The Free Offer of the Gospel

I recently chatted to my good friend Donald John Maclean about his new book 'All thing are Ready.'  You can order it via Free Church Books when it comes out.  Here is the Ragged Theology Podcast of our discussion.  Below is a short article form Donald John on the free offer.

What is the free offer of the gospel? It is good news all are invited to embrace without any worthiness or merit in themselves. It is the message that the church has been commissioned to take and preach to all nations. It is a message of hope, of reconciliation, of salvation, against the dark background of human sin and alienation from God. The free offer is the call to all to come to Jesus Christ and find in him the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the one in and through whom our sins can be forgiven. lt is the most important message in the world, and one that all need to hear preached with compassion and grace.

However, from time to time, questions arise over how this universal gospel invitation is consistent with God's sovereignty. How can God sincerely invite all to salvation if he has chosen that not all will be saved? The answer to this question is vital. The sovereignty of God cannot be minimised, but nor can his invitation to all or his compassion for all. The two must be held together because scripture teaches them both. On the one hand, those who are saved have been ‘predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will’ (Eph. 1:11). But equally the God of sovereign salvation declares, ‘Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezek. 33:11). God does not desire in or delight in the death of any.

If one of these truths is held out of scriptural balance then unhappy results must follow. If God's sovereignty is diminished then he is robbed of his glory and our confidence that sinners will be saved by God's grace is removed. But on the other hand if the gospel offer is denied, or hedged in so that it is no longer a loving invitation and pleading expressive of God's character but a mere announcing of truth, the pastoral consequences are disastrous. If I cannot be told that God invites me, and wants me to be saved, then how can I have the confidence to receive Jesus Christ as saviour? And if the preacher does not believe God desires the salvation of all, how can he lovingly plead on God's behalf for all to be saved? (2 Cor. 5:20) Where the well meant gospel offer is not believed and preached, the compassionate heart of the gospel is missing.

The best theologians of the past have preached the free offer in full confidence that the sovereign God would use the gospel invitation to reveal his compassion, and to save many. The great Scottish preacher and theologian Samuel Rutherford certainly preached this way in the seventeenth century: "It is ordinary for a man to beg from God, for we are but His beggars; but it is a miracle to see God beg at man. Yet here is the Potter begging from the clay; the Saviour seeking from sinners." May we share the gospel in the same spirit today.