02.0. Catagorized Scripure-Doctrine od Grace

DOCTRINES OF GRACE - CATEGORIZED SCRIPTURE LIST

Introduction

Ever since the Serpent first tempted Eve in the garden by casting doubt on God’s word and his character as he had revealed himself to her, mankind has always been engaged in the idolatrous pursuit of fashioning a god after his own imagination, a god who conforms to his own preconceived ideas about what merits worship and trust. This spirit is alive and well today, and profess­ing Christendom’s conceptions of who God really is are legion. Talk of God’s love as demanding that he never be so wrathful as to send people to hell, his justice as requiring that he give all rebellious sinners an equal opportunity for salvation, his sovereignty as necessarily being limited by man’s free choice, his salvation as an offer which must be ratified and completed by man in his unre­generate nature is rampant. There is no cure for this, but to cast off all our prior ideas of who we think God should be, or what we think he should mean when he speaks of his love, his grace, his justice, and his salvation, and to go to his word for all our answers. God is his own interpreter: and until we are willing to submit our human reason to his voice alone, we stand on the brink of eternal ruin. I pray that the following scripture list will be a useful tool for that pursuit. Father, deliver us from our vain imagination, and reveal to us yourself and your salvation, as we humbly seek to know you from your word, the Holy Scriptures!