One of the differences between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism is whether God truly desires the salvation of the wicked. The following is my digest for John Murray’s article on the God’s offer of the gospel.

Note: decretive will is the decree of God that something will happen. It was God’s decretive will that Christ die on the cross.
John Murray, Collected Writings, vol II, Studies in Theologies, 113-32

I. “God not only delights in the penitent but is also moved by the riches of his goodness and mercy to desire the repentance and salvation of the impenitent and reprobate” (pg. 113).
II. This does not refer to God’s decretive will only his revealed will. If it referred to his decretive will then there would be a contradiction because then God would be willing the damnation of the wicked and desiring the salvation of all. The key word is “desires.” God takes pleasure when the wicked turn to him in repentance (Ezek. 33:11). God’s desire is not for their salvation apart from repentance but he desires that the wicked turn from their sin to him in submission and obedience.
III. Scriptural Basis
1. Matthew 5:44-48 – though this passage does not deal directly with “the overtures of grace in the gospel,” we do see God’s grace and “benevolence.” Jesus tells the disciples to love their enemies and to bless them and not curse them because God blesses those who are his enemies and since the disciples are God’s children, they should do the same. Implied in this passage is the love of God for his enemy. The blessings are a manifestation of that love. This love of the unrepentant is not “something incidental in God but as that which constitutes an element in the sum of divine perfection” (pg. 116). The parallel passage makes this clear (Luke 6:35, 36).
2. Acts 14:17 is another passage that shows that God gave testimony to the unrepentant through his blessings.
3. Deuteronomy 5:29; 32:29; Psalm 8:13ff; Isaiah 48:18 – God expresses his desire that Israel would keep his commandments. Here is “an instance of desire on the part of God for the fulfillment of that which he had not decreed” (pg. 118).
4. Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34 – in these passages Jesus wills something that did not come to pass. Jesus yearns for the salvation of the people of Israel. Jesus is not speaking from a human perspective but from the perspective of his office as “God-man Messiah and Saviour.” “Our Lord in the exercise of his most specific and unique function as the God-man gives expression to a yearning will on his part that responsiveness on the part of the people of Jerusalem would have provided the necessary condition for the bestowal of his saving and protecting love, a responsiveness, nevertheless, which it was not the decretive will of God to create in their hearts” (pg. 120). But this does not mean that there is not perfect harmony in the Godhead (John 12:49, 50; 14:10, 24; 17:8)
5. Exekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11 – God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. There is no qualifier on the type of the wicked. It is clear from these passages that God desires the wicked to turn from their evil ways, “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, and why will ye die” (33:11). Why should they die when they don’t have to. God wills that all would repent and be saved. But this is not referring to God’s decretive will. “In terms of his decretive will it must be said that God absolutely decrees the eternal death of some wicked and, in that sense, is absolutely pleased so to decree” (pg. 125).
6. Isaiah 45:22 – this passage is a universal call for repentance (“all the ends of the earth”). The meaning of “saved” here would have to be the same as verse 17, “But Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation.” The emphasis of this passage is that there is no other way to be saved but by him; he is the only Savior (vv. 15, 20, 21). Again this is not his decretive will. When dealing with God’s revealed will and his decretive will it “might seem to us that the one rules out the other. But it is not so. There is a multiformity to the divine will that is consonant with the fullness and richness of his divine character” (pg. 127).
7. 2 Peter 3:9 – Murray does not believe that this verse refers to God being long-suffering to the elect. The delay in the coming judgment is due to the fact that God is being patient to sinners so that they can come to repentance. When Peter says that God is long suffering on “on your account,” the “your” in view here is not restricted to the elect. “Following his exegesis of 2 Peter 3:9 Calvin says: ‘But it may be asked, If God wishes none to perish, why is it that so many perish? To this my answer is, that no mention is here made of the hidden purpose of God, according to which the reprobate are doomed to their own ruin, but only of his will as made known to us in the gospel. For God there stretches out his hand without a difference to all, but lays hold only of those, to lead them unto himself, whom he has chosen before the foundation of the world'” (pg. 131).

IV. “The grace offered is nothing less than salvation in its richness and fullness. The love or lovingkindness that lies back of that offer is not anything less; it is the will to that salvation. In other words, it is Christ in all the glory of his person and in all the perfection of his finished work who God offers in the gospel” (pg. 132).