Make your Call and Election sure
“. . . giving all diligence add to your faith . . . for if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for it you do these things you will never stumble,” (2 Peter 1:5, 8, 10).
These verses define the nature of true salvation and calls believers to stand strong in the face of false teaching. Verses 5-7 represent the core doctrines that were being twisted by false teachers. This life of faith and godliness are given by the divine power of Jesus and lead us to know and trust Him. This life of faith and godliness that believers need to please God come through a relationship with the Christ who calls them to salvation and holiness.
One does not have to become holy to gain God’s favor; He calls us when we are unholy (Rom. 5:8) so that we will become holy by partaking of the divine nature of Jesus. As a result, salvation leads to holiness, rather than the thinking of mankind that holiness leads to salvation. Mankind wants to believe that being good and attempting to become holy will earn them salvation (Eph. 2:9). However, since none can become holy without the divine nature of Jesus within them, one must know Christ as Lord and Savior to become holy.
The word translated “add” in verse 5 originally meant to pay the expanses of a chorus in staging a play out of one’s own resources, but later it came to mean providing support and aid of any kind. In the context of verse 5, it carries the meaning of cooperating with God as He produces these qualities in His children. The Apostle Peter is saying that we should apply “all diligence” to flesh out in daily living these qualities of a life of faith and holiness which are already given us in Christ.
Peter is saying in essence, if you are not pursuing these things and if they are not being fleshed out in your life, then your profession of faith is not valid (1:8). On the other hand, if you pursue them and are growing in them, then your profession of faith is good and right. He is not here requiring perfection, but a constant movement in the right direction. The Christian life is to produce a changed life so that the whole world can see the character of God forming in the believer. The danger is not the danger of slipping into the kingdom with no rewards (just barely getting in, as some say it), but it is the danger of not being a citizen of the kingdom at all.
Yes a believer may go through a period where there is no movement. “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (v.9). Holy God wants to implant everyone of them in the believer’s life, but it requires the cooperation of the believer. “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble” (v.10). What life are you pursuing? Are you taking on the divine nature? Have you “escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (v.4)?