Isaiah 42:5-7 “Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: ‘I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.’” Note an order in our calling: first, God creates and gives spirit. In terms of redemption, the creative act is regeneration, birth by the Holy Spirit (John 3:3). Then God calls us in righteousness, and we, like Lazarus, who are made alive, hear the call. Then God takes us, his called people, by the hand and keeps us. He makes covenant with us, and we become instruments of light in the midst of a dark world (Matt. 5:16, Phil. 1:15).

Acts 11:20-21, “But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.” Here Luke gives us a simple and unmistakable connection between the calling of God and the metaphor of God’s laying His hand on us. In this case the hand of the Lord is with the missionaries, and thus it is His enabling power that results in people believing and turning to the Lord. Conversion is the work of God symbolized by the action of His hand!

Acts 13:10-12, “…and [Paul] said, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.’ Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.” The relationship between the calling and the hand of God is an indirect one here, but it is present, nonetheless. God used the wickedness of Elymas the sorcerer to lead a Roman proconsul to faith. He called the proconsul (the highest rank a Roman official could hold, having been consul of Rome, equivalent to our president, now serving as a provincial governor) through the disciplinary action of striking Elymas blind. His hand laid in wrath on a reprobate sinner produced faith in one of his elect!

Paul wrote in Rom. 8:30, “Those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” It is the hand of God, working through the special providence of redemption that accomplishes this great salvation for us!