The scriptures describe God’s call on our lives in various ways, from the widest to the most specific. So where do we start if we want to form a biblical understanding of the different ways the Bible speaks of God’s call? We often start from the wrong place, thinking in our specific context, our lives, our situation. Instead, we have to start with God and his calling. We are talking about the Almighty God of the universe, whose sovereign decree is executed in creation and in his continuing providential concern for all his creatures and all his actions. He, in his sovereignty, redeemed us. This God, our God, has established calls for our lives that define who we are and what he expects of us, what he commands us and what he calls us to do in this world that he has created. , in this world we are in, we are his servants. Can we summarize how the Bible uses these themes? The omnipotence of God, his claim on our lives, his intention for us and for the world and the gospel of Jesus? according to two categories of calls: creation and redemption. Each of these words? creation and redemption? it gives us a window through which we can see the different calls of God.
Looking first at creation, we can consider the call to vocation. God calls us as human beings, created in his image, to work diligently in the world he created. God did not make Adam or any of his children lazy. They wouldn’t live in God’s attic forever, doing nothing more than unlocking new levels in the latest video game. God also did not leave Adam free to know how he would become involved in creation or what to do with it. Did God call Adam? organized? to exercise his dominion over creation, even when he worked and cared for the Garden of Eden (Gen. 1. 28; 2. 15). After the Fall, this work became much more difficult, among the thorns, but the call has not changed. Through the sweat on his face, Adam would continue to exercise his dominion over creation, working and nurturing the world in which God had placed him (3: 17-19). And this work would be done for the glory of God. In this call, all human beings, all the sons and daughters of Adam, find God’s call to vocation. And by vocation I don’t necessarily mean a salaried profession. The skilled accountant, trench digger, soldier, homemaker, retiree, and elementary school student follow God’s call on their lives through God-honoring work.
- Then.
- Considering our focus on the calls rooted in creation.
- Let us consider the call of marriage.
- God did not intend for humans to carry out their call for diligent work alone.
- God regarded Adam as an individual and definitively declared that his situation was not good (Genesis 2:18).
- Then he created Eve.
- A suitable help for Adam.
- And called them to the covenant.
- A covenant in which a man and a woman commit to each other for life.
- Eve was Adam’s help in tasks Similarly.
- Unless the Christian has a specific call to celibacy (1Co 7:8-9).
- Is called to seek a spouse.
- And if God blesses him.
- To have children.
- Gender-specific calls – husband.
- Wife.
- Father.
- Mother.
- Son.
- Daughter.
- Brother.
- Sister – each with roles and responsibilities that must be fulfilled only for the honor and glory of God.
Third, in creation, God wrote his law in the hearts of all men (Romans 2. 15), giving them a call to holiness (Leviticus 20. 26). This law finds a more specific coding in the Ten Commandments and finally a complete demonstration in the person of Jesus Christ. This law requires perfection that no sinner can find, but our inability, because of our inability to obey the law, does not nullifies the call of the law that we may be perfect as God is perfect, do this, and live (Galatians 3:10). Thus, although ruined by sin, every human being knows God’s call to holiness, moral perfection, and to feel guilty about his sin.
Fourth, as families multiplied into nations and after God dispersed nations in response to the Tower of Babel, government and commerce developed within cultures, producing structures of responsibility and authority. All of this, especially the choice of who has authority in any culture or group, is ordered by the express will of God (Rom. 13: 1-4). As God commands the authorities of society, everything built around families, calls everyone to obey the authorities that he himself puts in charge. The call to obey authority is omnipresent, from the leadership of the husband in the home to the government of the president in a country, from a company employee to the child in his home. The only time when disobedience to authority is justified and warranted is when an authority asks someone to commit a sin. God’s call to obey authority also holds these authorities accountable to follow God’s justice in the world while exercising power. In this way, God’s call to obey authority provides structure and responsibility beyond the boundaries of the individual family, protecting against the chaos and injustice of lawlessness.
A simple study of the texts on the subject of the call in the Bible would reveal many other calls from God to all, but what we have considered so far summarizes how God’s fundamental calls are ubiquitous and applicable to anyone, at any time. of humanity is that each of these areas of vocation, far from showing humanity’s ability to realize them, has shown how these calls have become areas of sin and depravity. But God, before Adam and Eve left the garden, had already begun to speak of the redemptive work he would one day do through the Messiah that would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). This Messiah, through his life, death, and resurrection, would pay for the sins of his people, do righteousness that he could not attain, and fulfill all of God’s calls to his people. This Messiah is Jesus Christ, and in him we find new and renewed calls from God.
Looking at calls from the perspective of redemption, we know that God has been patient with the sin of mankind over the centuries, but now he calls everyone to repentance and to believe in Christ (Acts 17. 30). It is the external call of the gospel. That Christians carry in the world; Pastors who preach in the pulpits and Christians who evangelize their neighbors offer everyone the free gift of the gospel: Repent and believe in Jesus Christ, and they will be saved; today it is the only great redemptive call addressed to every man, woman and child. This call encourages the New Testament church, nourishes world missions, and imposes itself on every Christian.
Just as this external call sounds, there is also, when a person is born again, an internal call that accompanies it. Salvation is of the Lord; it’s your monergic job. He knows his family and calls her by name (Jn 10:27), when a sinner is redeemed, the Holy Spirit regenerates him so that he can receive and rest in Christ Jesus, as offered in the Gospel. The inner call of the gospel is always effective, because always and only God fulfills it. God’s external and inner call marks the age of the New Testament. These two calls trace and explain the church’s explosion from a band of Galileans to a world body of sinners redeemed from all tribes, languages, and nations.
God’s royal calling through Jesus, who converts us, also begins the work of conforming us to his image (Rom. 8:29). It does not mean that we all become more like Nazarene carpenters who became preachers. This means that God’s sanctifying work in us operates in the footsteps of the calls of creation that are already operating in our lives. Under the power of the Holy Spirit, we now fight sin and seek holiness. We receive our call to vocation and to work as for the Lord with all our strength. The husband accepts his call to marriage and loves his wife as Christ loved the church. The woman accepts her call to marriage and submits to her husband, just as the church submits to Christ. The godly child obeys both his parents and the Lord. The Christian embraces his call to holiness, seeking holiness in a grateful response to God’s grace. The authoritarian Christian does not arbitrarily exercise his authority over others. The Christian under authority willingly submits and obeys authority, knowing that God is behind everything. So, the main calls of God in our lives? The call to vocation, the call to marriage, the call to morality, the call to submission to authority, the external call of the Gospel and the effective interior call of the Gospel? They work together from creation and through redemption to achieve God’s purpose in the world, his own glory through the worship of Jesus Christ in the church.