COMPEL THEM TO COME IN:
Calvinism and the Free Offer of the Gospel
By Donald Macleod
Christian Focus. 155 pages. £12.99
ISBN 978 1 527 105 249
Is evangelistic preaching somehow less urgent or even unnecessary if you are a Calvinist? That is the question answered throughout this short but weighty book by Professor Donald Macleod and unsurprisingly the answer is an unequivocal ‘no’.
Macleod begins and ends by focusing on a landmark sermon by Spurgeon from which the title is derived. Each chapter title starts with ‘The free offer’ and the chapters examine how proclaiming this offer relates to different dimensions of Calvinism, evangelism, or the character of God.
For the most part Macleod writes as to convinced Calvinists. He argues from Scripture that doctrines such as predestination still require that the gospel be preached with conviction to all.
The book regularly quotes preachers and stories from Reformed history, but the writer’s emphasis is on the witness of Scripture rather than that of church history. This approach is exemplified in a discussion of the free offer and limited atonement. Macleod notes how, from Scripture, Calvinist preachers throughout history had heard ‘a voice that Christ had loved His church and given Himself for her’ and a voice that c o m m a n d e d them to bring the good news to all. He observes that ‘It was none of their business to reconcile the two voices. Their duty was to believe the one, and to obey the other.’
This book is likely to be read mainly by preachers. It urges us to recapture the perspective of eternity and evangelistic fervour of famous Calvinist preachers of the past. The professor encourages his readers to be less concerned with the critique of ‘hyper-Calvinists’ than with faithfulness to proclaiming the free offer of the gospel.
For many of us I suspect the real barrier to passionate evangelistic preaching comes from an unhealthy fear of rejection by our culture and the pervasive influence of universalism in many of our denominations. We always need to hear and heed Macleod’s challenge to hold up Christ so that people may be drawn to the Saviour.
