Dr Paul Allen

What does this Prophecy mean today? One of the most well-known prophecies about the birth of Christ is Isaiah 9:6, which says,  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  We read this on Christmas cards and holiday signs, but what does it mean? The original context of this promise in Isaiah helps us. Isaiah answers three questions about this child who will be born. What He Brings First, what will he bring? Along with the arrival of this child, Isaiah promises that God will bring three gifts. The first is joy.  Isaiah 9:1 says, “But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.”  These are the northern parts...

This is a tenfold summary of key biblical Christology. 1. The person or subject of the incarnation is the eternal, divine Son. John 1:14 states this well: “The Word became flesh.” In other words, it was not the divine nature but the divine Son from eternity (John 1:1) who became incarnate. The Son, who has always been in eternal relationship with the Father and the Spirit, and who shares the same, identical divine nature with them, freely chose to humble himself by assuming a human nature to redeem his people (Phil. 2:6–8) and to reverse all that Adam did by ushering in a new creation (Col. 1:18–20). 2. As the divine Son, the second person of the triune Godhead, he is the exact image and correspondence of the Father and is thus truly God. Along with the Father and Spirit, the Son fully and equally shares the one divine nature. As the image and exact correspondence of the Father (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3), the Son is truly God. All of God’s perfections and attributes are his since our Lord i...

There are many Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ. Some interpreters place the number of Messianic prophecies in the hundreds. The following are those that are considered the clearest and most important. Regarding Jesus’ birth—Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Concerning Jesus’ ministry and death—Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and ridin...

“What do you think of the Christ?” In guiding the Jerusalem leaders to contemplate this question of eternal weight, Jesus turned to the authority of what is written “in the book of Psalms,” specifically Psalm 110 ( Matt 22:41–46 ; Mark 12:35–37 ; Luke 20:40–44 ), and asked a question childlike in both simplicity and profundity, the answer to which plunges one into the unfathomable wonder of the incarnation of God: How could David refer to his son as Lord? This probing question was but the application of what Jesus would later declare, that He Himself is the object of all the Scriptures of the Old Testament, summarizing their threefold division in Luke 24:44 as “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms,” with the Psalms standing as the summary representation of the Writings. That much of the Psalms concerns “the Christ” was (and is) commonly accepted; the New Testament’s glorious proclamation is that Jesus is this Christ, the long-expected “Anointed One” of whom these S...

Painting by Rembrandt of Paul, one of the most notable of early Christian missionaries, who called himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles." Paul, a Hellenistic Jew, was very influential on the shift of Christianity to Gentile dominated movement. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Even though thousands of Jewish people embraced Jesus in the early days of the Christian church (three thousand in Acts  2:41 ; at least another two thousand in Acts 4:4), some also claimed that Christians aimed to “destroy [the temple] and change the customs that Moses delivered to us” (Acts  6:14 ). Nevertheless, the first and greatest Christian missionary , a Jew himself and former Pharisee, the apostle Paul , protested that he was “saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Messiah must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles ” (Acts 26:22–23). Great Sorrow, Unceasing Anguish ...

Jesus spoke about the end times and the last judgment during the last week of his earthly ministry.1 All three Synoptic Gospels relate Jesus’ eschatological discourse ( Matt. 24 –25; Mark 13 ; Luke 21 ). Since Christian views about the end times must be informed by Jesus’ explanations regarding the period leading up to the end,2 a study of these texts is of fundamental significance. The reports of Matthew , Mark, and Luke about Jesus’ discourse on the end times are in essential agreement; the passage in Matthew is the most extensive and provides fuller details, especially about the last judgment. Therefore, the following discussion will follow Matthew’s presentation; we will refer to material that only Mark and Luke present where necessary Jesus mentions ten signs that herald the end of the age and the event of his return.  The first four signs are related to world affairs: (1) seduction of many people by messianic pretenders who claim to have royal dignity and the ab...

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...