Paul's Divine Calling and God's Sovereign Order in Salvation

Paul, chosen for the gospel of God, affirms in his letter to the Galatians that when God found it pleasing, He set him apart from his mother’s womb to reveal His Son within him. Those who misunderstand God’s foreknowledge and predestination twist these words, supposing they point only to those preserved by nature and constitution, while others even deny what rests within our power, citing the psalm that declares sinners alienated from the womb. Yet this is readily answered by examining the words that follow: it is written that sinners are estranged from the womb, they have strayed from birth, they have uttered lies; their fury bears the likeness of the serpent. We must challenge those who take these words literally: if those sinners, alienated from the womb, had immediately wandered from the path of salvation and spoken falsehood upon birth by their own accord, how could they have done so? For they could not have formed a coherent infant voice to speak lies at the moment of delivery. But if we reflect on what was said earlier in this very letter about predestination, we can, by setting aside those who mislead the simple into accusing God of injustice, uphold the truth that God both sets apart from the womb and sets apart for the gospel of God the servant Jesus Christ, known as the apostle Paul. Thus it stands: we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those called according to purpose; whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers; and whom He predestined, He also called; and whom He called, He also justified; and whom He justified, He also glorified. Therefore, let us follow the sequence of what has been said: God justifies because He called beforehand; He would not justify those He did not call; and He calls because He predestined beforehand; He would not call those He did not predestine; and it is to Him that the beginning of the call and justification belongs, not predestination. For if predestination were the starting point of what follows, those who advance the strange argument of nature would easily prevail. But above predestination lies foreknowledge: for whom He foreknew, He declares, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. God, having beforehand attended to the order of coming things, and having considered the inclination of these things in us toward security and impulse after that inclination, and as they will surrender themselves wholly to living according to virtue, He foreknew them, knowing the present and foreknowing the future; and whom He so foreknew, He predestined to be conformed as sons in the image of His Son. Therefore there is the Son of God, who is the image of the invisible God, and this is the image spoken of—the image of the Son of God—which we believe to be the soul the Son of God assumed, human, formed through the virtue of God’s image into an image. And this, which we regard as an image of an image of the Son of God, God has predestined to become conformed through His foreknowledge concerning them; yet we must not suppose that God’s foreknowledge is the cause of future things. Rather, since He was about to act according to His own impulse, He foreknew, knowing all things before their generation; and as knowing all things before their generation, He foreknew and predestined some to be conformed as sons in the image of His Son, and saw others as alienated.

We must not confuse the order of divine action: it is not that God first predestines and then calls, but that His foreknowledge precedes and undergirds both. The psalm’s words about sinners alienated from the womb are not to be read as a denial of human responsibility, but as a description of a condition that, from birth, inclines toward falsehood—yet even then, the capacity for choice remains, however dim. To imagine that infants could speak lies in unison at birth is to misunderstand both language and moral agency. But when we read Paul’s own words in Galatians, we see that his separation from the womb was not a mere natural endowment, but a divine act aimed at revealing Christ in him—thus grounding the apostolic calling in God’s purpose, not human merit. This is why we affirm that all things work together for good for those who love God, not because they earned it, but because they were called according to His eternal purpose. The chain is clear: foreknowledge leads to predestination, predestination to calling, calling to justification, justification to glorification—each step dependent on the prior, none originating in predestination alone. If we reverse this order and make predestination the first cause, we open the door to those who would blame God for injustice, as if He arbitrarily chose some and rejected others. But Scripture refuses such a reading: God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of what comes to be, but the reflection of His knowledge of what will be, grounded in His eternal understanding of hearts inclined toward virtue or alienation. Thus, He foreknew some as those who would yield to virtue, others as those who would remain alienated—not because He made them so, but because He saw what they would become, in freedom, before time began.