A Word in Season: Called to Christ (1 Corinthians 1:9)

God is faithful, says the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians in chapter 1 and verse 9, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Paul is emphasizing there God's faithfulness, that what he has begun, he will complete.

He's assuring the Corinthians that God will not now abandon them, having called them into the fellowship of his Son. So what is this call and how does it take place? Well, there's a general or a universal call that goes out when the gospel is proclaimed.

The Universal Gospel Call to Repent and Believe

The Apostle Paul said that we preach Christ crucified. We declare to the world that there is a Savior, that he is Jesus Christ who died upon the cross and rose again from the dead for our justification.

We talk about who he is. We explain what he has done. He himself is good news. In him, salvation has been accomplished and whoever comes to him will by no means be cast out, but will obtain everlasting life.

And on the basis of God's saving accomplishments, the preacher then earnestly urges and pleads sinners to be reconciled to God, to repent of their sins, to recognize the wickedness of their transgressions and to turn their back upon them with grief and hatred and to turn to God as he's made known in his beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

That invitation goes out genuinely and generally. We can with confidence preach the gospel to every creature. And we do it because we know that in and with that general invitation, there is what we call an effectual call.

The Effectual Call by the Holy Spirit

Now, this is the particular work of God by his Holy Spirit. This is God working as the gospel is being proclaimed, typically by a preacher, perhaps reading in the scriptures themselves or reading the presentation of the good news in some other good book.

It might be a conversation with a friend. But as that good news is being declared, God is at work by his Spirit in the hearts of some to whom that gospel is preached. He's convincing them of their sin and misery.

He's bringing them to the realization that the diagnosis that God makes of his sinful nature and his sinful deeds, his sinful heart and his sinful hands is painfully, even damnably accurate, that he deserves hell.

He is working in that sinner to show them something of the saving sufficiency of his Son, Jesus Christ, making clear that Christ is the perfect answer and the only answer to the sins of his soul and all their awful consequences in separating him from God and making him an enemy of the Most High.

The Spirit works in the heart of those to whom this particular call comes to humble them and then to draw them to the Lord Jesus Christ, working in them faith and repentance so that they come to God for God's solution to the problem of their sin.

Coming to Christ and Being United to Him by Faith

That's why Christ could say that all whom the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. And this is a call then into the fellowship of God's Son. It's a call that brings us to and unites us to Christ Jesus.

That's why we call it effectual. It's like a divine summons that makes us willing, draws us in, brings us to and unites us to Jesus Christ by faith in order that we might find in him all the saving excellencies that God has stored up for his people.

The Experience of Every Christian

And so this is the experience of every Christian. Now how that experience feels, if you will, isn't identical in every case, but the process itself must be there if we are to be saved from our sins. We must hear not just the voice of the preacher.

We must hear the very voice of God himself as the gospel is being preached and by his spirit's gracious power in us we must respond, being brought to Christ Jesus, Jesus our Lord, the Son of God and the only saviour of sinners.

If that has happened to you, praise God for his great mercy and if it has not yet, then hear and heed the good news of Jesus Christ, the saviour of sinners and come to him who will by no means cast you out.