Dr Paul Allen

We all have questions about death. What is death? Why do we die? Why do we all die? Why is death so scary? Why did Christ die? Why do Christians have to die? How can I face the death of someone I love? How can I prepare for death? How can I help others prepare for death? What happens after death? To answer these questions, we need to look to Scripture and see what God has to say. The Bible is God’s Word and is completely reliable and true. If the Bible tells us something about death, then we can stake our lives on it. We also have a lot of help. Our spiritual ancestors thought profoundly and practically about death. Throughout the church's history, pastors and teachers have sought to help God’s people face death in light of the riches of biblical truth. In the Protestant Reformation five centuries ago, the church recovered the gospel in its full biblical integrity. Martin Luther, John Calvin, the British Puritans, and their spiritual heirs have left us rich reflections on suffering...

When we talk about God’s attributes we try to answer questions such as “Who is God?” and “What is God like?” Now, these questions may seem futile—how can our finite minds grasp who God is or what He is like?  These questions may also seem rather abstract, questions that scholars, but not ordinary Christians, may find fascinating. Instinctively, we tend to be much more interested in what God has done for us rather than in who He is.  In a sense, this is understandable .  Arguably, one of the achievements of the Protestant Reformation was to refocus people’s minds on what God had done for them in Christ. John Calvin frequently criticized medieval theologians for “merely toying with idle speculations”1 about the nature or the essence of God.  However, Calvin and the other Reformers did not deny the utility of thinking about God’s attributes. On the contrary, they encouraged a knowledge of God that would foster pietas, as they called it, what Calvin defined as “that reve...

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...

Hell Is Awful What exactly are we talking about when we say “hell”? We hear the word used all the time in a street-level way—“What the hell . . . ?” “Hell no!” But when we stop and consider the actual reality of hell, beneath the irreverent and casual uses of the word, what do we find? Scripture teaches us these five truths and more about hell. 1. Hell Is Experienced by the Whole Person A common misconception is that it is only a person’s spirit or soul or mind that suffers in hell, once the body has been left behind. But the Bible’s teaching is that while those in hell now are indeed suffering without a body when the Lord Jesus returns everyone will be raised for judgment, and the impenitent will suffer in hell, body, and soul. In Matthew 5 , Jesus twice speaks of one’s “whole body” going to hell ( Matt. 5:29–30 ). In another place he warns us to “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” ( Matt. 10:28 ). Humans sin against God with both their body and their soul; they suff...

One of the most essential doctrines for a Christian understanding of the Trinity is eternal generation. When the equality of the Son with the Father was thrown into question in the fourth century, the church fathers turned to the doctrine of eternal generation not only to distinguish the Son from the Father but to ensure that the Son is understood to be equal with the Father.  For these reasons, the doctrine of eternal generation became a cornerstone of the Nicene Creed, that standard-bearer of Christian orthodoxy. But over the last several decades, evangelicals have gained a bad reputation for rejecting this doctrine. Even when evangelicals have affirmed it, they do not appear to understand why. Could it be that we do not really grasp what eternal generation is in the first place? I want to invite you on an adventure into the mystery of this indispensable Christian doctrine. But instead of exploring the eternal generation’s biblical warrant (see Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated F...

Christian life as a life lived between two worlds. The New Testament tells us that believers are citizens of a heavenly country, having received a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Phil. 3:20; Heb. 12:28–29).  At the same time, the New Testament also tells us that until the return of Christ, we retain a citizenship on earth, having responsibilities in this world even as we live as strangers and exiles in the present era (Rom. 13:1–7; Heb. 11:13).  Living as Christians in a manner pleasing to God, therefore, entails paying attention to both worlds in which we live, confident in our standing in Christ and in our future while not disdaining the present. Believers must explore various facets of what it means to live between these two worlds faithfully in service to the Lord, helping believers to act responsibly on earth even as their true home is in heaven.

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” ( Psalm 90:2 ) This verse was written by Moses as the children of Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land. Perhaps the most basic of all the attributes of God is that He “inhabiteth eternity” ( Isaiah 57:15 ). He is “from everlasting to everlasting,” the God who ever was and ever shall be. Creatures of time cannot really comprehend the idea of past eternity. “But who made God?” children ask. “Nobody made God,” we answer. “He always was.” The alternative would be to believe in the eternity of “space” and “matter,” but these in themselves are utterly incapable of producing our complex universe. God, however, is an adequate First Cause to explain all the effects of our infinite, intricate cosmos. There are many other Scriptures assuring us that God has always been. “Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting” ( Psal...