We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him and who are called according to his purpose.
God works together for good for all those who know him and who are called according to his purpose. Here we could say a few words about being called, because the Scripture speaks about those who are called, and those who are chosen, and those who are faithful. The Apocalypse, for example, speaks about the disciples of Christ being—I always liked it in Slavonic, it was called “zvanih, izabranih, i vjerni.” There’s even a title of a book with those words: Called, Chosen, and Faithful.
In fact, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, who is the new head of the external affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, his mother, when he was a small boy, wrote a book. The title of her book was these very words, in Russian, Called, Chosen, and Faithful. In Greek, I believe it would be “klitoi, eklektoi and pistoi.” In any case it does not matter, because in English, you have it very clear: called, chosen, faithful.
There is such a thing as “the elect”—not only those who are called, but those who are chosen: The chosen people, the elect people. This would also be the teaching of Holy Scripture, very clearly, that God calls and chooses, or he elects, or he appoints, those whom he knows will cooperate. He does not waste his divine energies. He knows whom to choose and whom to call.
He called the Jews because he knew that in Israel he would have people in each generation who would cooperate. He would have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. He would have Moses; he would have the prophets. Most of the people would be apostate; most of the people would be sinners and idolaters, and God knows what, breaking the laws, but there would always be those people who would cooperate with God, and they are the ones whom he chose. They are the elect.
I think we should always remember that if people are elected, if people are chosen by God, there’s two things we must remember. They are chosen because they are willing, freely, to cooperate; freely to cooperate, like St. Paul. He was knocked down on the Damascus road and became the Apostle to the Gentiles because he was willing to be converted. He was willing. When he was knocked down he didn’t say, “Oh, I am having a hallucination; I thought I saw Jesus; I must be going crazy.” No, he was ready to respond. He was ready to convert. He was ready to surrender, but in his total freedom of his humanity.
Of course, our freedom even is supported by the grace of God. We cannot be really free unless the grace of God is in us, otherwise we are in the hands of the devil, and we are not free. But this mystery of human freedom, it remains forever, so God knows whom to choose.
So the first thing we have to say is, the elect are those chosen by God and called by God, that he knew would cooperate. Jesus teaches in the Scripture that in some sense, everybody is called. In the synoptic gospels it says “many are called.” Actually, it says, “the multitude are called.” In other words, God would call every human being, but only a few are chosen, only a few are elect, because not everyone is willing to cooperate with God. The elect are those who are freely willing to cooperate with God.
But also, the other thing about the elect is, they are willing to suffer. If you are chosen by God, you are chosen to suffer. If you are appointed to God, you are appointed to suffer with him, even to die with him. I once heard a Calvinist teacher, a very wonderful man, Samuel Terrien. He was a linguist and he wrote about the Old Testament. He wasn’t much of a theologian or an exegete; he was more like a linguist.
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