God’s free choice
The mistaken conclusion Paul wants to head off is the thought that there is some reason discernible to the human mind as to why God does what he does—in other words, that God’s election is in response to what people do or don’t do. Paul debunks that notion with a second example, also from the life of the patriarchs.
Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
In looking at the case of Isaac and Ishmael, it would be very easy for someone to reason as follows: Of course God wouldn’t choose Ishmael. He didn’t have the right mother. He was born of an Egyptian slave girl. Isaac had the advantage of being born of Sarah, the patriarch’s real wife.
To take away the possibility of seeing merit in the life and actions of an individual as the basis for God’s election, Paul now turns to the case of Jacob and Esau. God’s dealing with them will make it very plain that his election comes about “not by works but by him who calls”—that is, not by people’s doing or merit but by God’s sovereign choice.
Isaac, chosen over Ishmael by God to be the bearer of the messianic line, married Rebekah, and God blessed them with twins, Jacob and Esau. Actually, Esau was born first (Genesis 25:25) and would normally have been expected to receive priority. “Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls— she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’”
Receiving the birthright of the firstborn involved advantages in family leadership and inheritance of property, but in the case of the patriarchal family, there was another factor involved. The choice of Jacob over Esau included the great distinction that Jacob, not Esau, would be the bearer of the promise and an ancestor of the Savior. Why did these distinctions go to Jacob? Not because of any inherent worth or value in Jacob but because God wanted it that way. It was his sovereign choice.
Paul quotes the prophet Malachi (1:2,3) to show just how sharp a distinction God made between the two. He says the matter is “just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” Bible interpreters have struggled with this quotation. Rather often the explanation is given that hate is to be understood here as “to love less.” The problem with this interpretation is that when one arbitrarily softens the meaning of hate to something less, the degree of its opposite partner, love, is also called into question. Can love mean less than total devotion? If so, how does that affect “God so loved the world . . .”?
A better explanation is to let both terms have their full meaning and see in them the twofold quality exhibited by a loving and merciful God who is also just and holy. As a just and holy God, he is rightly angry with sin and hates the sinner. And who are the sinners whom God hates? Recall how convincingly Paul made the point earlier that all people are sinners lacking the righteousness that avails before God. By nature all of them are under his wrath. But God is also a loving and merciful God—so unalterably opposed to the sin he hates that in love he gave his very Son to die as the only acceptable payment for the sins of all the world.
Both these statements are therefore true: God hates the sinner; God loves the sinner. In the final analysis of this Malachi quotation, we have the tension that exists between law and gospel. The law thunders God’s hatred of sin and the sinner, voiced when the psalmist says of God, “The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong” (Psalm 5:5). But the same God who cannot tolerate sin also solemnly asserts, “As surely as I live, . . . I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). This is also the God of whom Paul has said, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
The Lord hates sin and sinners, and the Lord dearly loves sinners and wants them saved. The resolution to this seeming paradox is found in the cross of Calvary, where Christ’s perfect sacrifice once and for all made it possible for a just and holy God to accept sinners—believing sinners with forgiven sins.