Inform Your 'Faith'

    God calls those He saves!! I have recently embarked on a sermon series out of I Corinthians and at the very onset was confronted with the soteriological doctrine of calling. In many circles this truth has been lost or neglected. At least its emphasis. 
    In some cases, when it is taught, it is treated as some amorphous direction God impresses upon a Christian particularly in terms of personal ministry.  In other cases it is acknowledged with indistinct phraseology and given only tacit  or irreverent attention.  Scripture, although, presents God's calling as sine qua none. Paul is unmistakably clear when he asserts, "those whom he predestined he also called, those whom he called he also justified." (Rom. 8:30). I quote this verse simply to underscore that "calling" is apart of Pauline epistemology pertaining to salvation. Indeed, it is a concrete framework that is noticeably rudimentary. 

    He writes the Corinthians and interweaves the language of calling in such a way that presupposes it as a knowledge at work within the nexus of their salvific perspectives.Paul especially gives attention to this in chapters 1 & 7.   

   In chapter seven he clearly evinces that calling occurs and is realized at a particular point in time.  He rhetorically inquires, "was anyone at the time of his calling" of a certain status or condition.  In so doing Paul is inarguably maintaining that calling can be distinguished in a spatio-temporal sense.  One can distinguish a point in individual history when they were called by God.

    He concludes this pericope by saying, "So, brothers" (an assumption of their salvation) "in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God" (7:24)  The Greek tense "was called" establishes that this activity, reality and experience of "calling" occurs at a specific and particular point in the "brothers" past.  The subject of this activity of "calling" is indisputably God and the objects of this divine activity are "brothers".  This language of being called only applies to those who are saved.  Only those saved have been called.

    Paul, himself, understands his conversion and province in life as the very result of this calling or activity of God.  His salvific ontology is in fact hinged upon it.  His opening salutation substantiates this. In fact the lion share of his letters open with this affirmation.  He introduces himself as, "Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ" (I Cor.1:1).  Now, some may object by arguing that this is a reference to his commission or vocation.  This is a narrow and uninformed retort or position. For Paul's conversion and commissioning were inextricably bound as the account in Acts clearly establishes. They occur in a very real way, simultaneously. It could even be stated that his calling specifically was a "conversion of purpose".  Paul ostensibly views the warp and woof of his personage according to this "conversion of purpose". (cf. I Tim 1:12-17) What is more the account in Acts is his personal testimonial and retrospection.

    Furthermore, the record in Acts substantiates that Paul's conversion and commissioning were part and parcel the direct result of divine activity vis a vis the Christophony.  What is more, Paul was anticipating opportunities to persecute Christians at the very moment of his "calling".  It was divine activity or "calling"  par excellence that changed him and his course. He didn't incidently stumble into this "calling".  It was divinely set in motion. When Paul states that he "is called" he conceives of it according to that matrix.  Wolfhart Pannenberg amplifies this truth, "As we see our own calling and let ourselves be grasped by it as by a higher will that stands over our lives and gives them direction, we are set on the way to fulfill this destiny of ours."  Paul understood his Christian origin and vocation in this unmistakable way. Indeed, his was a transformational encounter, on this Damascus road, that completely altered his life and duty. So much so that he unimpeachably order his existence according to this "calling" despite hell and high water. 

   This "call" of God is not the same as the outward or external call by way of the gospel.  It speaks to the inward activity and prerogative of God being individually actualized.  Paul elucidates upon this distinction in chapter one of I Corinthians. He acknowledges that the gospel is a stumbling block to the Jews who seek signs and folly to the Gentiles who seek wisdom precisely because they have not been called by God.  This is true, as he says in the same breath,  because the gospel is only effectual in and to those Jews and Greeks who are called!!!  As the called apostle substantiates, "We preach Christ crucified....to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." (I Cor.1:24) The inward and effectual call of God is distinct from the outward call of the gospel. 
    Shortly after this Paul interpolates the language of God choosing to compliment this dynamic of calling. (I Cor.1:26-28). All this verbiage betokens divine activity and initiative within the ranks of actual historical life.
    "If, unlike cosmological mythologies, we experience the deity as at work in history and revealing himself in it, so that human life achieves order only on historical premises, then the divine origin of ideals of life declares itself in a sense of election and calling that in some way sets the lives of individuals or particular societies in relation to the rest of humanity and to all peoples"              Wolfhart Pannenberg

Inform Your Faith