Dr Paul Allen

The Roman Catholic Church pronounced anathemas, curses, on the Reformers — like Luther , Calvin , Zwingli — and their Protestant heirs, like me, because the Reformers understood that the way we are justified before God is through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness , his perfection, to us through faith alone . “The work of Christ is the foundation for our acceptance, our forgiveness, our justification before God.” The language of imputation comes especially from Romans 4, where Paul says, for example, in verses 4–5, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted [or imputed] as righteousness.” Or take Romans 4:6 as an example: “David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.” The picture is that the work of Christ is the foundation or ground for our acceptance, our forgiveness, our justific...

The pope has a problem with the Bible. Again. Here’s an excerpt from The New York Times (December 8, 2017 ) “Lost in Translation: The Pope Ponders an Update to Lord’s Prayer” Pope Francis said the common rendering of one line in the prayer—“lead us not into temptation” —was “not a good translation” from ancient texts.“Do not let us fall into temptation,” he suggested, might be better because God does not lead people into temptation; Satan does. “A father doesn’t do that,” the pope said. “He helps you get up right away. What induces into temptation is Satan.” In essence, the pope said, the prayer, from the Book of Matthew , is asking God, “When Satan leads us into temptation, You please, give me a hand.” French Catholics adopted such a linguistic change this week, and the pope suggested that Italian Catholics might want to follow suit. The problem with the Pope’s position is that the Greek does, in fact, say “Lead us not into temptation.” That is a good translation. The words “al...

Last year, Pope Francis announced that after five hundred years, Protestants and Catholics now “have the opportunity to mend a critical moment of our history by moving beyond the controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another.” From that, it sounds as if the Reformation was an unfortunate and unnecessary squabble over trifles, a childish outburst that we can all put behind us now that we have grown up. But tell that to Martin Luther , who felt such liberation and joy at his rediscovery of justification by faith alone that he wrote, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” Tell that to William Tyndale , who found it such “merry, glad and joyful tidings” that it made him “sing, dance, and leap for joy.” Tell it to Thomas Bilney , who found it gave him “a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones leaped for joy.” Clearly, those first Reformers didn’t think they we...

What do we mean - the Bible has authority? The Christian principle of biblical authority means that God is the author of the Bible, and has given it to direct the belief and behavior of His people. Our ideas about God and our conduct should be measured, tested, and where necessary corrected and enlarged, by reference to the Bible. Authority is also the right to command. God's written Word in its truth and wisdom is the way God has chosen to exercise His rule over us, and Scripture is the instrument of Christ 's lordship over the church. The work of the Scripture in the church is illustrated by the seven letters of Revelation (Rev. 2; 3). The Roman Catholic view of the Bible has compromised its unique authority by combining it with the tradition of the church.   Roman Catholics accept the Bible as God-given truth, but insist that it is incomplete without the official interpretation of the church as it is led by the Spirit. In the past, giving the church authority ...

We saw her sitting there on her wheelchair sobbing. Why? Because she was unable to walk up the Holy Steps to have her sins forgiven. She so desperately wanted to be able to spend less time in purgatory and she couldn’t bear the thought of being so close to the steps where Jesus had walked and unable to go up them like everybody else. She had been duped into believing that this ritual of walking up the steps, and saying a few hundred hail Mary’s would save her from her sin. Her tears were yet another example of the evil that is the Roman Catholic Church . Of course, a sign not too far from her stated that those who could not crawl up the steps could stay right where they were and still receive pardon for their sin, but she wasn’t buying it.  She knew that she was missing out on something, and it was all because of her inability to perform works. There were dozens of people partaking in this practice of walking up these “holy steps”. According to Roman Catholic tradit...

Martin Luther, author of the text of Christ lag in Todes Banden, and who, with Johann Walter, also wrote the melody (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Have you ever wondered why people call themselves “Reformed”? The word “reformed” generally means “improved”—as in, desperate parents may send an incorrigible adolescent to a reformatory school to get them back in line; politicians promise economic reforms to undo the damage of their predecessors.  In theological circles, the word is written with a capital, and acts as a self-designation for those who consider themselves to be direct doctrinal descendants of the progenitors of the Reformation, namely Martin Luther , Jean Calvin ,  et al . For example, plain vanilla Baptists get upgraded to “Reformed Baptists” if they embrace not only the tenets of Baptists, but also the doctrines for which the Reformers risked life and limb. Exactly 499 years to the day (October 31, 1517) the Catholic priest, Martin Luther, nailed, to ...

Martin Luther, commemorated on February 18 Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2006), 15. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The Lessons of the Reformation The things that matter most to us all center on the gospel. The church simply can’t afford to forget the lesson of the Reformation about the utter supremacy of the gospel in everything the church does. Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, has dedicated his life to bear­ ing witness to the unimaginable horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust . He speaks of the unspeakable. And he does so because humanity cannot afford to forget the lesson of the Holocaust. It is far too easy to forget, especially when forgetting eases our conscience. History, however, com­pels us to remember. In studying the Reformation, we remember what the church is all about, and we remember how easy it is for the church to lose its grip on the gospel. If he said it once, Martin Luther said it a hundred times: “The church’s ...

Martin Luther, author of the text of Christ lag in Todes Banden, and who, with Johann Walter, also wrote the melody (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) 499 years ago this upcoming  Monday , on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany , kick-starting the Protestant Reformation . Nearly 500 years later, God ’s people reserve this day to celebrate the rescue of His Word from the shackles of Roman Catholic tyranny, corruption, and heresy. The glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the sufficient Scriptures had been recovered, and it’s been doing its saving work ever since. Romans  1:16 –17 stands at the heart of the Reformation, especially because of  how central it was in Luther’s conversion . Luther speaks of how he had  hated  the phrase, “the righteousness of God,” because he understood it to be speaking only of God’s standard of righteousness by which He would judge unrighte...