This is part 5 of 6 postings of an article I wrote in 1999 entitled Rescuing the Perishing: A Defense of Giving Invitations.  (If you wish to read the article in its entirety along with footnotes, click on the hyperlink title above.)

Theological Arguments
Speaking of ice, the public invitation is an example of what could be called an “iceberg issue.”  Concern for the invitation is only the tip of a large set of unseen theological assumptions.  What we believe about how God saves a lost sinner eventually determines how we go about doing evangelism.  Some reject giving invitations because they do not believe that God desires the salvation of all or that salvation is even available for the non-elect.  

Charge: There is no "well meant offer" of the Gospel to all. 

Hyper-Calvinists such David Engelsma and John Gerstner reject the view that the Gospel is genuinely offered to everyone that hears it.  They do not believe that God loves all people and desires their salvation.  Engelsma claims that Paul
                did not believe, nor did he ever preach, that God loved all men, was gracious to
                all men, and desired the salvation of all men, that is he did not believe, teach,
                or give the well-meant offer of the Gospel…. Paul did not regard the preaching
                of the gospel as an offer of salvation to everyone, directed to everyone in a
                universal love of God and providing everyone with a chance to be saved.[1]   

Engelsma gives a list of statements that he says no true preacher would ever say: “God loves all of you, and Christ died for all of you…God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life…God is gracious to all of you and sincerely desires your salvation.”  His blunt assessment of such declarations is: “This message is false.”[2]  With such a conception of the love of God, it is not difficult to see why Engelsma sees no need for invitations.

Reply: Southern Baptists recognize that God’s offer of salvation to all is real.

In contrast to Engelsma and Gerstner, the Baptist Faith and Message teaches that the Gospel is a genuine offer.[3]  It also teaches that this grace is consistent with man’s genuine and meaningful response.  A genuine offer necessitates a call for a decision.  And a call for a decision is by its very nature an invitation.

Charge: Repentance and faith are the results of being born again, not the conditions for salvation. 

In order to understand the objections of those like Engelsma, one must realize that they see salvation as a process.  First, the elect is regenerated, and then afterwards his repentance and faith reveal this new life.  Faith is not the condition to salvation, it is the result of it.  In such a system, giving an invitation is superfluous.  In many ways, the debate about the invitation is really a disagreement about the order of salvation.

Reply: Conversion is not a process, and that regeneration is simultaneous with conversion (John 1:12). 

Faith is not the means to deserve salvation, but it is the means to obtain it (John 3:36; Acts 16:31).  Faith is not the condition for God to give salvation, but it is the condition to receive it.  Therefore exercising faith is not meriting salvation.  When a free gift is given, the merit belongs to the giver of the gift, not the recipient (Rom.4:16; Eph. 2:8-9).

Charge: Pleading with men to come to Christ is disgraceful and even idolatrous. 

According to Engelsma, preachers are called to proclaim the Gospel, not to persuade men to receive it.  He describes anyone who tries to persuade the hearer as an “offer-man.”

                  An ‘offer-man,’ if he is consistent, must beg sinners, and the disgraceful
                  practice abounds today.  It is revolting to anyone who has caught a glimpse of
                  the majesty of God, the excellent glory of the risen Jesus, and the sovereignty
                  of grace to hear the ‘offer-men’ begging recalcitrant sinners please to accept             
                  Jesus and come to the front.  They conjure up the spectacle of the Baal
                  prophets ranting and raving in their ‘altar call’ for their powerless god to send
                  the fire.[4]

So Engelsma likens those who urge men to come to Christ to the prophets of Baal.  He says giving invitations is tantamount to idolatry because in his opinion it focuses on the sinner rather than the sovereign work of grace.             
      
Reply: Besides being offensive, his characterization is patently false. 

We would agree that salvation is completely a work of God, but we also believe that He uses intermediate means to accomplish His work.  It is God who calls men to salvation, but He uses the Gospel preacher to issue the summons. As noted earlier, the word "persuade" is often used in the Bible to describe evangelistic efforts.  This is not a denial of the essential work of the Holy Spirit in drawing people to Christ.  No one can argue someone to Jesus, but God does use our earnest solicitations to accomplish His will.

Engelsma says that urging men to be saved denigrates the glory of God.  But surely Engelsma does not care more about God's glory than does the Lord Himself.  In Hosea, the Lord presents Himself as pleading with idolatrous Israel as a husband would plead with a wayward wife.  The Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son was willing to run to the younger son and go out to plead with the older son.  Does Engelsma think Jesus was mimicking the prophets of Baal when he wept over Jerusalem and exclaimed, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”  There is nothing disgraceful in Paul’s appeal when he states, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).  There is a place for earnest, brokenhearted preaching.  The invitation is a natural expression of the sincere, godly desire for people to come to Christ.