Gospel Invitations

[AV1611]

To whom are gospel invitations made? What saith the Scriptures?

Isa 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

Isa 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Isa 61:1-3 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Mat 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

My position is that the gospel should be preached to all (the gospel being the declaration of a promise) but gospel invitations are specific to sensible sinners. Your thoughts?

 

[toddpedlar]

To whom are gospel invitations made? What saith the Scriptures?

Isa 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

Isa 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Isa 61:1-3 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Mat 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

My position is that the gospel should be preached to all (the gospel being the declaration of a promise) but gospel invitations are specific to sensible sinners. Your thoughts?

What's a "sensible sinner"? I'm not sure anyone can actually tell who fits such a description, since what (I think) you mean by "sensible sinner" is a matter of the heart, whose state we are unable to judge. Hence the gospel (which must needs include invitation) should be made to all - just like in your first reference above, but it must be made with the understanding that the one coming has relinquished all claims to self-righteousness - just like in Matt 11:28 and Isa 55:1.

 

[Puritan Sailor]

Furthermore, how do sinners become "sensible?" Is it not through daily interactions with compassionate and godly Christians, persuading every sinner they know that they must be reconciled to God?

 

[MrMerlin777]

If anyone wants to restrict the offer of the Gospel, they need only restrict it to "any who thirst" or "all who labor and are heavy laden." The Bible addresses such groups and we should too.

Preach the Gospel to all. Freely offer to all. Only God knows His elect it is not for us to pick and choose. We are to call sinners to repent and believe the Gospel. The Holy Spirit will do His work as He wills.

 

[Ivan]

Preach the Gospel to all. Freely offer to all. Only God knows His elect it is not for us to pick and choose. We are to call sinners to repent and believe the Gospel. The Holy Spirit will do His work as He wills.

 

[Larry Hughes]

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMerlin777


Preach the Gospel to all. Freely offer to all. Only God knows His elect it is not for us to pick and choose. We are to call sinners to repent and believe the Gospel. The Holy Spirit will do His work as He wills.

[\quote]

Double and Triple ditto. The struggle or false dilemma many have with just simply giving the Gospel is that one can preach a man into hell by the Gospel. NOTHING can be further from the truth. This is where all "small print" or "to do" other gospels arise from, this idiotic fear of preaching a man into hell by the real naked Gospel, the ONLY Gospel there really is.

But the question comes, "what about the man that 'uses' the Gospel to justify his sin". The answer is very very simple, that old man will not survive the suffering of death upon final death, it's impossible. Only the new man can arise and survive because of that Gospel.

It once again boils down to this: Damnation does not occur due to an inibility to articulate the article of justification (this of course give NO excuse for a false article of justification), but rather occurs when the individual cannot find the merciful God under suffering. In suffering, all forms of "am I saved/how can I know", that is to say the Devil's attacks, the devil is trying to look like the saving god, the angel of light, salvation his way, works/to dos and make the God of wrath ONLY appear. That way the devil looks like god and God looks like the devil, the sinner is forced, without true naked pure Gospel GIVEN to them, to flee the God of wrath and unto the devil who looks like salvation to him/her. It takes the Gospel to pull a man to the God of wrath Who is ALSO the God of Mercy and out of the arms of the devil so appearing as salvation. But without the Gospel, all is lost, for a man cannot help but flee the wrath of God and into the devil's arms otherwise, he's forced to.

This is why ALL sermons and "couched" gospels are other gospel and damned TO THE HILT, cursed as Paul says, feces and all such terms the Apostle used for them and it is NOT TOO strong of language if one understands just what is at stake.

The communication of the Gospel must be without reservation, else it is a folly and false 'other' gospel. One cannot "ferret out the elect" like a gnostic by giving a limited gospel, a, "I have good news for some of you", or its implied version which is more often given.

It's not that certain doctrines are untrue, but that justification is central and what we've been given in this life TO KNOW salvation.

I saw it written once this way: It is neither by free will or election, but STILL justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The point being what is the Gospel that saves and is the power.

L

 

[JM]

Let me toss these in...

...does God in any manner seek the salvation of all men?

...a true Calvinist must say that in some sense God seeks the
salvation of all men: for the gospel offer expresses this. Here then is
an intentionality that is both significant (not a sham) and yet not
exactly the same as that decretal intentionality to efficaciously save
the elect alone.

If a man says no, God does not seek the salvation of all men in any
sense, I say to that man that he is a hypercalvinist.

If a man admits that in some sense God *does* seek the salvation of all
men, then he, not me, is faced with a dysjunction. For he says God seeks
the salvation of all men, but yet utterly failed to provide a provision
or means of salvation for all men.

And again, the idea that a conditional offer solves this, is to me
inadequate. It is God offering the gospel to all men, with a condition,
knowing all the while that there is no provision available for them. You
see, these sort of complaints cut both ways.Fn1

The problem is that everyone at some point has to step outside the
narrow univocally linear logic of ordered decretalism, if for a minute
they want to do justice to the complexity of Scripture and not to the
univocal logic.

The objector here can only reply, I would think, by trying to reimpose
the specious Amyraldian ordering of decrees.

The problem is though that now he is not dealing with me not on my terms,
on the terms of what *I* believe, but on the terms of what he alleges
someone else believed. To that there is nothing I can do: but repeat, I
dont believe that. After that, we need to walk away. Thats the powerful
point: while they choose to beat up on strawmen, there is nothing I can
do. Its a waste of time engaging them.

The attempt to recourse to hypotheticals is unhelpful too. What
they try to say is: the gospel is offered to all men conditionally. And
even though the provision is actually only for the elect, *if* any man (at
the concrete individual level) were to believe, there _would_have_been_
be a provision for him, for now it would be known that he was one of the
elect for whom the provision was made. Most will insist that the
provision is hypothetically available to all men in this manner, and so
the gospel offer from God is sincere.

The problem is: its our God, of this world, who offers the gospel to all
men of this world, of whom he knows a provision was never made. For
myself, I dont find the standard responses to this problem satisfactory.
The solution has to be to disconnect the sufficiency of the expiation
from the grounds of the offer and its sincerity.

But most highs want to maintain some connection between the sincerity of
the offer and the sufficiency of the provision. Cunningham is about the
only one (hypers not included) that I know who honestly realises the
problem and so severs that relationship, grounding the sincerity purely
in the authority of God.