Yep. And nothing I posted previously should be construed in any way to say otherwise.
If that passage can correctly be construed to imply an invitation to salvation, then the criticism saying there's no such precedent in scripture is incorrect.
This is what I am directly dealing with in my posts. That passage cannot be used to imply an invitation to salvation. Rather than just saying that, I am showing why it cannot be. Because it is not an invitation to salvation. The old covenant in and of itself, by obedience to the Law never saved anyone and was not intended to. That has always been by faith and no one is called to faith, but faith is given. Then and now.
These are very important details when it comes to the established covenant and its membership.
Irrelevant to the point I am making. Which was, as the conversation had progressed to your statement that Is. 1 was spoken to figuratively to Sodom and Gomorrah, that it was not. In the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, God made no call to them, he simply destroyed them.
It's a call but not a call? What is the difference between an invitation and a call? The Oxford dictionary cites "call" as a synonym for "invitation." So does the thesaurus. Why can a call to formerly covenant people who gone wayward to return to faithfulness not be used to call sinners outside of that covenant to repentance?
The distinction is not between a call and an invitation. The subject is who is given the call and for what purpose. That is why Is. 1 cannot be used as a precedent for the modern altar call. And they were not formerly covenant people in Isaiah, they were covenant people. And I have never said God does not call people. The subject at hand, in this conversation, is can Is. 1 be used as a precedent for legitimizing the modern altar call? No. And that does not mean that the altar call is completely illegitimate. The way it is used is what is illegitimate. No where in the NT do we see the apostles or Jesus give an altar call, an invitation to invite Jesus into their life as Lord and Savior. Jesus IS Lord and Savior.
Jesus simply said that those who didn't believe, did not believe because they were not his sheep. The epistles were written to those who are already in Christ, not unbelievers. The facts are stated. Who Jesus is, what he did, why he had to do it, how he did it,-----as was the case with post Reformation preaching in the churches. Those who believed, believed. Those who did not believe, did not. The trust was in God, not in an altar call where salvation is presented as the sinner inviting Jesus.
Why then should all invitations from the preacher, the "invitation system" as a whole, be discarded as unscriptural?
I never said it should. It is the motivation behind it, at least in non-Reformed churches. It teaches that it is the altar call and the decision of a sinner to believe that is upside down, and but for the grace of God in some cases---yours and mine, just for an example, remains upside down from then on. The theology is off from day one.
Theoretically? I would like to see evidence for that in the words of an altar caller. Even were it true the call is an enticement, so what? Sinners cannot be enticed to believe and call on the Son of God if God is at work in their lives to do so? What if altar calls were theoretically devices used by God to drag sinners to His Son?
It is theoretical on the part of the preachers offering this altar call, because it is not a theological fact that a person is saved by choosing to believe in the Son of God. And it is teaching a man centered salvation. A salvation by merit. Salvation is by grace through faith and that is a gift of God. God will save who he will save and by whatever means he chooses. It is a part of the great victory that Christ accomplished. Even the seeds of deception sown in the hearts of a preacher, and expressed in altar calls that present this salvation by merit, cannot keep a single one of those who Christ died for from hearing his voice and following him. The problem is in the altar call and prayer of invitation
to Jesus, it is presented as the guarantee of salvation. Resulting in many false conversions.
I do not. I was converted to Christ via an altar call and while I was Arminian for many years I have been a stalwart advocate of monergism for multiple decades while still holding to the altar call experience. I simply assign everything to God instead of humans. I assume I am not the only one who has ever had an experience as divinely decided as my own, considering the millions of people who have responded to altar calls over the last two centuries.
I am sure your are not the only one. I myself was not converted via an altar call, but nonetheless it was the saying of a prayer which began in my case with "Just in case this is true----" that was invitational to Jesus. Whatever the prayer was, that was given in the book I was reading when my heart began to turn. And for twenty three years, I thought that was why Jesus saved me. Looking back after by grace God led me to the truth of the matter, I see that was an indication of the softening of my heart and regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
So I am not arguing that no one is saved by responding to an altar call. I am saying for centuries there were no altar calls as we see them since Charles Finney, and people were still saved, by the preaching/reading of the word. The theology behind the modern altar call is wrong, usually it is emotionally manipulated, and Is. 1 cannot be used to either legitimize or illegitimize the altar call. That is not where anyone's objection to them rests. It rests on the motivation and theology.
