Dr Paul Allen

Earlier this week, one of the most well-known news anchors in America was explaining why monuments and statues to America’s “founding fathers” are problematic. He then tried to make a theological argument and declared on national TV, “Jesus Christ, if that’s who you believe, if that’s who you believe in, admittedly was not perfect when he was here on this earth.” His point was that if Christians have no problem with recognizing Jesus’s imperfections, we should be ok with an honest discussion of Jefferson and Washington. Now, I love it when people use theology to influence their politics. It is true that if people had better theology, they would have better politics. I’m also very grateful to have a person usually known as a political liberal grant that theology should have a role in public deliberations of politics. But in this case, the declaration that Jesus “admittedly was not perfect when he was here on earth” represents a huge contradiction to what the Bible teaches abo...

Before the Incarnation Since the Son of God is eternal, we begin with noting his work before the incarnation, before Christ took upon himself a human nature. With the Father and the Spirit, Christ was involved in creation (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:2). More on this in chapter 22, where we consider his lordship. Another important aspect of Christ’s Old Testament work was delivering God’s messages. The “angel [messenger] of the LORD [Yahweh]” normally is understood to be Christ himself, and the technical term for these occurrences is theophany (appearance of God).  These are pre-incarnation manifestations of the Son of God in human form— Christ took upon himself human appearance to accomplish something specific before taking upon himself a permanent human nature (in the incarnation). This “angel” is no ordinary angel. For example, when Hagar fled into the desert after conceiving Abram’s son, the angel of the LORD told her to name her son Ishmael and to re...