For over four hundred years God bore with this world, and then the God of glory appears to a man on earth and commences to act on an entirely new principle: that of the sovereign call of God. It does not set aside the government of the world; it makes no suggestion as to improving or reforming the world, or correcting its evil. It leaves the world just as it is, but it asserts God’s paramount claim upon an individual, who is elected in sovereign grace, and called out of the world.

We cannot but realize the importance of this great truth when we see from the New Testament that it is still the principle on which God is acting today. The Church is entirely composed of individuals who are called by grace. The apostle Paul clearly states that God has not only “saved us” but also “called us,” and that this calling is “a holy calling … according to His own purpose” (2 Tim. 1:9). Again, in his epistle to the Romans, we are reminded that believers are “the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). So in writing to the Hebrew believers, the apostle appeals to them as “partakers of the heavenly calling” (Heb. 3:1).

These different passages clearly show that if God calls us it is because He has a purpose in His heart which He desires to gratify. Moreover we learn that the call involves our being called out of one world lying in darkness, or ignorance of God, to come into the marvelous light of all that God has purposed for Christ in another world. Further, if we are called to heaven, it is that we may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The prize of the calling on high is to be with Christ and like Christ.