Called of His Own Good Pleasure

Preaching in the early 1560s on the call of the twelve apostles in Mk. 3:13-19 and Lk. 6:12-19, Calvin speaks powerfully of God's gracious calling:

When God calls us to positions of prominence or responsibility, he does so of his own good pleasure, and not, as we imagine, because he considers us more capable than others. His aim is to humble us, by showing that everything depends on his grace and not on human merit. Now if this is true of temporal preferments, how much more does the principle apply to our eternal salvation! When God adopts us as his children in order to make us members of our Lord Jesus Christ and sharers in his heavenly glory, what credit can men possibly claim for themselves?

—John Calvin, Sermons on the Beatitudes, transl. Robert White (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2006), 6.