Sovereignty, Israel, and Election

Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.

And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

— Romans 9:6–13

God’s choice of Israel as the people by which His purposes in the earth would be fulfilled was not based on the greatness of them as a people, but it was based on His sovereign will before the fathers were born.

In fact, the call of Abram in Genesis 12 is a call, as we would say, “out of the blue”. Moses, in Genesis, speaks nothing of the goodness or worthiness of Abram as a man. Abram, who would be renamed by God Abraham, is introduced in a genealogy after we read of all the people of the earth being scattered because of their rebellion at tower of Babel.

In Joshua 24:2, we learn more of Abraham’s father Terah, that he was just like all of the other people around him, a worshiper of false gods:

“And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.” — Joshua 24:2

This verse indicates that before Abram was called, he also was not much different than the people around him. God would call Abraham, give him a promise, and make him a blessing, not because of intrinsic goodness within Abraham, but because of His own free will. God would call because of His sovereignty. It would not be of works, but it would be “of Him that calleth”.

Isaac also wasn’t called because of goodness within himself. He was called because he was the son that God promised to Abraham. And it was not just any son of Abraham that would be called, it would be the son that would come through Sarah. Ishmael was not to be the one called, because he was not the one that God promised. He was a son conceived according to the flesh, and as such would not be the son of promise. God did not need Abraham and Sarah to help Him in accomplishing His will.

Jacob and Esau, while arguments are sometimes made for the inherent goodness of one of them over the other, were positioned because of God’s sovereignty to do so. The apostle Paul makes the point in his parenthetical statement “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth”.

Jacob, in the flesh, did love the promise and tricked his father into giving what was coming to him anyway. But Jacob’s walk with the Lord was really forced by the Lord Himself. In the flesh, Jacob flat out lied to his father in the name of the Lord (Genesis 27:20). Not only so, but in his ladder vision, the LORD said this to him:

“…I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” — Genesis 28:13–15

Jacob’s “faith” is shown later in the chapter:

Genesis 28:20–21 — “And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God…”

Then shall the LORD be my God?

Was the LORD not already his God?

Apparently not. In 27:20, when lying to his father Isaac, he says “the LORD thy God”. In chapter 31, he spoke of the God of his father (31:4), and later, “the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac (31:42).

It was at the end of Jacob’s life while blessing Joseph that he said this:

Genesis 49:22–26 — “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.”

Note that the LORD is now “the mighty God of Jacob”, the “stone of Israel”, “the God of THY father”, speaking to Joseph. Finally, after all this time, the God of Abraham and Isaac was also the God of Jacob. But it was a long life in which God persevered to be Israel’s God. And here I mean Israel the man, as Jacob was to be called.

Esau also, we know from Hebrews that he was a profane person and a fornicator. But that is what he proved to be after all this took place. The decision to place Jacob in the place above him was when they were still in Rebecca’s womb.

How do we make sense of this?

God is sovereign. It was His choice, and his choice alone that put Jacob in the place of blessing. We know little of Esau’s life outside of his meetings with Jacob and chapter 36 where his generations are named who became the Edomites. This is true of all of the other nations of the world: we know little of them from Scripture except as they relate to Israel. Because God would be with Israel.

God would be with Israel by His own choice.

Deuteronomy 7:7–8 — “The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

The LORD used Israel as His arm of judgment against the Canaanites because they were ripe for judgment, not because Israel was so deserving of the blessing:

Deuteronomy 9:4–6 — “Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.”

So God chose to bless the world through Abraham, Isaac, and Israel — the man and the nation — as an act of His own sovereignty. In doing so some “clean-up” work had to be done, but Israel was to be a blessing. It was through Israel that Christ came according to the flesh to first “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) and in spite of their rejection of Him, the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”.

Now the nation Israel received a great multitude of blessings from the LORD as the Scriptures give witness. The last prophet, Malachi, opens with this:

Malachi 1:2–5 — “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel.”

Notice that this is not the man Esau that was hated, but the nation. Also, notice that the nation was not hated to hell, but that it would never become a great nation. Esau’s nation would have thrived if under submission to Jacob’s nation.

For some insight on being hated here, notice how in Genesis 29:31 Leah was hated. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. He was indifferent to Leah, seeing that he did not love her or want her for his wife in the first place. He loved Rachel, but for lack of a better way to say it, he was stuck with Leah. Jacob’s indifference to her as his wife is what the scriptures call his hate of her. He did not want to kill her, nor did he want her to be eternally condemned, but he did not love her as he loved Rachel. This is how Jacob was loved and Esau was hated. Jacob had the declared blessing of God. Esau was in the lower place of servitude. Edom did not have to be Israel’s enemy. Those such as the Amalekites who raised their collective hand against Israel became Israel’s enemy, and as such became God’s enemy.

But Israel was God’s choice by His own prerogative. He is sovereign and can do that without asking our permission.

The Lord Jesus Christ also declared by His own prerogative:

John 12:32 — “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

When He said this, He was speaking of His death on the cross. Notice that all men would be drawn to Him. There is no special “elect” class who get the irresistible call of the Holy Ghost to be drawn to Him. The cross is God’s call to draw all men to Him. He calls through the gospel that is in the scriptures, how that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). This is according to the scriptures, and this is God’s call. God, in His sovereignty has elected to save all that come to God by Him, and this is His saving grace which saves us through faith. This faith comes by hearing, and hearing is by the word of God (Romans 10:17). It is not a special call that some get and some do not, but “whosever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). Christ on the cross draws you to Him, as He said. Will you call on His name, or will you resist and fight the draw to your own condemnation?