Our Calling Confirmed
Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 2 Peter 1:10,11
Peter has just told his readers to build into their lives one aspect of Christian character on top of another – faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly love. All take thought and all take effort. None come by accident. You have to want to do them and you have to choose to do them. But when you do, and pray for God’s grace, promises and power to help, you grow in your knowing Jesus the Messiah. And in that knowledge, you won’t just be a Christian for your own sake. You’ll become fruitful in God’s service.
Peter has already written that we are ‘to make every effort’ as Christians (1:5). To give as strong an emphasis as he can, he adds ‘be all the more eager.’ His emphatic concern is that we take responsibility to continue to the end of our lives being more deeply grounded in the same hope we began our Christian journey with.
Our election is God’s sovereign choice of us in Christ from before time. Our ‘calling’ is anchored in Jesus’ call to follow Him (1:3). ‘Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure.’ Salvation is exclusively in Christ. Outside of Christ is complete loss of everything. So God calls all humanity to faith in Christ and once they have done so, to live a holy life. The acid test of the genuineness of our faith is our willingness to make costly changes because of that faith. The word ‘sure’ in ‘make your calling and election sure’ is a legal term meaning ‘to ratify.’ So the evidence that we have been called and chosen is the energy we put into making that calling and election ‘sure.’
Two things will follow if we confirm our calling with a godly lifestyle. The first is that we ‘will never fall.’ This doesn’t mean there won’t be setbacks. We all stumble (James 3:2) but we will be spared a coming to grief that ends in disaster. Thayer says ‘fall’ here means ‘to fall into misery, to become wretched because of the loss of salvation.’ Confirming our calling ensures this won’t happen.
The second thing confirming our calling ensures is receiving ‘a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.’ Peter might have in mind a victorious marathon runner being welcomed to the finishing line by his home crowd or the honour given a winner after the Olympic Games by his home city.
If we put ourselves out generously for Him in obedience in this life, He will lavishly put Himself out for us in the next, equipping us abundantly for life in the everlasting kingdom. Throughout the gospels Christ’s kingdom has both a present and a future aspect but when Christ returns as Lord and Saviour, all will be in the present. As Lord He will rule His kingdom and as Saviour He will utterly condemn sin and shower the fullness of salvation on those who have proven faith in Him.
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