A Begging God
In Donald John Maclean’s new book All Things Are Ready: Understanding the Gospel in its Fullness and Freeness (Christian Focus, 2021) he shares some interesting quotes from several Reformed writers.
In chapter 3 “What is the Gospel Offer” starts with Samuel Rutherford:
It is ordinary for a man to beg from God, … but it is a miracle to see God beg at man. Yet here is the Potter begin from the clay; the Saviour seeking from sinners (from Fourteen Communion Sermons, 1877).
Then Charles Hodge:
The stretching forth the hands is the gesture of invitation, and even supplication. God has extended wide his arms, and urged men frequently and long to return to his love; and it is only those who refuse, that he finally rejects. (The Epistle to the Romans, 350).
It is easy to think of evangelists or other Christians weeping over the souls of those who reject the gospel message. Indeed we should all, if we truly understand the gospel, be moved to pity for those who would die apart from Christ. So it is that those who bring the gospel, entreat, even beg, other men and women to accept the offer of the gospel. For one day it will be too late.
But, what about God?
Is it right to think of God as ‘begging’ that others would accept his offer of the Gospel? For one, God is sovereign, does not his sovereignty mean he can do what he pleases, and all that he does will come to pass?
I would send you to Maclean’s book (chapter 2 deals with this), along with J. I. Packer’s Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. But suffice to say we have these twin elements in biblical evangelism.
God is indeed sovereign
The Gospel offer is to all men, women, and children everywhere.
We have to harmonise these in some way. And simply put, we just take the biblical revelation at face value. Back to the point: does God beg? Does God desire and entreat for sinners to renounce sin and accept the reconciliation found in the Gospel message?
We see don’t we, that Jesus, when looking at Jerusalem, implored those in Jerusalem:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
A willing Saviour, overlooking an unwilling city. He entreats her people, “Come! I would gather you, like a hen gathers her chicks. Come! But you will not!”
Notice as well “How often would I…” this is not the first time Jesus has said this. His ministry was that of a call to repentance. A call to salvation and reconciliation. He took pity on the masses, the poor, the lame, and the sick.
Maclean says:
…the posture of the gospel invitation is of a father with outstretched arms, waiting for and begging wayward children to come home.” (All Things Are Ready, 53).
Two points:
First, if you are not a believer, the God of the Bible, the God who rules all is pictures in two broad brush strokes. One if that of a holy God, completely unapproachable, powerful, mighty, and dangerous! But the other is that of a loving Father, running to wayward children, offering them salvation, compelling, begging, entreating them to come! You have every assurance that if you come to Jesus he will never cast you. In fact just the opposite: he bids you come! Come to him and find rest.
Second, if you are a believer, should we not entreat others? Should we not care for others the way our Lord Jesus Christ cares? Should we not care as God the Father cares? Should we not beg, entreat, talk, ask, bug, annoy, and compel them to come in? In essence, should we not have the same heart that our Triune God has for the lost?
