Calvinist Peter on Election and Perseverance

I continue to see people who claim that the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism aren't biblical. However, as I have demonstrated frequently, those doctrines are distributed all over Scripture, in both Testaments, and even in the words of Jesus Himself.

Here is another example: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (I Peter 1:1-5). 

This is the opening salutation of the epistles of Peter. Notice to whom he is speaking, "those who are elect." So, he is not speaking to men, in general. In particular, those words preclude the unconverted from Peter's message. Moreover, he is speaking not merely to believers, but to those whom he calls the elect, emphasizing the sovereign grace by which we have been made believers. That is the "U" in "TULIP," "unconditional election." Elected by whom? By the Father. By what means? By the Holy Spirit. To what end? To believe in Jesus. Thus, Peter sees believers to be such by a cooperative effort of each Person of the Trinity. Peter could not be describing the deities of the Arian or the Sabellian, but only the triune God of orthodox Christianity. 

On our experiential end, what was the effect of the Father's election of us? To be caused to be born again. "Caused" necessarily implies that the origin of our rebirth is outside of ourselves. On what basis? Was it our foreseen faith? No, Peter tells us that it was out of His mercy alone. Furthermore, that rebirth has brought us into an inheritance that can never be lost, because its keeping isn't in our hands, but is rather preserved in Heaven, by God's power (compare John 10:28-29). That is perseverance of the saints, the "P" in "TULIP." 

Finding such obvious expressions of the Calvinist soteriology throughout Scripture continues to make me wonder at the claims of Arminians to be Bible-believing. Closing one's eyes to what the Scriptures say is not believing them.