II.  Then, secondly, mark the universal obligation of the Christian life.

‘Called to be saints,’ says my text.  Now you will observe that the two little words ‘to be’ are inserted here as a supplement.  They may be correct enough, but they are open to the possibility of misunderstanding, as if the saintship, to which all Christian people are ‘called’ was something future, and not realised at the moment.  Now, in the context, the Apostle employs the same form of expression with regard to himself in a clause which illuminates the meaning of my text.  ‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ’ says he, in the first verse, ‘called to be an Apostle’ or, more correctly, ’a called Apostle.’  The apostleship coincided in time with the call, was contemporaneous with that which was its cause.  And if Paul was an Apostle since he was called, saints are saints since they are called.  ‘The beloved of God’ are ‘the called saints.’

I need only observe, further, that the word ‘called’ here does not mean ‘named’ or ‘designated’ but ‘summoned.’  It describes not the name by which Christian men are known, but the thing which they are invited, summoned, ‘called’ by God to be.  It is their vocation, not their designation.  Now, then, I need not, I suppose, remind you that ‘saint’ and ‘holy’ convey precisely the same idea:  the one expressing it in a word of Teutonic, and the other in one of classic derivation.

We notice that the true idea of this universal holiness which, ipso facto, belongs to all Christian people, is consecration to God.  In the old days temple, altars, sacrifices, sacrificial vessels, persons such as priests, periods like Sabbaths and feasts, were called ‘holy.’  The common idea running through all these uses of the word is belonging to God, and that is the root notion of the New Testament ‘saint’ a man who is God’s.  God has claimed us for Himself when He gave us Jesus Christ.  We respond to the claim when we accept Christ.  Henceforth we are not our own, but ’consecrated’—­that is, ‘saints.’

Now the next step is purity, which is the ordinary idea of sanctity.  Purity will follow consecration, and would not be worth much without it, even if it was possible to be attained.  Now, look what a far deeper and nobler idea of the service and conditions of moral goodness this derivation of it from surrender to God gives, than does a God-ignoring morality which talks and talks about acts and dispositions, and never goes down to the root of the whole matter; and how much nobler it is than a shallow religion which in like manner is ever straining after acts of righteousness, and forgets that in order to be right there must be prior surrender to God.  Get a man to yield himself up to God and no fear about the righteousness.  Virtue, goodness, purity, righteousness, all these synonyms express very noble things; but deep down below them all lies the New Testament idea of holiness, consecration of myself to God, which is the parent of them all.