Our being chosen (election) is directly linked with being called.
For those who Christ enlightens with the knowledge of his name and receives into his Church are said to be taken under his guardianship and protection. All who he receives in this way are committed and entrusted to him by the Father, so that they may be kept for eternal life.
What more could we ask for? Christ proclaims aloud that everyone the Father is pleased to save, he has delivered into his protection (John 6:37–39; 17:6, 12). Therefore, if we want to know whether God cares for our salvation, let’s ask whether he has committed us to Christ, who he has appointed to be the only Saviour of all his people. Then, if we doubt whether we are received into Christ’s protection, he clears away that doubt when he freely offers himself as our Shepherd, declaring that we belong to his sheep if we hear his voice (John 10:3, 16). Let’s, therefore, embrace Christ, who is kindly offered to us and comes out to meet us: he will number us among his flock and keep us safely within his fold.
But anxiety often arises regarding our future state. Paul teaches that those who were previously elected are the ones called; but our Saviour also shows that “many are called, but few chosen” (Matt. 22:14). Indeed, Paul himself warns us against false security when he says, “Let he that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). And again: “because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also not spare you” (Rom. 11:20–21). Ultimately, experience itself teaches us enough that calling and faith mean little without perseverance—a gift that isn’t granted to everyone.
But Christ has freed us from anxiety on this point, for these promises undoubtedly point toward the future: “All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and he that comes to me I will never cast out.” Again: “This is the will of him that sent me, that of all which he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise them up on the last day” (John 6:37, 39).And again: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:27–28).
Furthermore, when he declares, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up” (Matt. 15:13), he implies the reverse: those who are rooted in God can never be stripped of their salvation. Matching this are the words of John: “If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us” (1 John 2:19).
From this comes Paul’s magnificent triumph over life and death, things present and things to come (Rom. 8:38)—a triumph that must be anchored in the gift of perseverance. There is no doubt that Paul applies this conviction to all the elect, elsewhere writing, “Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). David, too, when his faith threatened to fail, leaned on this very support: “Forsake not the works of thy hands.”
Moreover, it cannot be doubted that since Christ prays for all the elect, he asks the same thing for them that he asked for Peter: that their faith fail not (Luke 22:32). We infer from this that there is no danger of their falling away, since the Son of God—who asks that their devotion to him prove constant—is never refused. What, then, did our Saviour intend to teach us by this prayer, if not to be confident that whenever we are his, our eternal salvation is secure?
[Lightly modernised. Source.]
