Dr Paul Allen

Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:1–2 Does the Book of Hebrews teach its readers to “leave behind” the basics of the Christian faith in order to press on to maturity? In the past generation, a chorus of voices, including Tim Keller, D.A. Carson, and John Piper, have encouraged their audiences, in various ways, toward a “gospel-centered” or “cross-centered” faith. Rather than leaving behind Christian basics such as the cross and Christian gospel, they would have us go deeper into them, and find true Christian maturity in these basics, not beyond them. The origins of such a gospel-centered Christianity are found in the pages of the New Testament, drawing most explicitly from the epistles of Paul, John, and Peter, as well as Hebrews. It is Hebrews, a...

The twentieth-century British pastor D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “If we only spent more of our time in looking at Christ we should soon forget ourselves.” Fixing our eyes on Christ is the first step and the entire path of the Christian life. We don’t look to Christ in faith to be saved and then look to ourselves to persevere. We trust Christ alone as our Savior and look to Christ alone and follow Him as our Lord. In order to look to Christ as our Savior and Lord, we need new eyes and a new heart.  We are born spiritually dead and blind in sin, with our eyes fixed on ourselves and our own glory, but God the Holy Spirit strips the inherited blindfolds from our eyes and graciously rips out our hard hearts and gives us new hearts that love Him and new eyes that see Him. Yet even as Christians who have been declared righteous by God the Father through faith in the perfect life and sacrifice of God the Son, Jesus Christ, we remain sinful this side of heaven and daily struggle aga...

“Who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.” ( Hebrews 6:18-19 ) The noun “hope,” when used in the New Testament, does not imply a wishful attitude but rather a joyous and confident expectation in something promised which will certainly come to pass—in most cases, something good. Note especially the few times it is used with a descriptive adjective. First, in a stirring benediction, Paul tells us that our good hope comes from both “our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father” ( 2 Thessalonians 2:16 ). Furthermore, such hope is given to us along with “everlasting consolation,” or comfort, which shall last forever. The Father and Son have done this “through grace” which brings eternal salvation. Next, we are taught to be “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” ( Titus 2:...

Romans 8:3—God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. By sinful flesh he means fallen human nature. So what is the meaning of likeness? Some say Paul is undermining the reality of Christ’s true humanity, perhaps suggesting that his flesh is only a facsimile of ours, but not the real thing. However, v. 8b (“in the flesh”) indicates otherwise. Others argue the word likeness is Paul’s way of saying that Jesus never committed an act of sin. But Paul is talking about character, not conduct. The best solution is that Paul used likeness to avoid saying that Christ assumed fallen human nature. He took flesh like ours, because really flesh, but only like ours, not identical with it, because unfallen. He uses the word likeness because he feels compelled to use the phrase sinful flesh instead of merely flesh. Had he omitted sinful he also would have omitted likeness. The question remains, “Why does he include the word sinful?” Murray comments: “He is concerned to show that when th...

Paul the Apostle, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The arguments for Pauline authorship of Hebrews are impressive.  Here are four reasons I hold that the Apostle Paul was the author of Hebrews : The evidence of church history: As most commentators will tell you, the early church held that Hebrews was Pauline. Some (such Origin) allowed for the possibility that the content was Pauline, but that the actual writing was left to someone else. Yet from early on the consensus was that Hebrews was likely a sermon that Paul preached, and that Luke (or Barnabas, or someone else) recorded. Clement even granted that it was possible that the message itself would have been preached in Aramaic and then translated into Greek. In fact, when the church fathers endeavored to explain why some books were canonical and others were not (Apostolic authorship, claiming revelation from the Lord, early church acceptance, etc.), they frequently would use Hebrews...