God has called us also for the purpose that we may obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thes. 2:14). Man was created in the image of God and after the likeness of God that man might contain God and express God. After man sinned and fell, God’s original purpose in creating man was lost; man could no longer contain or express God. God, however, accomplished redemption for man, and He called His chosen ones unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth that they might obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thes. 2:13-14). The glory of the Lord Jesus Christ is that Christ is the Son of God the Father, possessing the Father’s life and nature to express Him. To obtain the glory of Christ is to be in the same position as sons of God to express Him.
In John 17:22 the Lord said in His prayer to the Father, “And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one.” The glory which the Father has given the Son is the sonship with the Father’s life and divine nature (John 5:26) to express the Father in His fullness (John 1:18; 14:9; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:3). Through His death and resurrection the Son has given this glory to His believers that they also may have the sonship with the Father’s life and divine nature (John 17:2; 2 Pet. 1:4) to express the Father in the fullness of the Son (John 1:16). This is God’s calling us unto the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has called the believers not only unto the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also into the eternal glory of God (1 Pet. 5:10). For this, the God of all grace is ministering to us the riches of the bountiful supply of the divine life in many aspects and in many steps of the divine operation on and in us in God’s economy. The initial step is to call us, and the consummate step is to glorify us. Between these two steps are His loving care while He is disciplining us and His perfecting, establishing, strengthening, and grounding work in us. In all these divine acts, the bountiful supply of the divine life is ministered to us as grace in varied experiences, that we may enter into His eternal glory and express the God of all grace.
God has called us also into His kingdom (1 Thes. 2:12). The kingdom of God is an organism constituted with God’s divine life as the realm of life for His ruling, in which He reigns by His divine life and expresses Himself in the divine life. This kingdom began with the saints in the Old Testament and is realized in the church in this age, and it will be completed in the New Jerusalem in the millennium and ultimately consummated in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth.
Before we were called we were outside the kingdom of God, having nothing to do with God. However, God called us to partake of His divine life and nature that we may enter into the kingdom of God. Today we, the called ones, must live in the church that we may grow and develop in the life of God unto full maturity. Thus, we shall be richly and bountifully supplied with the entrance into the millennial kingdom in the coming age and into the new heaven and new earth in eternity within the kingdom of God, in which we shall reign as kings (Rev. 22:5b).
Therefore, the purpose of God’s calling is that we may come out of darkness and enter into God’s marvelous light, become those who are sanctified unto God, enter into the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ, endure the suffering of Christ, enter into the peace of Christ, obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, enter into the eternal glory of God, and be richly and bountifully supplied with the entrance into the kingdom of God.
God’s calling is a holy calling as well as a heavenly calling. The believers were called with the heavenly calling to possess, partake of, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ, who is the embodiment of the processed Triune God. Today He is our life and hope; in the future He will be our glory and inheritance. This Christ supplies us with His unsearchable riches and immeasurable dimensions that we may live in the church life and have a walk which is worthy of the heavenly calling. The purpose of God’s calling is that we, the believers, may come out of darkness and enter into the marvelous light of God, out of the death-realm of Satan’s darkness into the life-realm of God’s marvelous light, and be made holy unto God; that we may enter into the fellowship of Christ to enjoy Him as the eternal portion given by God to us; that we may endure the suffering of Christ to follow in His steps and live the life that He lived; that we may enter into the peace of Christ to allow Him to be the Arbitrator for the keeping of the oneness of His Body; that we may obtain the glory of Christ to express the Father in Christ in His fullness, that we may enter into the eternal glory of God to express the God of all grace; and that we may enter into the kingdom of God to reign in it and enjoy the eternal blessing of the eternal life of God to the uttermost.