in the following way: “Who put Jesus on the cross? Judas, for money; Pilate, for fear; the Jews, for envy; and you and me, for enmity.”  We should never tire of hearing this truth, to which we must often return. Our understanding of the nature of our depravity is essential if we are to rightly understand the nature of Jesus's death. In short, the doctrine of human depravity helps us better understand who delivered Jesus up to the death on the cross. When considering the nature of sin, many professing Christians focus on the horizontal relationships they sustain with those around them. In a genuine sense, we have all been culturally conditioned to think of the manifold ways we violate the last six—rather than the first four—commandments.  Perhaps it is because the rel...

Lyne Wallace In simple words, John gives us an important observation about the morning of the resurrection. “…It was still dark…” As always with John the words operate on two levels. Yes, it was before dawn so it was dark. John, however, was not referring to the limited number of lumens peering over the horizon. The time of day is only a servant to his greater point. The world was dark not because the sun had yet to peer over the horizon. John is not trying to describe the ordinary. The world was dark because the power of evil had if just for a moment, won the day or so it seemed. The Light of the World was extinguished, and, for all Mary Magdalene knew, that fact remained unchanged. She most likely suspected it to forever remain unchanged. Mary was beside herself in grief. Her eyes, swollen by hours of wailing, were unable to see clearly. Her wailing had drowned out both extraordinary and familiar voices. John 20 -  Mary and Jesus She watched in disbelieving horror as the soldiers...

God is holy. There is a God in heaven who has created you and me, and He is the authority over both of us. He is perfectly holy. “In Him is Light, and there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5 ). And the problem with that is that if we want to have fellowship with God, we have to be light and no darkness at all. And yet here’s the problem: we are darkness. We are sinful . We’ve all broken His law. We’ve all lied, stolen, we’ve all looked with lust, we’ve all been angry with our brothers in our hearts.  We’ve all fallen short of the glorious standard of perfection that God requires (Rom 3:23). And there’s nothing we can do about it. No amount of works, no amount of contrition, no amount of bad feelings, no amount of church attendance, no amount of Bible reading , no amount of evangelism can earn forgiveness of our sins and the righteousness which God requires (Titus 3:5; cf. Isa 64:6). And yet God is gracious, and He loves us, and as His creatures He wants to display His glo...

Joy is “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” It’s the emotion we feel when life is good — when the sun is shining, when our team is winning, when we are healthy, happy, and heartened. Most people do not typically speak of the happiness of heartbreak, the pleasure of migraines, or the bliss of losing. Philippians is the most joyful book in the Bible — the apostle Paul uses the Greek words for joy and rejoicing sixteen times in only 104 verses. And yet he writes from a dingy Roman prison, a place we would typically associate with misery and trial, which most people assume are the opposites of joy. He’s surrounded by every conceivable obstacle to joy, so why does he seem so happy? Consider the objects of real joy, the reasons for joy, and the challenges to joy — joy in . . . joy because . . . and joy even though. Joy in Jesus In Philippians 3:1 and 4:4, Paul commands us to rejoice  in the Lord . What does this familiar command mean? For the apostle, “the Lord”...

Can I live a holy life?  If it were not possible to live a holy life, God would not have commanded it. He said, "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2). To be holy means to be separated to God. God’s nature itself defines holiness. Being set apart to God makes us holy. We are not made holy by doing good things. We are made holy by faith in Christ , Just as we are saved by faith. Little by little, as we grow and live with the Lard we become more like Him (2 Cor. 3:18). As we look to the Lord Jesus , think about Jesus, study about Jesus, pray to Jesus, and seek to follow His example, we become like Him We begin to think like Him and act like Him. We become like Him because we are set apart to Him. This is true holiness. If you are a Christian , ten years from now your life should be considerably different from what it is now. Your motives and desires, as you draw closer to Him should be continuously more holy. Jesus said, "Blessed a...

The Hour to Wake Up: Romans 13:11–12 In Romans 13:11–12, Paul appeals to the Christians in the city of Rome to understand “the present time” and explains that “the hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” ( NIV ). The “night” is the present evil age (see Gal. 1:4); “the day” is the day of the Lord . Paul’s assertion that “the day is almost here” (Rom. 13:12 NIV) means that the day when God will bring to an end human history as we know it is fast approaching. Paul is convinced that Jesus might return within a very short period of time. Paul does not seek to narrow down the time frame within which Jesus will return , nor does he base his exhortation on the assumption that Jesus’ return would take place very soon. But he clearly believes that Jesus’ return is the next event in G...

The essential content of Christian preaching, Paul says, is the mystery of the gospel. He writes that the preaching of the Word of God is seen in "the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints" (Col. 1:26). A mystery? All around Asia Minor and the ancient world at this time, there were mystery religions and mystery cults , and there were some who thought, especially from the Roman perspective, that Christianity was just another one of them. After all, it had its mystery. And Paul said, "Guilty as charged." Yet this is not a mystery of esoteric knowledge. This is not a gnosticism of elitist intellectuals. No, this is a mystery that was hidden by God until it could be publicly revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ , in His death, burial, and resurrection. This is a mystery! There is something deeply mysterious about Christian preaching, both in terms of its communication and in terms of its c...

English: Ascension of Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?” ( Acts 2:12). Jerusalem at Pentecost was filled with “ Jews , devout men, from every nation under heaven.” Many of these undoubtedly were pilgrims, visitors from other lands who had come to Jerusalem for the feast, but some may have been people who had been raised in other places and had taken up residence in the city for religious or educational purposes. In any case, Luke is clear that all of them were Jews, some by birth and some by conversion. And they were “devout men,” a term used for those who obey God’s law faithfully and reverently. These Jews were attracted by the “sound” of the wind or of the disciples’ speech in foreign tongues. They came together, and coming closer they were able to hear what the disciples were saying. This led first to confusion and then to amazement, for they could hear the disciples speaking in th...

Jesus helped by Simon of Cyrene, part of a series depicting the stations of the Cross. Chapel Nosso Senhor dos Passos, Santa Casa de Misericórdia of Porto Alegre, Brazil. Oil on canvas, XIXth century, unknown author. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “And they that are Christ ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” ( Galatians 5:24 ) Death by crucifixion was surely one of the cruelest and most painful forms of execution ever devised. Yet the Lord Jesus “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” ( Hebrews 12:2 ); He “hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God , being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” ( 1 Peter3:18 ). But just as He sacrificed Himself for us, we are now privileged to offer our “bodies a living sacrifice” to Him ( Romans 12:1 ). This spiritual sacrifice is actually compared to crucifixion. “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that hencef...

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 ) Jesus’ food was to do the will of His Father (John 4:34). He had come down from heaven, not to accomplish some sort of independent, personal agenda, but to carry out the will of the One who had sent Him (John 6:38). And that total, loving, delightful allegiance to His Father doesn’t stay in the realm of the theoretical. Jesus’ obedient submission to His Father’s will doesn’t keep Him on Easy Street. He had received a commandment from His Father to lay His life down (John 10:18), and He was intent on continuing His obedience. To the Point of Death Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.” Surely, as the eternal Son of the Father, Christ had always, from eternity, obeyed His Father and experienced the joy and the fellowshi...