God’s calling is also according to His grace (2 Tim. 1:9-10). This grace was given to us in Christ by God before times eternal. It was according to this grace that God called us. This grace has been manifested through the first coming of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who nullified death and brought life and incorruption to us.
God’s calling is also through His own glory and virtue (2 Pet. 1:3). Glory is the goal of the divine calling; virtue is the energy to reach the goal.
God’s calling has a goal. He called us to bring us into His glory. He not only called us through His glory, but He also called us to His glory. When Christ came to the earth, He, as the effulgence of God’s glory (Heb. 1:3), became a great light shining in darkness and in the shadow of death (Matt. 4:16), attracting and calling people to follow Him (Matt. 4:19-22). Then He continued to attract the disciples with His glory in cases such as His changing the water into wine (John 2:2-11), His transfiguration on the mountain (Matt. 17:1-2), and His resurrecting of Lazarus in Bethany (John 11:39-40, 43-44). In these cases He revealed His glory to them again and again. He also gave them this glory (John 17:22) that they might have God’s life and nature (John 17:2-3; 2 Pet. 1:4) and become one to be God’s corporate expression. After His death and resurrection, He entered into the disciples with His glory (Luke 24:26; John 20:22) so that they might share His glory. Then on the day of Pentecost, this ascended and glorified Christ poured Himself out, and Peter and the rest of the disciples were filled with glory and were in a situation that was full of glory (Acts 2). Eventually, when Christ comes again, this glory will be expressed through the believers’ whole being—their spirit, soul, and body. At that time, they will be manifested with Him in glory (Col. 3:4). This is the glory into which we have been called.
God called us not only through His glory but also through His virtue. Virtue, literally meaning excellency, denotes the energy of life to overcome all obstacles and to carry out all excellent attributes. Glory is the goal of the divine calling; virtue is the energy of life to reach the goal. God has called us and imparted life into us (2 Pet. 1:3), and the divine energy of this life is virtue. This virtue needs to be developed (2 Pet. 1:5-8) to become our strength that we may reach the goal of God’s calling and enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:11), which is to enter into the eternal glory of God (1 Pet. 5:10).
God’s calling is in Christ (1 Pet. 5:10). He did not call us outside of Christ; He called us in Christ as the sphere. “In Christ” also indicates that the God of all grace has gone through all the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to accomplish the complete and full redemption, that He may bring His believers into an organic union with Himself. Thus they may participate in the riches of the Triune God as their enjoyment. Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9), has become the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17) as the bountiful life supply to us (Phil. 1:19b). It is in this Christ, through His all-inclusive redemption and based upon all His achievements, that God can be the God of all grace to call us into His eternal glory, and to perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground us in the Triune God as the solid foundation, thus enabling us to attain to His glorious goal.
God’s calling is also through the gospel preached by the sent ones (2 Thes. 2:14). The gospel is the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1-3; Acts 5:42b), with His person, with all that He has accomplished, attained, and obtained, and with all that He is accomplishing in this age and will accomplish in the coming age and in eternity as the contents. Such a Christ must be preached as the gospel, the glad tidings, by God’s sent ones, that God’s called ones may hear and receive Him (Rom. 10:14-15), thus fulfilling God’s plan in eternity.
God’s calling is the first thing that God does in His chosen ones in the initial stage of His full salvation. This is God’s new beginning in which He calls men out of the created Adamic race and transfers them into the called Abrahamic race, and out of the life of the old creation into the life of the new creation. God’s calling is according to His predestination, purpose, and grace, and through His glory and virtue. This virtue becomes the energy of life by which the believers reach the goal of God’s calling, that is, to enter into the eternal glory of God. God’s calling is in Christ; Christ is its sphere. It is in Christ, through His all-inclusive redemption and based upon all His achievements, that God can call the believers into His eternal glory. God’s calling is also through the gospel preached by God’s sent ones so that God’s called ones may hear and receive Christ.