August 23

But we should always thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth. To this He called you through our gospel, so that you may share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. — 2 Thess 2:13-14 BSB

The first work of grace is often to kill rather than to bring life, to wound rather than to heal, to bring down rather than to lift up, and to reveal the law rather than the gospel. As the saying goes, “balm is useless to the healthy.” Salvation, with all its abundant grace, means nothing to those who have never felt utterly cut off from all hope or help. In this sense, there is a calling that happens under and through the law in the early workings of the Spirit of God. This calling brings the soul under the condemnation of the law, which serves as a ministry of death. But once the law has done its work, and the sinner is slain by its convicting power, then comes the calling of the gospel, bringing aid and deliverance.

When the gospel sounds its beautiful voice—when pardon is proclaimed through Jesus’ sacrifice, when peace floods the heart through His atoning blood, when the glad news of salvation by grace becomes more than just words but becomes the power of God unto salvation—then the soul experiences the calling by the gospel. Heavenly light shines into the mind, divine power touches the soul, faith is awakened, hope anchors within the veil, and the love of God is poured into the heart. This is the calling that the Apostle speaks of, a calling through the gospel.

Like the silver trumpet of the great day of jubilee, the sound of the gospel reaches the heart of the captive, and he hurries to be set free (Isa. 51:14). The scene changes—God’s wrath passes, the morning star rises in the new dawn of the gospel day, “a morning without clouds” (2 Sam. 23:4), until the Sun of Righteousness rises with healing in His wings. As the gospel becomes the power of God unto salvation, the soul embraces it as a joyful sound. And as faith receives it, hope anchors in it, and love holds onto it, the evidence becomes clear that we have been chosen for salvation from the beginning.