We too often forget that when the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys led him to a new town, he would typically begin his preaching in the synagogues. One window into what that sort of visit would look like comes to us in Romans 9:6-13. There we find a rebuttal that the Apostle Paul would receive after preaching about Christ’s call for the gospel to come to Jew and Gentile alike. Some of these objections from his ethnic Israelite brothers might include: “Paul, are you saying that the word of God has failed?”; “What was the point of all the blessings to Israel?”; “Is God going to forget us?” Isn’t it fascinating that the same sorts of questions haunt people today?
Paul, anticipating objections from his kinsman, adopted the Rabbinic style of interpretation to answer their questions. He strung together like pearls several Scriptural texts to help reinforce the implications of what he was saying. He proved his point about the promises of God not being merely ethnic by looking to God’s promise to Abraham for his promised son Isaac rather than Ishmael. In so doing, Paul reinforced his trust in the faithfulness of God’s word. He says, “it is not as though the word of God has failed.” (Romans 9:6) Too often people treat the Bible like a flower that was useful when it was first given but it has now wilted due to time. Instead, we read in Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
What’s Paul’s central argument? The covenant promises of God are not inherited just because of your biological family. Instead, the recipients of God’s blessings are only made so by God’s sovereign, free, unconditional, predestinating choice. Christians believe in God by faith because they were predestined to from before the foundations of the world (Eph. 1:4-5). This gets at the heart of what the Apostle Paul is saying.
Paul makes this central point clear by looking to the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah being the boys Jacob and Esau. If there was ever a moment where two individuals were equally matched for a biological inheritance it would be them. Even more, the older of the two, Esau, should have received a double portion of the inheritance.
However, because God is who He is, everything which makes sense to us naturally is entirely flipped on its head. The Apostle wrote, “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue not because of works but because of him who calls – she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” (Rom. 9:10-13)
As Paul quoted Malachi 1:2-3, we learn that Esau was passed over by God and not chosen. This is what is implied by the language of “hate”. R. C. Sproul sheds some light here, “When the Scripture speaks of God’s hating, it means that he did not bestow favour upon Esau. God did not give to him grace and the benefits of salvific love.” This is common language in Scripture for preference and highest priority, but we will leave it there for now. We must remember that God owes grace to no one. To demand it is due is to transform it from a gift to a wage which is to undermine the entirety of grace in itself.
We must at this point ask the $1 million question: Why did God select one child over the other? Again Paul anticipated the objections. Was it because of their parents? No – they had the same parents and were conceived in the same event according to the specific wording of the text. Was it something biological in the kids themselves? No – they were not yet born. Was it that one was better than the other? No – Paul makes it plain that neither child had done anything good or bad yet. Both were born equally cursed under the banner of original sin (Eph. 2:1-3). Both would show in their lives they were both imperfect sinners. Was because of their own works? No – even the very best works in this life cannot undo the reality that we are born in sin and continue to sin.
So what is it then? Should God leave every man, woman, boy, and girl to their own devices and respect their choices by leaving them to live as they see fit everyone would be damned. We are naturally unable to love, believe, seek, or obey God (Rom. 3:9-20). Likewise, there is no such thing as an age of accountability, for we know that sin is clearly evident in our children’s actions and even affects them in illness though they’ve done nothing themselves (Psalm 51:5). We and our children are enslaved to sin, and should God honor that enslaved will to choose as it wishes it will only ever choose death (Rom. 8:7). Us and our children stand in need of the blood of Christ.
So what are we left with? The entire foundation of salvation is only ever rooted in the choice of God. Period. This is what the Apostle Paul presents. God does not look down the corridor of time to find people would believe Him for apart from a miracle of His grace there would be none. To find any alternative in this text is to entirely mismanage the most basic and plain reading of the Word of God.
What’s the point then? If you are a Christian today, it’s not because of your decision. “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7) Did you not receive your earthly life from God without your consent? What of your spiritual life? What about your ability to believe? to repent? to choose God? If all this is from God, then we must stop robbing God of His glory by claiming that our free will or choice made us a Christian. If you are a Son of God it is because He chose you, made the decision for you because if He did not neither would you. I encourage you to prayerfully read Romans 9 to see this clearly.