The Berean - Romans 9:10-13 NKJV

The Berean - Romans 9:10-13 NKJV

(10) And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac (11) (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), (12) it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger.” (13) As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” 

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The way Paul explains this love-hate concept shows Goddisplayed His “hatred” before either Esau or Jacob had ever done a thing, and that His choice of Jacob expressed His love.

No clearer illustration shows that works had nothing to do with God’s choice of whom He would use for His purpose. God simply exercised His sovereign right as Creator God to do completely and totally according to His will. He decided to love one and not the other. What about the progeny of Esau, the Edomites? Who are they today, where do they live, and what is their history? God indeed blessed Esau, as Genesis 27:39-40 delineate:

Then Isaac his father answered and said to him: “Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; and it shall come to pass, when you become restless, that you shall break his yoke from your neck.”

Compare these blessings, however, with what God gave Jacob, or Israel. Who has God blessed superabundantly? Who lives in the fairest lands in all the earth? Who has been blessed with God’s Word?

Did He do this because the progeny of Jacob is any better than Esau’s or anyone else’s? No, He did it because He is God. He exercised His sovereignty in our behalf. He loved our fathers and He loves us. Notice Deuteronomy 7:7-8:

The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORDloves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORDhas brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

There it is, right in His Word. He seems to delight in choosing to pour out spiritual blessing upon those least esteemed and considered the weak (I Corinthians 1:26-31). Does this offend us, that He chooses one and not another? Are we disturbed that He distributes His blessings unequally, to one more, to another less?

— John W. Ritenbaugh