“Gershom,” you ask how is it that the saints whom Peter addresses as, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 1:2), are told in 2 Peter 1:10, “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure?”
It seems strange to say to a person who possesses a thing to “lay hold” of it, and “make sure” of it, as you find in many places— yet it’s always the way in Scripture. Timothy had eternal life, and yet he is told to “Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called.” (1 Tim. 6) There are many instances of the kind. Scripture always looks upon the Christian, in the two-fold condition,