Romans 9:13

13. Esau… hated Paul quotes the words of Malachi, uttered centuries afterward, concerning the Edomites, (under the name of Esau,) showing how the divine prediction is verified. The strong word hated needs no softening, as appears from the proof given of the hatred, namely, the positive devastation of his “heritage.” (Malachi 1:3.) The meaning ascribed by some commentators to the word, to love less, is hardly sustainable. Edom, as a prospective people, was foreseen as persistently Godless, and so divinely hated. And then, just as Israel personally represents, first, his natural seed, the Jews; and, second, the visible Jewish Church; and, third, his spiritual seed, by faith, Jew or Gentile, so does Esau represent, not only Edom external, but also the Edom spiritual, and reprobate by unfaith, whether descended from Esau or not, who, as such, are the just objects of divine hate. All this implies not that the evil of the Edomites or of Esau was decreed or necessitated, or that it secured the personal damnation of Esau or of any particular Edomite. Esau may have been saved; salvation was in reach of every Edomite.

On the above paragraph we may note: 1. The apostle sustains from beginning to end the doctrine that, even in patriarchal times, faith was the underlying condition of acceptance with God, and that, therefore, the promise of God in its true import, amid its various forms, has been completely fulfilled in the Christian Church notwithstanding the rejection of unbelieving Judaism. The train of thought in the paragraph thus lies in line with the train of thought through the entire epistle. 2. We are thus delivered from the absurdity of denying, as Barnes, that “God sees any thing in the individuals as ground for his choice” If a particular choice, or, what is the same thing, a choice of a particular object, presents in itself no ground of preference differencing it from millions of others, then it is a choice without a motive; and so (as Calvinistic writers themselves strenuously maintain) is no choice or election at all, but a mere chance stumbling upon the object. 3. On the words not of works, in Romans 9:11, Mr. Barnes says: “What the reasons are for choosing to eternal life he has not revealed, but he has revealed that it is not on account of their works, either performed or foreseen.” And has he not as plainly revealed that it is on account of our faith as that it is not on account of our works? The very purpose of 30-33 (besides hundreds of other texts) is to declare that it is on account of faith the Christian is accepted, and of unfaith that the unbelieving Jew is rejected. 4. That God’s choice of his elect is not “from nothing in them,” or for any mysterious unsearchable reason, is clear from God’s own word touching Abraham, the typical specimen, according to Paul, of all the elect. The reason God assigns for electing Abraham is given in Genesis 18:18-19: “I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the way of Jehovah, to do justice and judgment,” etc. Abraham was elected, therefore, for foreseen faith, evidenced by works. 5. The maxim of Augustine, “God does not choose us because we believe, but that we may believe,” is but half the truth. God does choose us, both because we believe and that we may believe. He chooses us from antecedent justifying faith unto a future persevering, fructifying, and glorifying faith. Our eternal election is based upon the antecedent eternal foresight of our free, excellent, yet non-meritorious faith, (see note on Romans 8:29,) non-meritorious in the sense of not meriting so great an election. (See note on Romans 3:24.)