Dr Paul Allen

When Christians are asked which millennial view they hold, some of the more cynical among them will sometimes answer: “I’m a panmillennialist. I believe it will all pan out in the end.”  Much of this cynicism is due to frustration over the seemingly never-ending debates about the last things. In some cases, it may also be due to exasperation with the endless train of falsified predictions of the rapture and/or second coming of Christ. For centuries, misguided teachers have repeatedly promised or strongly suggested to their contemporaries that they are the generation that will finally witness the end.  Isn’t it as plain as day that Napoleon Bonaparte was the Antichrist and his exile was a sign that the end of the world was imminent? Some Christians who lived in that generation thought so. Their generation was not the first to fall into the trap of date-setting, and it certainly wasn’t the last. For centuries, numerous Christians have compared the headlines of their day with the...

Robb Brunansky  Those of us old enough to remember will never forget the mass hysteria that gripped the globe in 1999.  The world stood on the edge of a new millennium, the year 2000. Not many people, historically, live to see the turn of a millennium, so the excitement was palpable. But the anticipation of seeing not one, not two, not three, but FOUR digits in the year column of the calendar change overnight was overshadowed by the fear that a computer bug known as “Y2K” might bring the world to a screeching halt. Computers went mainstream in the late 20th century, but unlike today, storage in computer systems was massively expensive. Because of the exorbitant price tag, computer programmers tried everything they could to save space.  One strategy they used was to minimize the amount of data required to store dates; so instead of storing the full four-digit year, they only stored the last two digits of the year, cutting the storage space used in half. They realized that ...

Ryan Ross In Revelation, John writes about “seven stars” in Jesus’s right hand (Rev. 1:16). These, he explains, “are the angels of the seven churches” (v. 20). The churches themselves are described as “seven lampstands” (vv. 12, 20). But who are the “angels of the seven churches?” At first blush, it may seem that “angels” are supernatural guardian angels in this context. Writebol, following Peter Leithart and a long history in Reformed teaching, argues that John isn’t talking about a church’s specially assigned angel but rather a messenger of the church: a pastor. This means “the letters are personal addresses from Jesus to these pastors about who he is and who they are” (6). This interpretative approach acts like a lens correcting astigmatism. It snaps pastoral implications into focus, like putting on brand-new glasses. It showed me things about myself and my ministry that were distorted before. These are letters from Jesus to pastors. This directness adds to their weight as they poin...

What the local church needs to know about angels, Satan, and demons is an intriguing question. In my experience, I have heard very little from the pulpit or in adult Sunday school on the topic. The question is intriguing because popular culture (movies and TV, for example) teems with treatments, often fanciful, on these themes, especially around Halloween. There are many aspects of the doctrine of angels, Satan, and demons worth making the local church aware of and here are only some of them.[1] The Bigger Canvas B. Philips, a noted Bible translator of the last century, wrote a small book which has proved very influential and is still in print, Your God is Too Small. The title is so instructive. He maintained that too many have a shrunken view of God. With debts to Philips, one could argue that your worldview is too small if it leaves out angels, Satan and demons.  This lack can be a problem at two levels: espoused and operational. At the espoused level, the believer never thinks a...

The biblical end times, also called eschatology, is a complex and varied topic with different viewpoints held by various Christian denominations and scholars. I'll provide a brief overview of some prominent biblical end-times viewpoints: Preterism: This viewpoint asserts that many prophecies regarding the end times, particularly those found in the book of Revelation, were fulfilled in the past. Preterists interpret these prophecies as referring to events that occurred during the early years of Christianity or around the time of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. Historicist: Historicists interpret the book of Revelation as a symbolic representation of the entire course of history from when it was written until the second coming of Jesus. They see various events and figures mentioned in Revelation as representing specific historical periods and individuals. This viewpoint was prevalent among Protestant reformers. Futurism: Futurists believe that many of the prophec...

They will see His face (Rev. 22:4). As the Scripture sets before believers our enduring hope, the saints hear of the day when we shall see “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). Specifically, when Christ appears, “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).  John Owen once asked,  “To who is it not a matter of rejoicing, that with the same eyes with which they see the tokens and signs of him in the sacrament of the supper, they shall behold himself immediately in his own person?”  He then adds “in the immediate beholding of the person of Christ, we shall see a glory in it a thousand times above what we can here conceive.” Believers have been longing for such a sight (Job 19:26), yearning to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord (Ps. 27:4). And while we have some faint acquaintance with Christ’s glory now by faith, a total transformation in us, changed from perishable to imperishable (1 Cor. 15:51–52), is necessary to see His unveiled glory. It is when we are like Him that we shall see Hi...

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard ; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's. And to it, the dragon gave his power, throne, and authority. —Revelation 13:1–2 Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people,and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast might ...

Most of us are familiar with Martin Luther's heroic statement at the Diet of Worms when he was called upon to recant. "Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture, or by evident reason, I cannot recant, for my conscience is held captive by the Word of God, and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me." Today, we rarely hear any reference to the conscience . Yet throughout church history, the best Christian thinkers spoke about the conscience regularly. Thomas Aquinas said the conscience is the God-given inner voice that either accuses or excuses us in terms of what we do. John Calvin spoke of the "divine sense" that God puts into every person, and part of that divine sense is the conscience. And when we turn to Scripture, we find that our consciences are an aspect of God's revelation to us. When we talk about God's revelation, we make a distinction between general revelation and special revelation...

In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John records the vision he received on the island of Patmos. In that vision, Christ showed John many things, including the new heaven and the new earth: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Rev. 21:1–4) We read that in heaven there will be no sea, which, if taken literally, might disappoint beach lovers. However, for the Hebrew, the sea was a symbol of v...

How does God reveal? Two-fold distinction: - Special revelation in Christ and scripture (2 Tim 3:16 and Heb 1:1) - General revelation through external world and internally through being the image of God (Ps 19:1-4, Ps 94:8-10, Rom 1:19-21) Calvin on Special revelation: “Despite the brightness which is borne in the eyes of all people, it is needful that another and better help be added to direct us aright to the very creator of the universe . It was not in vain that God added the light of the Word by which to become know unto salvation. In order that truth might abide forever in the world with a continuing succession of teaching and survive through all ages…it was God’s pleasure to have recorded the oracles on public tablets.” (Inst. I, VI, 1,2) Hodge on special revelation: “It is not denied that God reveals by God’s works and has done so from the beginning of the world. But all the truths thus revealed are clearly made known in God written word. The Bible contains all of th...

The terms “ Gog and Magog ” seem to factor into biblical prophecy quite a bit. Do a Google search for them, and you’ll come up with quite a few conflicting (and sometimes fanciful) articles. Most speculation attempts to tie Gog and Magog’s appearances in Ezekiel and Revelation to a specific geographical location or country. Gog and Magog: a mysterious northern force of evil Two passages in the Bible have cemented Gog and Magog in our minds when we think of the apocalypse: Ezekiel 38–39, and Revelation 20 . Both passages reference a figure named Gog, and a huge army that attacks the people of God . Through the prophet Ezekiel, God says to Gog (of the land of Magog), “You will come from your place in the far north, you and many nations with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army. You will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land” (Ezekiel 38:15–16). Toward the end of our Bible, John the Revelator sees in a vision: “When...