Now, as Christians, we know that God in Christ alone saves people. However, as His people, He many times gives us the gracious privilege of being the means He uses to bring about salvation. And, it is God who even brings about the occasions upon which He saves. In fact, not only has He chosen those whom He saves by Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4), but at His appointed time He first regenerates them and thereby gives them the gift of faith to believe the gospel when He calls them by the gospel (John 3:3-7; Titus 3:4-7; Ephesians 2:8-10). So, as Paul says, “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). And again, in 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 he says 13 “But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, 14 to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Keep in mind also that God “has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens” (Romans 9:18). This means that even when we press people for the ultimate, and thus their ultimate need for salvation by Christ, we do not determine their responses. God may have mercy on them so that they believe, or He may harden their hearts further in unbelief. So although the desire of our heart and our prayer to God is to be that He would save them (cf. Romans 10:1), we also acknowledge that He determines the outcome, which is whether the person or persons will be those whom He “endured with much longsuffering,” those being “the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,” or that “He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy,” those being the ones “which He had prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:22-23).
Thus, even though God alone in Christ alone saves, He graciously determines that many times when people are “called” to salvation by His gospel, it is “heard from us.” So as His people, we may rightly say it is “our gospel” as well. Since this is the case, needless to say, we are “conversational” people, and there is no greater conversation we can have with non-Christians than gospel conversation. All-in-all then, “pressing for the ultimate” pertains to a conversationally efficient way of pressing people to see their ultimate need for salvation by Christ. And this is whether we “press” them for this immediately in conversation, or whether we “press” them initially concerning ultimate questions leading to their ultimate need for Christ (See for example the “conversations” in Matthew 22:41-46, Acts 2:22-41 and Acts 17:16-34). So, in “pressing for the ultimate,” there are some theological truths and terms that we need to understand. And it is not even necessary that the non-Christians understand all of these truths and terms. We need to understand them so that we know what we are “pressing” them for, and thus we want to be able to explain these things to them if need be. So, with that in mind, let’s look at these truths and terms. (to be continued . . .)
All things according to God 