Romans 9:10

And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one, even our father Isaac - for the, children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad that the purpose of God according to the election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

This passage details another restriction upon the identification of who are, or are not, children of Abraham, all of the posterity of Esau being cut off, despite the fact that they were not merely children of Abraham, but of Isaac as well; and their being cut off did not derive from some visible reason for it, such as a rebellion, or refusal to honor Isaac; they were totally excluded even before the birth of Jacob and Esau. The proposition Paul was establishing by presenting these facts is that it was not by natural descent alone that the Jews themselves were reckoned to be children of Abraham, because the group identified as Jews were far from being his only natural descendants. There was a separation in the immediate family of Abraham when Ishmael was cut off, and there was another separation in Isaac's immediate family when the Edomites (children of Esau) were cut off.

But a dramatic new factor was involved in the separation of Esau and his descendants from the recognized posterity of Abraham. The Jews could have justified the exclusion of the Ishmaelites, etc., and the preference for Isaac; upon the premise that Isaac was the only legitimate son, the only son of his true wife, the only son of a free woman, or such; but, in the exclusion of part of Isaac's posterity, no such distinctions were visible, Esau being not merely the son of Isaac's lawful wife, but his firstborn at that! This shows that the choice of Jacob was altogether a sovereign act of God, not dependent upon anything that either Jacob or Esau had either done or left undone, the election coming before either of them was born.

Before discussing the doctrine of election, as it is called, which surfaces in these verses, it is important to note exactly what the Lord said with reference to the election of Jacob in preference to Esau.

And the Lord said unto her (Rebekah), Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger (Genesis 25:23).

There is no problem whatever regarding what God did. The problem lies in the reasons people suppose God had for doing it. God's sovereign act of choice between Rebekah's twins took place before their birth; but God's decision was absolutely not capricious. Paul had already pointed out that God "foreknew" all people; and that foreknowledge on the part of God is revealed in the above citation from Genesis to have been the reasonable and righteous basis of God's election of Jacob. God foreknew everything concerning the unborn twins, but he chose to tell Rebekah a part of what was foreknown. First, two DIFFERENT kinds of people were about to be launched into the stream of history, one weak, the other STRONGER. In the light of such knowledge, could God have chosen the weaker? And what is meant by "two manner of people"? Esau's life quickly followed the pattern God had foreseen. He was a profane person and a fornicator (Hebrews 12:16). Thus, Esau was rejected and Jacob chosen because of God's foreknowledge of what would take place in the lives of both of them.

When Isaac blessed his sons, the scriptures relate that he did so "by faith concerning things to come" (Hebrews 11:20); and it is arbitrary and contrary to reason for anyone to suppose that God made choice between those brothers without taking into account the "things to come." Nothing in the election of Jacob and the exclusion of his brother had any bearing at all upon the eternal destiny of either, each individual having still been left free to choose the direction of his life; but it was concerned primarily, if not indeed totally, with the building of the nation of the covenant people.

It appears impossible to view Paul's words here as teaching that God determines the destinies of people before they are born, as taught by some, For example, Murray stated:

We are compelled, therefore, to find in this word a declaration of the sovereign counsel of God as it is concerned with the ultimate destinies of men.[9]

It should be remembered that Paul's entire argument here is to the effect that other factors besides fleshly descent had always been involved in determining the seed of Abraham. God's election was a factor in it; but that factor entered into the determination as a consequence of other factors. Esau was rejected because of what God knew he would become and of what Esau's character would produce in the lives of his posterity.

Not of works ... means "not of fleshly descent," as noted by Murray:

"Not of works" and "not of natural descent" are correlative and point to the same principle. Thus the apostle can adduce the one in an argument that is mainly concerned with the other without any sense of incongruity.[10]

This expression is just another way of saying that God's election of Jacob came without regard to deeds of the unborn twins, there having been none at the time of the election. It cannot mean that the election was decided without any regard to deeds they would perform in the future, which deeds were truly foreknown of God and plainly formed the righteous basis of the election. If the election was "not of works," what was it of? It was of the sovereignty and foreknowledge of God. David Lipscomb has this further thought on the meaning of "not of works":

It was not on account of works of their own that either might do, but Jacob would trust God and obey him. Those who do this God always selects as his beloved.[11]

Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated ... was not written of Isaac's sons before they were born, but centuries afterward, this being a quotation, not from Genesis, but from Malachi 1:2f. God's foreknowledge of what the Edomites would become was proved to be accurate by the sins and excesses of that people who came, in time, to deserve the denunciation recorded by Malachi.

Jacob and Esau, as individuals, were not the principal concern of the election, but the nations which they would produce. Despite that, the election had to begin with individuals. As Whiteside noted,

The selection of Jacob was the selection of a people rather than an individual.[12]

This harmonizes with Genesis 25:23, where the "manner of people" looms as God's great consideration. If Esau had been made the patriarch instead of Jacob, Israel would never have continued long enough to deliver the Messiah to mankind; but the overruling providence of the all-wise God interposed to prevent such a thing from taking place. God's choice did not determine the eternal destiny of either twin, their subsequent lives determining that; but God's choice did determine which would be the patriarch of Israel. The idea is here rejected that God ever chose any man to eternal life or death before he was born.

[9] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), 2p. 25.

[10] Ibid., p. 14.

[11] David Lipscomb, op. cit., p. 172.

[12] R.L. Whiteside, A New Commentary on Paul's Epistles to Saints in Rome (Denton, Texas: Miss Inys Whiteside, 1945). p. 199.