CHAPTER 45
Making Your Call and Election Sure
Living Today for the Resurrection of Life
Introduction
The Urgency of the Prize
When we look across the ages and see the wisdom of God, it might be tempting to relax into a vague security. We learn that judgment is finite and purifying, that Gehenna belongs to the Seventh Day and not to eternity, and that in the Eighth Day God will be all in all. We see that the Father’s purpose is the Restoration of All Things in Christ. If we misunderstand this, we may quietly conclude that it does not greatly matter how we live, for God will set everything right in the end. Scripture will not permit such a conclusion. The Lord Jesus and His Apostles speak in the strongest terms about the danger of being disqualified from the resurrection of life and the firstborn inheritance, even while they proclaim the certainty of God’s purpose to restore.
Paul describes his own life in the language of a race and a prize: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24). He disciplines his body and brings it into subjection, “lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27). This is not the language of a man unsure whether he belongs to Christ; it is the language of a man who knows that there is a real danger of failing to attain the prize of the resurrection of life and the firstborn portion in the kingdom. His warning is not for himself alone, but for the entire church.
The Torah established this pattern long before Paul. Israel was redeemed from Egypt by the blood of the lamb, yet the wilderness generation forfeited the land through unbelief—and their story was written as our warning, “upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:1–6, 11). The Prophets echoed the same call with increasing urgency: “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6). Hosea pleaded with the same voice: “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you” (Hosea 10:12). From Torah to Prophets to the Lord Jesus to the Apostles, the call is one: the gift has been given, the door is open, but the time to respond is now.
In the light of the ages, of the resurrection of life and the resurrection of judgment, of the Royal and outer-court priesthood, and of the Eighth Day and the Restoration of All Things, the question remains: how then shall we live so that we are not disqualified? This chapter gathers the main exhortations of the New Testament and places them in the context of the pattern we have traced. Its purpose is to make plain what the faithful must pursue and what they must avoid if they would be counted worthy of the resurrection of life and of entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Age to Come.
Fixing Our Hope on the Age to Come
The faithful live now with their eyes fixed on the Age to Come. The Apostles continually direct the hope of believers forward to the appearing of the Lord Jesus and to the grace that will be revealed in that day. Peter commands, “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13). This is not a vague hope of survival after death. It is a call to rest our hope fully on the grace of the coming age—the resurrection of life, the placement as sons, and the participation in the Royal Priesthood.
The Lord Jesus speaks again and again of those who are “counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead” (Luke 20:35). He speaks of “entering life” as an event bound to the judgment of the coming age, and He warns that it is better to lose hand or foot or eye now than to be cast into Gehenna whole and to forfeit entrance into life (Matthew 18:8–9; 19:17). Paul speaks of “life in the Age to Come” (Galatians 6:8 literal) as the harvest of sowing to the Spirit in this present age. To be saved in the strict sense is to be saved into this life of the Age to Come and saved from the judgment of that same age.
This hope shapes the entire life of the faithful. They weigh their choices by the standard of that day. They measure pleasure, suffering, honor, and loss by the scale of the resurrection of life and the placement as sons. They know that this present age is the wilderness in which their souls are being tested and formed, and that the decisions they make now echo into the Seventh Day and determine whether they will enter the sabbath rest of God or the chastening fire of Gehenna. To live rightly now is to live with the coming age in view.
Pursuing the Salvation of the Soul in This Present Age
The salvation of the soul in this present age is the path to the resurrection of life in the Age to Come. Peter speaks of believers who, having come to love the unseen Christ and rejoicing with joy inexpressible and full of glory, are “receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9). He does not speak here of the initial forgiveness of sins, but of the ongoing transformation by which the soul is delivered from the corruption of Adam and conformed to the character of Christ.
As we have seen in the chapters on the nature of the soul, the soul is the seat of identity, memory, desire, and will. It is this soul that can be saved or lost, preserved or destroyed. The Lord warns that those who seek to preserve their soul in this age, clinging to their own life in this age, will lose it, while those who lose their soul in this age for His sake will find it (Matthew 16:25). The salvation of the soul for the Age to Come is therefore the central work of grace in this present age. It is the process by which the Spirit of grace renews the mind, purges the affections, trains the will, and writes the law of God inwardly, so that the whole person becomes fit for the inheritance of the Age to Come.
This salvation is never accomplished by human effort alone. It is the fruit of one stream of grace operating from beginning to end. Yet it does not happen without our cooperation. We are commanded to “lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). We are exhorted to “work out” our salvation with fear and trembling, precisely because “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13). Grace does not replace our will; it renews and energizes it so that we may truly respond.
Walking in the Spirit and Enduring Discipline
“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit,” Paul writes (Galatians 5:25). To walk in the Spirit is to live under the governing influence of the Holy Spirit in every aspect of life. It is to set the mind on the things of the Spirit, to submit thoughts, desires, and plans to His leading, and to rely on His power rather than on the energy of the flesh. Those who walk in the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body and thus shall live, that is, they shall be counted worthy of the resurrection of life in the Age to Come (Romans 8:13).
The Spirit’s presence is evident in the fruit He produces. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,” and Paul adds, “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22–24). The disciple is not defined by perfection but by the active crucifixion of the flesh. When sin is exposed, the disciple confesses and forsakes it. When the Spirit convicts, the disciple responds with repentance and faith. Over time, the character of Christ becomes visible: a growing love for God and neighbor, a deepening joy in God’s will, a peace that holds fast in trial, and a steady faithfulness in small and great tasks alike. These qualities are the outward expression of a soul being saved by grace in this present age.
The writer to the Hebrews exhorts believers to endure hardship as discipline, “for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6). The purpose of this discipline is that we may be “partakers of His holiness” and that it may yield “the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:10–11). Discipline is not a sign of rejection but of sonship. It is how the Father forms firstborn heirs in this present age. Those who submit to this discipline, allowing the Spirit to use trials, corrections, and sufferings to shape them, are being prepared for placement as sons in the resurrection of life. Those who despise discipline, grow bitter under correction, or interpret chastening as abandonment risk falling short of the grace of God.
Watch and Be Ready: The Lord Jesus’ Commands to the Faithful
The Lord Jesus does not merely teach about the Age to Come; He commands His disciples to live in readiness for it. His parables of watchfulness are not incidental illustrations but direct orders from the King to His household. “Watch therefore,” He says, “for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44). “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing” (Matthew 24:46). The call to watch is a call to active, obedient faithfulness—not passive waiting but the kind of alert, sober living that characterizes a servant who knows his master could return at any moment.
The parable of the ten virgins brings this warning into the sharpest focus (Matthew 25:1–13). All ten are virgins—they belong to the bridal company. All ten have lamps—they possess the initial gift of the Spirit. All ten go out to meet the bridegroom—they profess faith and anticipation of His coming. Yet five are wise and five are foolish. The difference is oil. The wise have oil in their vessels; the foolish have lamps but no reserve. When the bridegroom is delayed and midnight comes, the foolish discover that their lamps are going out. They ask the wise for oil, but it cannot be transferred. The door opens for the wise; the door closes on the foolish. “I do not know you,” says the bridegroom (Matthew 25:12).
This parable is not about believers and unbelievers. It is about two kinds of believers—those who possess the ongoing, sustaining work of the Spirit in their souls (the oil) and those who received the lamp but never allowed the Spirit’s work to go deep. The oil is the saved soul, the Spirit’s transforming presence embraced and maintained through watchfulness, prayer, and obedience. It cannot be borrowed at the last moment or obtained in a crisis. It is the product of a life lived in the Spirit, day by day, in the quiet faithfulness of this present age. When the bridegroom arrives, those who have oil enter the feast—the joy of the Lord, the resurrection of life, the firstborn inheritance. Those who do not are shut out—not destroyed, not abandoned forever, but excluded from the feast of the Age to Come and consigned to the outer darkness of the Seventh Day where their neglected souls must be dealt with by fire.
The Lord reinforces this pattern in the parable of the faithful and unfaithful servants (Matthew 24:45–51). The faithful servant is the one whom the master finds “so doing” when he comes—feeding the household, fulfilling his stewardship, walking in obedience. He is set over all the master’s goods. The unfaithful servant says in his heart, “My master is delaying his coming,” and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards. His master comes on a day when he does not expect it, cuts him asunder, and appoints him his portion with the hypocrites, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The unfaithful servant does not cease to belong to the household; he is a servant of the same master. But he forfeits his place and enters the discipline of the Age to Come.
The Lord’s command is therefore simple and searching: watch, be ready, keep oil in your lamp, be found doing the master’s will. The time between His ascension and His appearing is not a holiday but a stewardship. Every day is a day in which the soul is either being saved or being neglected. Every choice either adds oil to the lamp or allows it to diminish. The Lord who will appear is the same Lord who speaks now, and His word will judge in that day those who heard and did not do (John 12:48).
Examples to Warn Us: Israel, Esau, and Lawlessness
Scripture not only shows us what to pursue; it sets before us examples of what to avoid, lest we be disqualified. These examples are not distant curiosities from another age; they are, in the Apostles’ own words, written for us “upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).
The wilderness generation of Israel stands as our primary warning. They were truly redeemed. They passed through the sea, ate the same spiritual food, and drank the same spiritual drink, and that Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1–4). Yet “with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:5). Paul says that these things “became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted” (1 Corinthians 10:6). Their story shows us that it is possible to be redeemed and yet fail to enter the inheritance for which we were redeemed. The writer to the Hebrews draws the lesson with devastating clarity: “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). And then the warning: “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:11). The “rest” that remains for the people of God is the sabbath rest of the Seventh Day—the resurrection of life and the firstborn inheritance that belong to the faithful. The danger is falling short of it through the same unbelief that felled Israel in the wilderness.
The narrative of the twelve spies at Kadesh Barnea brings this truth into the sharpest possible focus. When the Lord commanded Israel to spy out the land He had promised them, all twelve saw the same land, tasted the same fruit, and reported the same facts. Yet their responses were radically different. Ten spies returned with a report of fear and unbelief: “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we… There we saw the giants… and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight” (Numbers 13:31, 33). Joshua and Caleb, however, saw the same giants and the same fortified cities and responded with faith: “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30). The Lord Himself testified of Caleb, “Because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it” (Numbers 14:24). The phrase “a different spirit” is theologically rich. Caleb’s spirit was different not because of natural temperament or superior courage, but because he believed God’s promise and trusted His power to give the victory. His faith made him see the giants through the lens of God’s faithfulness rather than seeing God’s faithfulness through the lens of the giants.
The result was decisive. The Lord swore that the entire generation twenty years old and older, except Joshua and Caleb, would die in the wilderness and never set foot in the promised land (Numbers 14:29–30). For forty years thereafter, the faithful and the unfaithful walked the same desert together. Joshua and Caleb endured the same heat, the same scarcity, the same trials as the rebels—yet they were sustained by faith in God’s promise and by the conviction that the land was theirs to inherit. The rebels grumbled, turned back in their hearts to Egypt, and fell under repeated judgments until their bodies were scattered across the wilderness floor. Yet even within this judgment, God was at work for a deeper purpose. Moses later explained that the Lord used those forty years “to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not” (Deuteronomy 8:2). The wilderness was not pointless suffering; it was the proving ground of faith—exactly as this present evil age is for us. Those who endure in faith, like Joshua and Caleb, will enter the inheritance. Those who fall through unbelief will not.
The epistle to the Hebrews adds the solemn figure of Esau. We are urged to pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, and to beware lest any be “fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright” (Hebrews 12:14–16). Afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, “he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears” (Hebrews 12:17). Esau did not cease to be a son of Isaac, but he forfeited the firstborn portion. His example stands as a warning to any who would lightly trade the firstborn inheritance—the Royal Priesthood and resurrection glory—for momentary satisfaction in this age. Esau’s sin was not a single act of weakness in isolation; it was the expression of a profane heart that valued the immediate over the promised, the appetite of the flesh over the birthright of the Spirit. His tears afterward were real, but the birthright once despised could not be recovered by weeping. The time to value the inheritance is now, while it is still called “today” (Hebrews 3:13).
The Lord Jesus also warns of lawlessness among those who publicly profess His name. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven,” He declares, “but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Many will say to Him in that day that they have prophesied, cast out demons, and done many wonders in His name, yet He will declare, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:22–23). These are not ignorant pagans; they are people who operate in His name while rejecting His lordship in their lives. Lawlessness—living as though Christ were not King, while claiming His name—places a person in danger of being excluded from entrance into the kingdom of the Age to Come and cast into the outer darkness of Gehenna until chastening has done its work. The warning is all the more sobering because it is addressed to those who appear to be active, fruitful, and spiritually gifted. Outward ministry is no substitute for inward obedience. The Lord does not measure faithfulness by the impressiveness of our works but by whether we did the will of the Father from the heart.
Together, these three examples reveal a sobering truth. It is possible to begin well and end poorly; to receive great light and yet fall into hardness; to taste the powers of the coming age and yet drift into unbelief or lawlessness. None of this overturns God’s purpose to restore, but it does determine whether we enter the life of the Age to Come as firstborn heirs or the judgment of that age as chastened sons or as humbled enemies. Israel warns us against unbelief and presumption. Esau warns us against worldliness and the profane trade of eternal glory for temporal satisfaction. The lawless professors warn us against the deadly deception of religious activity without obedience. These warnings are given precisely so that we need not repeat their folly.
Making Our Call and Election Sure
In the light of these warnings, Scripture calls believers to respond with diligence. Peter speaks to those who “have obtained like precious faith” and who are already partakers of the divine nature through the promises of God (2 Peter 1:1, 4). Yet he does not assume that their call and election will automatically reach their intended end. Instead, he urges them to “add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:5–7). These qualities are not a separate system of works, but the fruit of the Spirit in a soul being saved by grace in this age.
Peter explains that “if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8). He then gives both a warning and a promise. The warning is that those who lack these things are “shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (2 Peter 1:9). The promise is that those who practice these things will make their calling and election sure: “For if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Age to Come” (2 Peter 1:10–11 literal). To make our call and election sure is therefore to live in such a way, by the Spirit, that we are supplied an abundant entrance into that kingdom and into the firstborn inheritance there.
In this sense, salvation itself is a calling. God does not merely rescue us from wrath in the abstract; He calls us into an inheritance. He “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:9). He chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world” and predestined us to huiothesia, the placement as sons, at the resurrection of the body (Ephesians 1:4–5; Romans 8:23 literal). Those whom He foreknew He predestined “to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). We are “called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28), and that purpose is to form firstborn heirs who will share His work of restoration in the ages to come. To make our call and election sure is to cooperate with this purpose by walking in the Spirit, enduring discipline, and allowing grace to save our souls in this present age.
One Stream of Grace: Running to Obtain the Resurrection of Life
In all of this, we must keep clearly before us that there is one stream of grace from beginning to end. The same grace that calls us out of this present evil age grants us forgiveness, gives us the Holy Spirit, and begins the renewal of our souls. The same grace disciplines us, trains us, and strengthens us to endure. The same grace enables us to add to our faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. The same grace will, in the resurrection of life, place the faithful as sons in their firstborn inheritance.
This means that our striving is not an attempt to earn the prize by independent effort. Rather, it is the energetic cooperation of renewed wills with the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul captures this truth in a single sentence: “I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). He labored—truly, actively, strenuously. Yet the labor was not his own; it was grace at work in him. The faithful do not earn the prize; they receive it as the harvest of a grace-empowered life. But they must run. They must fight. They must press forward. They must lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares them, and run with endurance the race set before them, looking unto the Lord Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith (Hebrews 12:1–2).
The life of faith is therefore not a passive ride toward a guaranteed outcome but an active, Spirit-empowered pursuit of the prize. Paul could say at the end of his course, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7–8). The crown is laid up—it is certain for those who finish. But it must be run for. It must be fought for. It must be kept by faith. And it belongs not only to Paul but to all who have loved His appearing—all who have lived with their eyes on the Age to Come and their hearts set on the prize of the upward call.
Conclusion
Choosing the Resurrection of Life
This chapter has gathered the apostolic warnings and exhortations and set them against the backdrop of the ages. It calls us to fix our hope fully on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus, to pursue the salvation of our souls in this present age, to walk in the Spirit and endure discipline, to watch and be ready for the bridegroom’s coming, to heed the examples of Israel, Esau, and those who practiced lawlessness, and to make our call and election sure. It reminds us that there is one stream of grace from Exodus to inheritance, from gift to prize, from calling to placement as sons.
The Age to Come, the great Sabbath of God, awaits believers, who will either enter it in rest or face judgment, depending on their faithfulness or lack thereof. The Eighth Day is the new creation in which death is abolished, God is all in all, and the restored nations dwell under the light of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Nothing can overturn the Father’s purpose to restore all things in Christ. Yet within this sure purpose, there is a real and enduring difference between entering the resurrection of life and entering the resurrection of judgment. There is a real and enduring difference between sharing the firstborn inheritance in the Royal Priesthood and entering the Eighth Day only after the purifying fires of Gehenna have done their work. There is a real and enduring difference between an abundant entrance into the kingdom of the Age to Come and being saved as through fire, with the loss of what could have been gained.
The Father has called us not merely to be rescued from wrath, but to be formed as firstborn heirs. The Lord Jesus has not only forgiven our sins; He is forming us to share His Royal Priesthood in the ages to come. The Spirit of grace has not only sealed us for the day of redemption; He is present to save our souls, to conform us to the image of the Son, and to prepare us for the resurrection of life. In the light of all that has been revealed about the ages, the resurrection, judgment, priesthood, and restoration, we are invited to choose, day by day, the path that leads to the resurrection of life.
The question that remains is deeply personal. In which part of the story will you stand? Will you be content with the bare reception of the gift, drifting through this age and falling short of the prize? Or will you, by the Spirit, press toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, welcoming His discipline, embracing His cross, and running in such a way as to obtain?
Yet as you weigh this question, remember whose voice is calling. The Lord Jesus who warns of Gehenna, also said, “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). The Lord Jesus who speaks of outer darkness is the same Lord who wept over Jerusalem because He longed to gather her children as a hen gathers her brood under her wings (Matthew 23:37). The Spirit who convicts of sin is the same Spirit who cries “Abba, Father” in the hearts of the sons and daughters, assuring them that they are loved, known, and held (Romans 8:15–16; Galatians 4:6). The warnings are real because the stakes are real. But the heart behind the warnings is the heart of a Father who delights to give, a Shepherd who lays down His life, and a Spirit who never stops working in those who are willing. The severity and the tenderness are not in tension; they are two expressions of the same love that conceived the ages and will bring them to their appointed end.
The Lord Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him. The Spirit of grace is at work now. The race is still open. The prize of the resurrection of life and the firstborn inheritance in the Age to Come stands before us. May the Lord grant us grace to run with endurance, to watch with sobriety, to love His appearing, and to hear in that Day the words for which the faithful have lived and died: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
Restoration Theology Press 