In his first post dealing with Hyper-Calvinism and the free offer (click), Zaspel (a Reformed Baptist) briefly expounds a number of biblical passages. On Isaiah 55:1–7, he says:
Amazingly God stoops to the level of a peddlar on the street corner selling (giving away!) his wares, indeed, even begging the wicked and evil man to come to him for free pardon.Then, on 2 Cor. 5:20, he writes:
Two words are significant here. First he says that God himself is “making his appeal” through the apostle’s preaching. The word used here (parakaleo) has a wide range of meanings. Very often it carries the connotation of pleading, begging, beseeching, entreating (e.g., Mt.8:5; Mt. 18:32; Mk. 1:40; Acts 16:9). And it is clear that this is the meaning here coupled as it is with the next word deomai. But what is especially significant here is that it is God himself who is said to do the pleading. The second word (deomai) means to beg. And again what is significant is that Paul speaks of this begging as coming through him from God himself. God’s appeal is echoed in the apostle’s pleading. Paul is God’s ambassador, and in his passionate pleading with sinners he preaches the gospel in the spirit of the one who sent him.About Fred Zaspel
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