Kingdom Ready Blog

In the last post, I mentioned that the following items appear to be true:

- In order for an individual to be saved, God needs to explicitly “call” that individual;

- God is not calling everyone.

Assuming that the above items are true, that leads us to another question:

Question 5: Why is God only calling certain people? In other words, why doesn’t God just call everyone, so that everyone has the opportunity to be saved?

As mentioned above, people cannot be saved, unless God explicitly calls them. Also, God is not calling everyone. As a result, the people who have not been called by God cannot be saved. So, that raises an obvious question – why isn’t God calling everyone? Why doesn’t He just call everyone – so that everyone can be saved?

John 4:23-24 (ESV):

²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

In the above verses, Jesus tells us that God is actively searching for people who want to worship Him in spirit and truth. In other words, God is looking for people who have a sincere desire to know the truth about Him, so that they can worship Him properly.

As a result, it appears that the only people God will “call” are people who have a sincere desire to know the truth about Him. Of course, not everyone has such a desire – and as a result, God is not calling everyone.

2 Corinthians 4:5-6 (ESV):

⁵For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

In the above verses, Paul tells us that God has “shone a light” in the apostles’ hearts, in order to give them knowledge about God and Jesus. I think that means that when God “calls” a person, He enables that person to learn the truth about Him – i.e., He enables that person to be saved.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 (ESV):

⁹The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, ¹⁰and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. ¹¹Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, ¹²in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

In the above verses, Paul appears to tell us that if a person does not want to worship God in spirit and truth, then God will actively prevent that person from knowing the truth! In other words, God will prevent that person from being saved!

Answer 5: God is only calling people who have a sincere desire to learn the truth about Him. Not everyone has that desire; and therefore, God is not calling everyone.

Also in the last post, I mentioned that there are four basic “groups” of people:

1. The “uncalled” group – the people in this group were never called by God at all.

2. The “unresponsive” group – the people in this group were called by God, but they did not respond to the call wholeheartedly.

3. The “chosen” group – the people in this group were called, and they did respond to the call.

4. The “betrayer” group – the people in this group were chosen at one time, but after that, they explicitly turned away from God.

I certainly do not know what percentage of people are in each of the four groups. However, I think it is very likely that the following items are true:

- The uncalled group is (by far) the largest of the four groups;

- The unresponsive group is much larger than the chosen group;

- The chosen group is larger than the betrayer group.

So now, we reach the final question:

Question 6: What is going to happen to the people in those four groups, after Jesus returns?

The following are my beliefs about what will happen to the people in the above four groups:

The “chosen” group – I think it is quite clear from Scripture that people who were chosen – and who never turned away after that – will be granted everlasting life, immediately after Jesus returns. Consider the following verses:

John 5:28-29 (ESV):

²⁸Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice ²⁹and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Revelation 20:6 (ESV):

⁶ Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

Philippians 3:20-21 (ESV):

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

I think the above verses (plus a number of other ones) tell us that the “chosen” group contains the people who will be resurrected during the “resurrection of life” – and who will rule with Christ, with “glorified” bodies, during the millennium.

The “betrayer” group – It also seems clear to me what will happen to the people in the betrayer group – they are guaranteed to be condemned to permanent death, after Jesus returns. Consider the following passage, in which Jesus speaks about Judas. (Judas is definitely in the “betrayer” group – because he literally betrayed Jesus, after he was literally chosen.)

Matthew 26:24 (ESV):

²⁴The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

It certainly seems to me that Judas is guaranteed to be destroyed, after Jesus returns – because why else would Jesus use the above language?

The “uncalled” group –Scripture does not provide explicit information about what will happen to the people who were never called. However, there are a number of passages which appear to infer information about that group:

1 Timothy 2:3-4 (ESV):

³This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

2 Peter 3:9 (ESV):

⁹ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The above verses indicate that God wants everyone to be saved – i.e., He does not want anyone to be destroyed. Of course, the people in the uncalled group have never been called – and therefore, those people never had any opportunity to be saved! So, it certainly does not seem correct that God will just destroy all of the people in the uncalled group. In other words, since God wants everyone to be saved – and since people in the uncalled group have never had any chance to be saved – it seems that God will give those people an opportunity to be saved, at some point.

Next, consider these verses:

John 12:32-33 (ESV):

³²And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” ³³He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

The above verses state that Jesus will draw, or “call”, everyone to himself, after his crucifixion. That is consistent with the previous verses, which mention that God wants everyone to be saved. The question is, is Jesus calling everyone now – i.e., is he calling everyone during this age? I don’t think so. For one thing, as mentioned in question 2, in order for people to be saved, they need to understand about God, Jesus and the Kingdom. Does everyone understand about those things now? Certainly not. On the contrary – there are very, very few people who understand those things – especially the Kingdom – right now.

Also, during this age, millions of people have died as infants (little babies) – and of course, an infant can’t possibly make the decision to follow Jesus; because an infant can’t even understand that concept! So, everyone who died as an infant definitely was not called during this age.

So, I think that everyone will be called eventually, but not everyone will be called during this age. As a result, my basic understanding of what will happen to people in the uncalled group is as follows:

1. Uncalled people will be resurrected, during the “resurrection of judgment” – but they will be resurrected with mortal (i.e., “natural”) bodies. In other words, they will be resurrected with bodies like the ones that we have now.

2. Then, those people will be given a finite amount of time to live, as mortals, in the kingdom of God. That period of time will allow them to learn the truth about God, Jesus and the Kingdom. I refer to that period of time as their “judgment period” – from the “resurrection of judgment”.

3. If those people choose to follow Jesus during their judgment period, then they will be granted everlasting life, at the end of that period. If those people refuse to follow Jesus during that time, then they will simply die at the end of that time.

In other words, people in the uncalled group will have the opportunity to be saved – but they will not have that opportunity until after Jesus returns.

Note: I have written an entire presentation that deals with the resurrection of “uncalled” people. That presentation is located at the following URL:

The Resurrection of “Ignorant” People

The “unresponsive” group – This group presents the greatest challenge; it is quite difficult for me to determine exactly what will happen to the people in this group.

On one hand, we might expect that all of the unresponsive people will be destroyed – because those people had a chance to learn the truth, and be saved, during this age. On the other hand, though, conditions are extremely difficult during this age – because “the whole world is lying in the power of the evil one”. As a result, we might expect that God would show mercy on people who failed to respond “wholeheartedly” to His call, during the present, evil age.

Overall, I believe that people in the unresponsive group will be resurrected, as mortals, during the resurrection of judgment. In other words, I believe that the people in the unresponsive group will have basically the same fate as people in the “uncalled” group.

The main difference between the two groups is that after Jesus returns, the people in the unresponsive group will realize that they could have been co-rulers with Jesus, if they had sincerely responded to God’s call during this age. As a result, those people will regret the fact that they did not respond to the call. I think this is what is meant by the “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, in the Wedding Banquet parable. Also, I think that the “outer darkness” in that parable refers to the fact that the unresponsive people will be excluded from ruling with Jesus. (I do not think that it refers to permanent death.)

I could certainly be wrong about the above information (in fact, I could be wrong about this entire post – I am only an imperfect human, after all!) So, I would definitely welcome any feedback that any of you may have.