Dr Paul Allen

How would you answer if I were to ask, “Who are you?” No doubt you’d say things about where you’re from, what you enjoy, and what you do for a living. As we look to Romans 8, Paul states our identity: we’re “in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1–2). We’re justified and no longer condemned. Our assurance is a Christ-centered reality. In addition, Paul mentions the Holy Spirit nineteen times in verses 1–27. In other words, because we’re in Christ we’re also in the Spirit. Paul proclaims our assurance is a Spirit-produced reality. CONTRASTING IDENTITIES (ROM. 8:5–8) A Different Kind of People. The ESV refers to “those who live according to the flesh” and “those who live according to the Spirit.” The Greek word translated “live” (ontes), however, is better translated as “are”: He actually says “those who are according to the flesh” versus “those who are according to the Spirit.” To be “according to the flesh” is to be born dead in sin, condemned, and bonded to sin and death.  To be “according to the

Two weeks before Christmas, my heart stopped. Seated next to me in a congregational meeting, my wife sees me close my eyes and slump. After a few seconds, the old ticker providentially revives “on its own.” It happens four times during that meeting. Maybe I’m just too inactive, I think. Perhaps if I get up and walk around a bit, I can get the juices flowing, and whatever is going on will clear up. While I’m pacing in the church lobby, one of the elders says he doesn’t think I look quite right. I call my physician, and he recommends that I get to the emergency room for an evaluation. I’m not to drive myself. In the emergency room, the surgeon hooks me up to a bunch of wires and asks a whole battery of questions to diagnose what’s going on. “Are there heart problems in your family?” “Yes, my dad died of a heart attack at 60. So did his dad.” “But do you feel pain?” “None.” “Did you feel dizzy?” “Not really. The room wasn’t spinning. I wasn’t nauseous.” “Did you pass out?” “Not really. I

I preached from 2 Corinthians 1 where Paul talks about his sufferings as an apostle and about how he constantly faced death because of the gospel. On numerous occasions during his ministry, Paul believed that he would surely die. Paul says that when the clouds began to gather and he felt he was about to perish, the thing that got him through was knowing that even if he died, God would raise him up. 2 Corinthians 1:9 “We had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.” The whole passage is about the hope of the resurrection. I exhorted this congregation that they should make this their hope when they face suffering. They should trust in the God who raises the dead. After the service was over and when I was greeting people, a gentleman who looked to be in his 40’s or 50’s came up to me and said, “You know that was really good except the part about our bodies being resurrected.” And I’m thinking, “Well, that was ki

We all sin, many times daily! We sin secretly and may repent secretly, or with brother.  We may habit a habitual sin, where we daily repent but keep falling into temptation. Sometimes we are put on a pedestal, admired, but sin lays within. You feel you are too deep into brokenness and sin. Is brokenness the same as sin? Is repentance needed daily? WHAT DO YOU DO? The true believer’s response to the gospel of Jesus Christ is to pursue a radical transformation of the heart and mind in order to be conformed to the image of God in Christ (Col. 3:10).1 The central endeavour of this response is repentance. Repentance is the necessary response to the gospel through faith, as both faith and repentance are mutually congruent and inseparable.2  Repentance necessarily entails the pursuit to arrest and vanquish our innate corruption while intentionally pursuing a newness of life in the likeness of Christ. The former is what the Scriptures call mortification, and the latter, vivification.3 Johannes

Whenever you see spirit and flesh set side by side in a passage (“the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” or “the spirit wars against the flesh,” as Paul says here), we’re talking about, not the warfare between the physical body of man and his internal, mental, or spiritual inclinations, but rather the conflict that every Christian experiences between his old nature—his fallen nature, which is corrupt and is filled with desires that are not pleasing to God— and the new nature within him that has been brought to pass by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.  Now, life becomes complicated once we are renewed by the Holy Spirit (when we become a Christian); now we have two principles at war within ourselves: the old inclinations and the new inclinations.  The old inclination is against God, and the new inclination is to obey God and to do that which is pleasing to him. In this Galatians passage, Paul discusses the ongoing battle that all Christians experience. He ad

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 are the pure in heart, for they shall se

Jesus had a true physical body —As noted above, the confession that Jesus was Christ come “in the flesh” became the touchstone of orthodoxy. See 1 John 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:16; Luke 24:39, 43; Jn. 20:17, 20, 27. He hungered (Mt. 4:2), thirsted (Jn. 19:28), grew weary (Jn. 4:6), wept and cried aloud (Jn. 11:35; Lk. 19:41), sighed (Mk. 7:34), groaned (Mk. 8:12), glared angrily (Mk. 3:5), and felt annoyance (Mk. 10:14). Did Jesus ever get sick? When he hit his thumb with a hammer while working in his father’s carpenter shop, would he have been susceptible to getting an infection? Did Jesus ever get headaches from prolonged exposure to the hot Palestinian sun. Could Jesus have caught the flu from one of his family members? Could Jesus have suffered from a 24-hour stomach virus (nausea, vomiting, diahhrea) caused by drinking dirty water from the Jordan river? Jesus had a true immaterial soul —His soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mt. 26:38). It was to the divine purpose

“For if ye live after the flesh , ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” ( Romans 8:13 ) To mortify something means to put it to death . Paul taught in our text and in other passages that the “deeds of the body,” or its fleshly actions and appetites, all that pertains “to the old man,” should be mortified, or put to death. This mortification is first of all judicial— Christ having been put to death in our stead. “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” ( Romans 6:6 ). But the mortification must not stop there, with only a positional death. It must also be an actual mortification in practice, for “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” ( Galatians 5:24-25 ). “For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now

"To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace . Because the carnal mind is enmity against God : for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." ( Romans 8:6-7 )   This passage defines for us both the carnal mind and the spiritual mind, not with formal definitions, but by giving equivalent terms.   First, the carnal mind is identified as being "enmity against God" ( v. 7 ), a rampant disregard for God’s law. Furthermore, the carnal mind is equated with death, specifically eternal, spiritual death . A physically living person may have a carnal mind, bringing with it a spiritual deadness and eternal doom. This also serves us as a working definition of death--being hostile toward God, or minding the things of the flesh . "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you" ( vv. 8-9 ).   Next, we see that the sp