Luke tells us in Acts 15:18, ‘Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world’ and certain it is we cannot begin to comprehend the infinite glory and transcendent majesty of the eternal God if we do not confess His unbounded knowledge. Yet, we must always be humble and careful in trying to understand the nature of God. We are mere spectators, fallen and corrupt at that, before the revelation of the One true God who is essentially unknowable beyond what He is pleased to communicate to us in His word.

Verse 28 teaches the church of Jesus Christ about effectual calling. Here Paul identifies a people whom He designates, ‘the called’. It is not the first time Paul has employed this title to describe the believers in Rome. In 1:6 he tells them their faith confirms them ‘among the called of Jesus Christ’. The called are saved men and women; boys and girls, who have been regenerated, made spiritually alive and made partakers of the new birth by God the Holy Ghost. They are ‘called’ to salvation internally by efficacious grace and externally by the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  A spiritual work This calling is not an appointment to an office in the church nor a commission to fulfil a…