Dr Paul Allen

I believe the Bible teaches that saving faith is a trusting and treasuring of Jesus Christ that rises from a Spirit-given sight of the truth and greatness and beauty and worth of Jesus as we see him at work in the gospel. “Saving faith sees Jesus as supremely desirable, supremely great, supremely beautiful.” And what David rightly sees in this understanding of faith is that faith is not mere agreement with facts about Jesus, and it’s not a mere trust in Jesus to do for us things that even unbelievers want to be done. Saving faith does not receive Jesus merely as useful.  Saving faith receives Jesus as himself, the greatest gift of the gospel. This means that saving faith sees Jesus as supremely desirable, supremely great, supremely beautiful, and valuable, all of which the Bible sums up by saying that Jesus has divine glory. So those words valuable, beautiful, great, desirable — they’re all subsumed I think in what the Bible means by glory. Saving faith is a treasuring trust in Jes...

God also revealed His glory in the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34). The tabernacle included the holy of holies, which contained the ark of the covenant. On the top of the ark was the mercy seat, where the high priest sprinkled blood once a year as an atonement for the sins of the people. It was on the mercy seat that the Shekinah of God dwelt or tabernacled, for God said to Moses, “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel” (25:22). Another reminder to the people of God’s glory was the encampment of Israel during the forty years of wandering. Whenever the people stopped to set up camp, the priests were to be the closest to the tabernacle. Just beyond the priests were the Levitic families while the rest of the twelve tribes made up the outer ring. The tabernacle was located in the exact centre of the tribes. ...