Dr Paul Allen

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...

Just briefly in passing, let me ask you to pay particularly close attention, when you read the Gospels, to the use of the phrase or the title “Son of Man.” It’s one of the most important titles for Jesus in the New Testament and yet, at the same time, one of the most frequently misunderstood. Part of the reason is we see the difference between the title “Son of Man” and “Son of God.” And given the church’s confession, historically, of the dual nature of Jesus—that He has a divine nature and a human nature —the tendency is for folks to assume that when Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man, that He was speaking of His human nature, and when He’s referred to as the Son of God, He was being referred to vis-à-vis His divine nature. Well, it’s not as simple as all of that, because both of these titles have within them elements that refer to His deity and to His humanity. But if anything, the emphasis on the two is just the opposite of what we would normally expect. The title “Son of G...

As the incarnate Word of God (John 1:14), Jesus Himself repeatedly affirmed His divinity. He often referred to Himself as the “Son of Man” (cf. Matt. 8:20; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:22; John 9:35–37), a messianic title derived from Daniel 7:13–14 (NKJV), where the “one like the Son of Man” appears as an equal with “the Ancient of Days” (Matt. 25:31; 26:64).  HE SAID WHO HE WAS He similarly described Himself as the “Son of God,” a title clearly indicating His divine nature and eternal union with God the Father. As He explained in Matthew 11:27, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”  HE SPOKE WITH AUTHORITY In John 5:25–26, speaking of His divine authority, He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.  HE ...

“Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.” ( Hosea 4:17 ) The Lord is long-suffering, and those who speak in His name should be also. There do come times, however, when further witness becomes useless or even harmful, or when continued interaction merely invites contamination with ungodliness. In such cases, we must simply leave such people alone, following them with prayer and trusting God alone to deal with them. Such was the 10-tribe nation of Israel , led by the tribe of Ephraim , just before God sent them into Assyrian captivity . God, through the prophet Hosea, told Judah henceforth to let them alone—they were hopelessly given over to pagan evolutionist idolatry. The words “joined to” in today’s verse mean literally “under the spell of.” The Lord Jesus used similarly harsh language in reference to the hypocritical Pharisees of His own day: “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” ( Matthew 15:1...

I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God , so that you may know you have eternal life . ( 1 John 5:13 ) It is important that a believer have real assurance of eternal life, and our text indicates that this was John’s very purpose in writing his epistle. It is dangerous, however, to use this verse as a “ proof text ” apart from the whole context of “these things” that John had written to give such assurance because the question must be faced as to what constitutes real belief “on the name of the Son of God.” Many professing Christians may well have a superficial assurance of salvation because of a superficial faith . According to the Apostle John, genuine belief in the Son of God can be tested by “these things” that he had written. Space here permits listing only a few of them, but all are important. “Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him” ( 1 John 2:5 ). “We know that every one th...

The exhortation to “abide” has been frequently misunderstood, as though it were a special, mystical, and indefinable experience. But Jesus makes clear that it actually involves a number of concrete realities. First, union with our Lord depends on His grace . Of course we are actively and personally united to Christ by faith ( John 14:12 ). But faith itself is rooted in the activity of God. It is the Father who, as the divine Gardener, has grafted us into Christ. It is Christ, by His Word, who has cleansed us to fit us for union with Himself (15:3). All is sovereign, all is of grace. Second, union with Christ means being obedient to Him . Abiding involves our response to the teaching of Jesus: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you …” ( John 15:7a ). Paul echoes this idea in Colossians 3:16 , where he writes, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” a statement closely related to his parallel exhortation in Ephesians 5:18 : “be filled with the Spirit.” In a nutshell...

“Ye have heard the blasphemy : what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.” ( Mark 14:64 ) Today many liberal theologians profess to be Christians but argue that Jesus was merely a great man and that He never claimed deity for Himself. But the Sanhedrin and its high priest had no such doubts for they heard it from His own lips. When the high priest asked him directly: “Art thou the Christ , the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus (silent up to that point in His own defense) answered him plainly. “I am,” He said, “and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” ( Mark 14:62 ). The council immediately voted to condemn Him to death, since blasphemy was considered a capital crime. Two members of the body, Joseph and Nicodemus, had evidently already left, probably because of dismay at what the council was doing (note Luke 23:51 ; John 7:50-51 ), but the rest of that august body all agreed. Jesus had already claim...

“Spiritual understanding primarily consists in this sense, or taste of the moral beauty of divine things.” – Jonathan Edwards ,  Religious Affections Oh, how glad I would be if I could be of a little service to the souls of some of God ’s people the way Jonathan Edwards has been to me. Neither he nor I is an inspired spokesmen of God, as the apostles were. But we are, with them, in some measure, “stewards of the mysteries of God” ( 1 Corinthians 4:1). These stewards were household managers of the owners’ resources, handling them in a way that brought benefit to the members of the house. As a good steward, Edwards spoke of these “mysteries” — these once-hidden, now revealed wonders of God — in such a way that for forty years he has quickened my soul like no other teacher outside the Bible. What C.S. Lewis has done to waken me to the beauties of the world, Edwards has done to waken me to the beauties of God. Here is a glimpse of one way Edwards has transformed the way ...

Symbol of the major religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) If there’s one thing to which human history overwhelmingly testifies, it is that we are fervently religious creatures. Among the rocks and rubble of human cultures throughout the millennia is evidence of the pursuit of spiritual things. As humanity, we have exerted extraordinary effort into the worship of figures such as Ra, Gaia, Dazhbog , Zeus, Aphrodite, Shiva, Vishnu, Izanagi, Izanami, Ahura Mazda, and gods of our own understanding. We’ve worshiped rocks, stars, trees, comfort, the dead, the living, and even ourselves. The world has seen her brahmins, caliphs, Siddartha Gautamas, and Joseph Smiths. We are natural-born worshipers. And you’ve probably heard it said before. “When it comes down to it, most of the world religions are pretty much the same.” But is that true? For example, Judaism, Mormonism, Islam, and Christianity ; they propose a probl...

The making of peace is one of the most important motifs of all of Scripture. In fact, the whole drama of redemption involves the pursuit of peace in the midst of a war that spans the whole world and almost all of history since creation. In Genesis 3 , we read of the fall of the human race; this is not only an isolated historical event but the beginning of a worldwide situation of hostility and estrangement. In the New Testament , the gospel is articulated in terms of reconciliation: God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, and we who believe in Him have been given a ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18–20). There are certain necessary conditions for reconciliation to take place in any dispute. The first is estrangement, because without estrangement there is no need for reconciliation. Gospel reconciliation is the healing of a broken relationship. I once gave a lecture at a college to a group called the Atheist Club. The club had invited me to give the case for the ex...

“The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” ( Psalm 145:17 ) When Abraham was interceding with God to spare Sodom if even ten “righteous” people were there, he asked: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” ( Genesis 18:25 ). The Hebrew word (mishpat) refers to a formal judgment about right and wrong and is more commonly translated “judgment.” Indeed, the divine Judge will do right and give right judgments in all things, for He “is righteous in all his ways” and “canst not look on iniquity” ( Habakkuk 1:13 ). Ever since Adam disobeyed the Word of God, however, all his descendants have been unrighteous in their ways. God’s righteous judgment has been that “there is none righteous, no, not one” ( Romans3:10 ). Thus, a truly righteous Judge would not only have to consign Sodom to destructive “brimstone and fire from the LORD” ( Genesis 19:24 ) but every one of us as well “into the lake of fire” ( Revelation 20:15 ) forever. But God, being not onl...

There's only one absolute way I know of to keep your Christian growth from becoming stagnant , and that is to die. The only time Christian growth stops altogether is at death. That's because we don't need to grow any further; we're ushered into the state of glorification. If a person is in Christ and Christ is in that person, it is impossible for the Christian not to move, to grow. It may seem at times as if our Christian growth has been totally arrested and is in a stagnant state, but I think that's merely an outward appearance. Obviously, our Christian growth can move at various speeds, and we tend to have a kind of ebb and flow. Sometimes we're moving ahead in leaps and bounds and other times at a snail's pace. When it's moving in such a laboriously slow fashion, we may think that it has become utterly stagnant. Again, if there is no evidence of growth whatsoever then I would say it's time to examine our souls and our hearts to see if we...