[the children] indeed being not yet born, or having done anything good or worthless (that the purpose of God according to election might abide, not of works, but of him that calls),
Paul has just said that God's word to Israel has not failed. He proves it from Israel's own family history: twin boys, one mother, one father, and God's choice announced before either was born. If God decides before anyone has acted, is that fair?
Paul's first example was Ishmael and Isaac. A Jewish objector had a way around it.
Through Isaac shall your offspring be named; but the Jewish objector might say, Yes, but Hagar was a slave, and Ishmael slave-born. Well, but take Esau and Jacob of one mother — that is a case no one can object to. Yet Jacob was chosen, not Esau, and it was of pure grace, before they had done good or evil. The circumstances were natural, but the principle, pure sovereign grace, is to set aside the national claims of the Jews. They must let in Ishmaelites and Edomites, or allow God to be sovereign.
The choice settled position: which brother would hold first place on earth. Both boys later did wrong, and God's word still stood.
Even before their birth, God chose the younger son Jacob to receive the place of earthly supremacy. This proves that they were not blessed on the ground of their own works. When God spoke of their relative positions, they were not born, and they had done neither good nor evil. Afterwards they both did evil: but God secured, by His own faithfulness to His promise, the place of supremacy for Jacob.
A popular explanation says God looked ahead, saw that Jacob would turn out better, and chose on that basis. Commentators answer that the wording of the verse shuts that door.
The apostle contrasts the call of God with works, rather than our faith. He does this to cut off the poor semi-Pelagianism of teachers old and new, which would make election governed by the foreseen superiority of one to the other. Language could not contradict that idea more exactly. Esau had done no ill to disqualify him, Jacob no good to qualify him; but before either of the twins was born, God in the exercise of His sovereign will chose that the greater should serve the lesser. Such was His purpose. Their works had nothing to do with the matter. Paul shuts them out, so that all rests on the caller, God Himself.
Paul puts it negatively, then positively.
It is "not because of works" — neither works done at the moment when God chooses, nor works done later: it is "not because of works" at all! It is "of Him who calls". Here is the true source, origin and centre of divine purpose and election: it is in "Him who calls", in God Himself.
The same principle decides who inherits.
Esau had nature's right of inheritance, for he was the firstborn. But what was to be inherited was divine promise, and that can rest only in the vessel prepared to receive it. So God's calling runs ahead of the course of nature, and contradicts it. Blessing is kept in God.
Scripture later says God hated Esau. Readers often read that back into this verse, as though God rejected an unborn child.
There is no ground here for that absolute reprobation which Calvin deduces from this place. Not a syllable is hinted as to hating the unborn Esau in Genesis 25. Man is quick to infer the rejection of the one from the choice of the other. This is unfounded. Out of two who have no claim, to choose one to a superior place is to exercise will. But to show favour in one case is not to condemn the other. Both were born in sin and grew up in sins. That is what makes a person liable to condemnation, which turns on man's sins, not on God's purpose. It is not God's word to Rebekah, but the word spoken through the prophet Malachi, that speaks of hating Esau. It was at the very close of the Old Testament, after Esau had displayed his unrelenting enmity to Israel. The love to Jacob was thus free; the hatred had moral grounds in Esau.
The gap of centuries between the two statements is itself instructive about how God's choices are vindicated.
The wisdom and rightness of God's choice is always revealed in the after history, and thus His election always justifies itself in its results. Before Esau and Jacob were born the divine word was "the older will serve the younger." A thousand years after their careers were over it was put on record, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
That leaves the question of fairness, and one writer meets it head-on.
His choice of Jacob did not depend on what Jacob would be. He did not choose Esau — He chose Jacob. Was God righteous in that? Is there unrighteousness with God? The apostle recoils from the thought. It is really a disrespectful question, which we have no right to raise. It is His right to have a purpose and to carry it out.
- Before — God spoke while the twins were unborn, so nothing either had done could explain His choice.
- Not because of works — neither works already done nor works God foresaw. The phrase leaves no room for works at all.
- But of Him who calls — the purpose starts in God Himself. His call runs ahead of nature's order of firstborn and younger.
- Not condemnation — to favour one is not to sentence the other. Condemnation rests on a person's sins, and the word about hating Esau came only at the close of the Old Testament, after long enmity.
- Stands — the purpose never rested on us, so we cannot overturn it. Our part is to bow before God, not to argue with Him.
it was said to her, The greater shall serve the less
Paul is answering a hard question. If Israel is God's chosen people, why are most of them missing out while Gentiles come in? To settle it he goes back to Rebekah's twins, and to a word spoken over them before either of them was born.
Paul picks an example that closes every escape route. Abraham's two sons had different mothers, so a critic could point there. Not here.
The Apostle next takes up the story of Isaac and proves the same principle by his two sons. With Abraham, a Jew might object that the sons had different mothers. No one could raise that objection about the sons of Isaac. Jacob and Esau were both sons of Rebekah. So if the blessing comes by natural descent, the children of both sons would inherit the promises — and then the Jew would have to include the Edomite. No Jew would do that.
The order of events is the whole point. The word came before the twins were born, so no record of theirs could have shaped it.
The apostle contrasts the call of God with works, not with our faith. He does this to shut out the weak idea, held by some, that God's choice is governed by seeing in advance that one person is better than the other. Language could not contradict that idea more plainly. Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him. But before either twin was born, God in His sovereign will chose that the older should serve the younger.
Verse 11 sets the terms for verse 12. Every phrase in it carries weight.
The purpose of God is according to election i.e. according to God's sovereign choice. This principle 'abides'. It is 'not of works' — neither works done at the moment God chooses, nor works done later: it is 'not of works' at all! ... It is 'of Him who calls'. Here is the true source, origin and centre of God's purpose and election: it is in 'Him who calls' — in God Himself.
How does this fit with God's foreknowledge? One writer holds the two together and denies that a sovereign choice is a blind one:
Election, then, is distinct from foreknowledge, though based upon it. God's election, or choice, is not a blind, random drawing of lots... He chooses in the full light of His foreknowledge. So no sinner who truly wants to be saved finds the door shut against him because he is not one of the elect. His very desire is the fruit of the Spirit's work.
Much of the difficulty here comes from squeezing the two verses into one moment. Centuries stand between them.
Verse 13 has caused difficulty. But that statement comes from the book of Malachi. Those words were written long after both men had fully shown what was in them. Verse 12, by contrast, records what God said before their birth.
That gap answers the charge of unfairness. It also shows why the choice came before birth and not after.
Nothing shows this more fully than the choice of the younger son before either was born. When the younger son is chosen after birth — as with Joseph or David — people can say that his actions or his natural character earned him that preference. The important principle is that none of them have any claim at all.
The word to Rebekah spoke of two nations, not only two boys. The serving looks ahead to their history on earth.
Here we see their history on earth marked out beforehand. It is all the more striking because the unborn children had the same mother as well as the same father — they were twins... So God showed His sovereignty to be as free as it is sure to faith. This disproves descent by birth, on which the Jews based their exclusive title... His word made the point sharper still by declaring that "the older will serve the younger," and this with a view to the nations they would become.
Writers differ here. One puts it bluntly: "Romans 9 is simply absolute sovereignty. People talk about national election there, which is the very thing the apostle is denying" (J. N. Darby).
The same sovereignty Israel objects to is the reason Israel still stands.
There is then an election which distinguishes between the children of the promise and the children of the flesh. Once again you must allow the sovereignty of God. Without it, all is over with you since Sinai, where you broke the covenant of the Lord... So there is no unrighteousness with God. You have no room to complain, if He acts toward the Gentiles in the same sovereign mercy which He has shown to you.
- Before birth — God spoke the word while the twins were unborn. Neither man's record could win it or lose it.
- Before works — "Not of works" rules out deeds done then and deeds done later. The source is "Him who calls" — God Himself.
- Before objection — Same father, same mother, one birth. If natural descent decided the promise, Israel would have to count the Edomites in too.
- Before the hatred — God spoke verse 12 to Rebekah. "Esau I hated" came in Malachi, long after both men had lived their lives.
- Beyond Israel — God's mercy is the only reason Israel survived Sinai. So no one can protest when that same mercy reaches Gentiles.
according as it is written, I have loved Jacob, and I have hated Esau.
Paul ends his case against Israel's claim by birth with words God spoke through the prophet Malachi. Both men were long dead by then, and the words sound harsh — so commentators ask when God said them, and why.
The two halves of the sentence come from two different books of the Bible. Mixing them up creates most of the difficulty.
Like many others, you confuse two distinct passages of Holy Scripture. God did not say, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," before the children were born. He said it hundreds of years later, after the real character and daily ways of each man had come out fully. Before the children were born He said only this: "the older shall serve the younger." It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born. In Amos 1:11 we read, "For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever." Do we not have here ample grounds for the divine hatred?
God made this choice when neither twin had a record to show. So He did not pick the better man.
Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him. But before either twin was born, God chose by His own sovereign will that the greater should serve the lesser. Such was His purpose. Their works had nothing to do with the matter and count for nothing here. Everything rests on the caller, God Himself.
Many people read the choice of one brother as the rejection of the other. Commentators answer that the love and the hatred do not rest on the same ground.
There is no ground here for the absolute rejection which Calvin draws from this passage. Genesis 25 does not hint by a single syllable at hating the unborn Esau. Man hastily infers the rejection of one from the choice of the other. This is unfounded. Out of two who have no claim, to choose one for a higher place is an act of will. But to show favour in one case is not to condemn the other. In themselves both were born in sin, and no doubt grew up in sins. That is what makes a man liable to condemnation, which turns on man's sins, not on God's purpose... The love to Jacob was free; the hatred had moral grounds in Esau.
Their lives showed what each man was, and natural gifts were not what decided the outcome.
Long centuries after both men had lived out their lives and formed their characters, God said, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Jacob, with all his many faults, was a man of faith, and comes into blessing on the ground of grace. Esau, with many natural excellencies, had no fear of God, and misses the blessing though he was the older son by natural descent.
Commentators differ on how personally to take the word "hated." Malachi is where God speaks it, and one writer weighs what the prophet offers as proof.
The evidence Malachi gives is drawn wholly, not from God's action towards Esau himself, but from God's judgments on his descendants: "I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert." And in other Scriptures we find that these judgments came on them because of their unrelenting hatred of Israel.
The quotation is aimed at a specific boast. If bloodline decides blessing, then Edom has as good a case as Israel.
But now go further down in your history, and you come to Jacob and Esau. If you go by descent, you must let in the Edomites on the same terms as yourselves... so your mouth must now be closed as to descent. God's own words stop it: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." He has chosen, by His sovereign right, to bless you, and your blessing depends on that alone... If we ask, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and truly call Him into question, we are seeking to judge God instead of letting God judge us.
- Before. Before the twins were born, and before either had done good or evil, God said the older would serve the younger. The choice rested on the caller, not on the chosen.
- After. God said "Esau I hated" in the last book of the Old Testament, after both men had lived and Edom's history was plain.
- Unequal. Love to Jacob was free, with no cause in Jacob. Hatred of Esau had moral grounds. Choosing one man is not condemning the other in advance.
- Evidence. Malachi's proof is the ruin of Esau's land and descendants, judged for their unrelenting hatred of Israel. Commentators differ over how far the word touches Esau himself.
- Effect. If descent decided blessing, Edom would stand with Israel. So the boast in bloodline falls, and to ask "Is there unrighteousness with God?" is to try to judge the Judge.
What shall we say then? [Is there] unrighteousness with God? Far be the thought.
Paul has just spoken of God choosing one person and not the other, and that raises an obvious protest: is God fair? He puts the objection into words himself, rejects it flatly, and answers it from a moment in Israel's own history.
The objection comes from human nature, not from careful thought. Paul meets it with an event where Israel had every reason to expect death.
To these arguments the flesh may object that to choose one and not the other is unrighteous. Is there, then, unrighteousness with God? Far from it, says the Apostle. To answer this objection he points to one case in Israel's history. There it is plain that God acted in sovereign grace, and yet no one could charge Him with unrighteousness. He recalls the terrible sin of Israel when they made a golden calf and worshipped it. There can be no question about the unrighteousness of that act. They had broken the first command, and the penalty was death. Righteousness could have destroyed them all.
Notice what the question does to the person asking it. It swaps the roles of judge and defendant.
If we start to ask, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and really mean to call Him into question, we are trying to judge God, instead of letting God judge us. Whenever someone questions the sovereignty of God, the soul is saying, in effect: I am the one to judge God, and God is not to judge me.
The people raising this objection owed their survival to the very principle they attacked.
The truth is that Israel was ruined at the foot of the mountain, the very place where they had promised to obey everything God commanded. And what did God say to Moses? "I will have mercy," and so on. So the sovereignty they disliked when God showed mercy to the Gentiles turns out to be everything to the Jew.
There is an order here that people usually get backwards. Effort does not produce mercy.
Mercy is an attribute of God Himself, part of the character of God which showed itself when sin came into the world. In Romans 9:14 we find it stated clearly and with care. Verse 16 guards it: blessing "is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs." Man says, "I will, I run, and so I get blessing." No; that is not the way. Mercy is the root; after mercy follows the will, then the running, then the doing of His commandments.
The wording of verse 16 here follows an older translation.
Paul does not stop at mercy. The same freedom that spared Israel ran the other way with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.
But here a warning note is struck. God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. God may show it in mercy. He may also show it in carrying out judgment. With Israel, guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He showed it in mercy. With Pharaoh, He showed it in hardening that king.
God's statement that He loved Jacob and hated Esau troubles many readers. The date it was written down changes how it reads.
But did you ever think it through, or find out where this statement about God's love was written? It is found, as we have already seen, in the last book of the Old Testament — Malachi. God does not record these words until thirteen hundred years after the men named had passed off the scene.
The last word here is not an argument. It is a comparison: God set beside you.
Do you think that God is less just than you? "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!" (Rom. 9:14). Is He less compassionate than you? He has revealed Himself in Jesus, and He "is rich to all who call upon Him" (Rom. 10:12). If He is sovereign, it is in compassion and mercy, while judgment is His strange work. We may rejoice and be glad in the first. The second we do not understand, so we leave it to Him who will do right in all things.
- Objection. The charge of unfairness comes from human nature. Press it, and you have taken the judge's seat over God, instead of standing under His judgment.
- Evidence. Paul answers from the golden calf. Strict righteousness would have wiped Israel out. Only His freedom to show mercy kept them alive.
- Irony. The objectors resented this principle when it reached the Gentiles. It was the one thing holding up their own place before God.
- Root. Mercy comes first. Willing, running and obeying follow it; they never produce it.
- Rest. One sovereignty shows mercy and carries out judgment. It belongs to the God revealed in Jesus. So we can leave what we cannot explain with Him.
For he says to Moses, I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy, and I will feel compassion for whom I will feel compassion.
Paul has just described God's freedom to choose, and someone objects that this makes God unfair. His answer is not his own argument. It is a sentence God once spoke to Moses, and the moment He spoke it settles the question.
He reaches for the one occasion when Israel had destroyed every claim they had. God answered by falling back on Himself.
To answer this objection, the Apostle points to one case in Israel's history. There God plainly acted in sovereign grace, and no one could charge Him with unrighteousness. He recalls the terrible sin of Israel when they made a golden calf and worshipped it. Of the unrighteousness of this act there can be no question. They had broken the first command, and the penalty was death. Righteousness could have destroyed them all. But what did God do? He fell back on His sovereignty and said, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." God falls back on the very principle the Jew objects to. Without it, all Israel would have been destroyed.
The people complaining owed everything to the very thing they complained about.
History and prophecy alike showed that the blessing of Israel hangs on God's sovereignty... So the very sovereignty they disliked when God showed mercy to the Gentiles proves to be everything to the Jew.
That freedom also lets mercy cross national lines:
Ruth the Moabite is a striking instance in Old Testament times of God's mercy shown outside the limits of Israel, the nation the Lord chose out of all others to be His own people. In this impressive example, the Lord acted on His own right to show favour where, when, and how He pleased.
Look at what the word "mercy" means. Everyone is guilty, so justice cannot explain any kindness God shows.
Once the shared guilt and ruin of every creature has been proved, justice is no longer the question in any display of God's favour towards them... By its very nature, mercy is controlled and directed by the will of the One who shows it. Nothing deserving in the person draws it out. Human misery is itself the natural effect of God's judgment against sin, so it cannot force mercy to act. We must look for its deep and blessed spring in the mystery of the love of God — in God Himself, whose name is Love.
The next verse draws the conclusion: it does not depend on human will or exertion. For Israel that was rescue, not cold doctrine.
How blessed then for Israel that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms: the question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights. The truth is that man himself is all wrong, and righteousness rests on God having His rights.
Paul's argument moves on to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Commentators stress different sides of the pairing. One sees the same freedom working both ways:
God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in executing judgment. In Israel's case, when they were guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. In Pharaoh's case He displayed it by hardening that king.
Another writer warns against a mistake people make here:
In truth, God's sovereignty is always on the side of mercy. Some people fix on one side of the truth and deny another that Scripture states just as strongly — that man is responsible to God. They sometimes go so far as to say that God elects the lost to be damned. Never was there a greater mistake.
The freedom in this verse is not cheap. Once God announced it, something had to happen to make it possible.
Only God can really say "I will". The moment God said that, the death of Christ became a necessity. How could God carry out His will which involved the showing of mercy apart from the cross?
- Occasion — God first spoke these words over a nation worshipping a golden calf. Strict justice would have wiped them out. Mercy enters where merit has collapsed.
- Freedom — the will of the One showing mercy directs it. Nothing we deserve draws it out. Its spring is in God Himself.
- Reach — the same freedom that spared Israel also reaches beyond Israel. The objector's complaint attacks his own only hope.
- Cost — "I will" is a word only God can say, and saying it made the cross necessary.
- Response — the self-righteous argue with sovereign mercy. The person broken over sin is glad it is free enough to reach him.
So then [it is] not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shews mercy.
Paul has just quoted God's words to Moses about showing mercy to whom He will. This verse is his conclusion, and it settles where blessing starts: not in what a person wants or does, but in God.
The force of Paul's conclusion depends on when God first spoke those words.
When was it that He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion"? It was when, on grounds of bare righteousness, Israel ought to have been cut off. God then drew back, so to speak, into His sovereignty, to spare Israel. Righteousness would have condemned them as they stood around their golden idol. How blessed then for Israel that it does not depend on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms. The question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights.
Paul's words may look back at the family history he has just told.
The words may hint at Isaac's well-known wish, which came to nothing, and at Esau's efforts to gain by the hunt, which failed too. They may hint at Jacob as well, who was faulty enough to lose everything by his trickery — except that sovereign mercy secured the promise to him. It is certainly the conclusion of grace against man's empty confidence in his own will and effort.
If mercy waited for people to want it, it would wait forever.
Man will have no mercy on himself. Man goes marching to everlasting woe. We can see thousands around us doing this — old and young… "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." This is grace, the free favour of God. He shows mercy to the man who has no mercy for himself. It is not man, the sinner, who chooses God. God chooses the sinner… God has chosen those who never would have chosen Him.
The same point can be put positively: what we could never begin, God begins in us.
God, by His Spirit, does for us or in us what we never would, or could, do for ourselves or by ourselves. The work from first to last is God's.
The verse sits between two examples, and the second one is Pharaoh.
But here comes a warning. God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in carrying out judgment. With Israel, guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. With Pharaoh, He displayed it by hardening that king.
If will and effort do not produce blessing, does human choice matter at all? Commentators hold both facts together, even where they cannot see how they fit.
Let us by the grace of God firmly hold both of these great facts. God is sovereign in how He acts in grace. Man, though fallen, is a responsible creature, and God addresses him as one… So let us accept both, even if for now we cannot see far enough to work out how they fit together.
So who receives this mercy, and what should a person do about it?
But to whom is God pleased to show mercy? Certainly not to the self-righteous mockers, who by their very attitude deny their need of mercy. It is to the repentant — those who confess themselves sinners and call on the Name of the Lord in their extremity… God has sovereign title to show mercy, and man must bow to this divine sovereignty. Indeed, can anything do more good for man than being subject to his Creator?
Mercy is not only how the Christian life starts; it stays the footing underneath.
If mercy has declared itself, and He has spared us, we must still never forget that His estimate of what we are stands on record… The rainbow in the cloud declares His faithfulness to His promise. We stand on the ground of MERCY, and if we forget it, He does not… We look at the cloud; God looks at the rainbow. What grace is here!
- Occasion — God spoke those words to Moses while Israel stood beside a golden idol. Justice would have destroyed them. Mercy speaks at the exact point where merit is gone.
- Meaning — Human will and effort recall Isaac's wish and Esau's hunt earlier in the chapter. Both failed. Only mercy secured the promise.
- Reach — No one has mercy on his own soul. So God chooses those who would never have chosen Him, and mercy reaches the repentant who call on Him.
- Warning — The same sovereignty that spared Israel hardened Pharaoh. Mercy shown is never mercy owed.
- Response — Man stays responsible, and God stays sovereign. So the verse calls not for argument but for bowing, and for living on the ground of mercy.