In Iain Murray’s correspondence with David Engelsma (a Hoeksemian hyper-Calvinist in the Protestant Reformed Church) on the free offer of the gospel, he wrote that:
To put it more exactly so that none can evade, the free offer of the gospel is an expression of God's desire that sinners receive it. Murray is not saying that it is merely the case that God desires that sinners be under an obligation to receive it, but that He desires that they comply with and benefit from (through repentance and faith) what is offered in the gospel. This is a subtle difference, but even the Puritan John Howe had to deal with this subtlety long ago (click).
The critical issure here, of course, is not the mere use of the term ‘offer,’ but whether the offer of the gospel is an expression of God’s desire that it should be received by sinners.See Banner of Truth 307 (December 1995): 24–25.
To put it more exactly so that none can evade, the free offer of the gospel is an expression of God's desire that sinners receive it. Murray is not saying that it is merely the case that God desires that sinners be under an obligation to receive it, but that He desires that they comply with and benefit from (through repentance and faith) what is offered in the gospel. This is a subtle difference, but even the Puritan John Howe had to deal with this subtlety long ago (click).
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