What is a calling? How can we find our calling and understand what God wants from us? So much has been said and written on this subject over two thousand years of Christian history that one might think no questions should remain, yet they do not grow any fewer. The apostles, however...
What is a calling? How can we find our calling and understand what God wants from us? So much has been said and written on this subject over two thousand years of Christian history that one might think no questions should remain, yet they do not grow any fewer. The apostles, however, or one might say the future apostles, faced no problem of choice and had neither doubts nor hesitation. Curiously, Jesus says nothing special to them, does not teach them anything or deliver long sermons; He simply invites each of them to follow Him. And they go, as though they had always been waiting for this encounter. Of course, they had most likely heard something about Jesus before and may even have heard Jesus Himself. But hearing is one thing, and leaving everything to follow Him is quite another. It is clear that a true calling is always revealed to a person with complete certainty.
One might, of course, say that this was a unique situation, for the Saviour Himself stood before them, and if the future apostles understood Who stood before them and where He was calling them, there was nothing surprising in their resolve. And yet the evangelists give examples of far less resolve among some of those whom Jesus called to follow Him in exactly the same way. On the other hand, can there be any discussion of a Christian's calling without that personal encounter with the Risen One, without which not only any calling, but Christianity itself is impossible? Apparently, the question of calling is resolved quite simply: a calling is that without which it is impossible to live, because life loses its meaning. And if a person still has questions, doubts or hesitation about whether a particular activity is his calling, then the answer is most likely negative. If the answer were positive, the person called to serve, whatever that service might be, could and would have no doubts or hesitation.
Of course, what is meant here is specifically doubts and hesitation concerning the content of the service itself, not the difficulties that may accompany it. Sometimes the cunning human mind, in its desire to spare its owner the difficulties and problems inherent in the service to which God is calling him, supplies doubts about whether the call is genuine and whether the decision already made or being made is right. But that is another matter, a question of spiritual honesty, without which no one can find his calling.
5
5:15 And that he died for all - That all might be saved.That they who live - That all who live upon the earth. Should not henceforth - From the moment they know him. Live unto themselves - Seek their own honour, profit, pleasure. But unto him - In all righteousness and true holiness.
5:16 So that we from this time - That we knew the love of Christ. Know no one - Neither ourselves, nor you, neither the rest of the apostles, Gal 2:6, nor any other person.After the flesh - According to his former state, country, descent, nobility, riches, power, wisdom. We fear not the great. We regard not the rich or wise. We account not the least less than ourselves. We consider all, only in order to save all.Who is he that thus knows no one after the flesh? ln what land do these Christians live? Yea, if we have known even Christ after the flesh - So as to love him barely with a natural love, so as to glory in having conversed with him on earth, so as to expect only temporal benefits from him.
5:17 Therefore if any one be in Christ - A true believer in him. There is a new creation - Only the power that makes a world can make a Christian. And when he is so created, the old things are passed away - Of their own accord, even as snow in spring.Behold - The present, visible, undeniable change! All things are become new - He has new life, new senses, new faculties, new affections, new appetites, new ideas and conceptions. His whole tenor of action and conversation is new, and he lives, as it were, in a new world. God, men, the whole creation, heaven, earth, and all therein, appear in a new light, and stand related to him in a new manner, since he was created anew in Christ Jesus.
5:18 And all these new things are from God, considered under this very notion, as reconciling us - The world, Co2 5:19,to himself.
5:19 Namely - The sum of which is, God - The whole Godhead, but more eminently God the Father. Was in Christ, reconciling the world - Which was before at enmity with God. To himself - So taking away that enmity, which could no otherwise be removed than by the blood of the Son of God.
5:20 Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ - we beseech you in Christ's stead - Herein the apostle might appear to some "transported beyond himself." In general he uses a more calm,sedate kind of exhortation, as in the beginning of the next chapter. What unparalleled condescension and divinely tender mercies are displayed in this verse! Did the judge ever beseech a condemned criminal to accept of pardon? Does the creditor ever beseech a ruined debtor to receive an acquittance in full? Yet our almighty Lord, and our eternal Judge, not only vouchsafes to offer these blessings, but invites us, entreats us, and, with the most tender importunity, solicits us, not to reject them.
5:21 He made him a sin offering, who knew no sin - A commendation peculiar to Christ. For us - Who knew no righteousness, who were inwardly and outwardly nothing but sin; who must have been consumed by the divine justice, had not this atonement been made for our sins. That we might be made the righteousness of God through him - Might through him be invested wi th that righteousness, first imputed to us, then implanted in us, which is in every sense the righteousness of God.