In our verse by verse study of Romans we have completed our Expanded Translation of Rom 9:11; "For though the twins [Esau and Jacob] had not yet been born, and though they had not yet accomplished anything, good or evil, in order that the predetermined plan of God might remain in status quo in relationship to election not of works, but of the one who calls."`
We have noted the words translated elected and called refer to God's work of placing believers in His decree in those categories in eternity past so we have taken up a short study on the doctrine of election.
When we stopped last time we had just started looking at the passage in
Titus 1:1 - ""Paul, a slave of God, and an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the doctrine of God's elected ones and of spirit taught knowledge of truth according to the spiritual life."
v2 in confidence of eternal life that God who cannot lie promised in eternity past.
This brings us to the election of Israel that is the topic of our passage in Romans 9:4-13. Rom 9:7;"but (quotation from Genesis 21:12) in Isaac your descendants shall be named." Rom 9:11; Net note 23
Rom 11:2; "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew." In other words, every believer in Israel is in the divine decree as being elect so every Jewish believer will be the recipient of God's promises. Election has always been the predicate for being part of Israel.
Isa 45:4; "For the sake of Jacob my servant, and Israel my elected one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor though you (unbelieving Jews) do not even know me."
Regardless of this the overruling principle that there will always be Jewish believers that are elect, and it is the elect forms the pivot that kept the Jewish nation in great prosperity during the time they were functioning as a priest nation to God.
Since 70 AD Israel as a priest nation has been discontinued but Jews who reach spiritual maturity in every generation continue to be a factor in the prosperity of the gentile client nation they reside in during the Church Age and for the perpetuation of the Jewish race during the during the Tribulation.
Isa 65:9; "Therefore I will bring forth from Jacob descendants (the elect of Israel), out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains, even my elected ones will inherit it, and my servants will live there."
Matt 24:21,22; "but because of the elected ones those days will be cut short." The pivot determines blessing to the Jews scattered throughout the earth during the Tribulation. God saves the Jewish race in the land of Israel because of the elect.
So the elect or believing Jews have future national blessing from God during the Tribulation and during the Millennium because there is a pivot of mature Jewish believers in Israel.
We see here that election is the content of God's decree related to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, assigned to their various dispensations. Election is a category of God's decree that reveals God's omniscience.
Each dispensation has its own election that is related to God's policy for that dispensation under the principle of as goes the believers who are the elect in any dispensation so goes the client nation that those believers are associated with.
That means that the ebbs and flows of human history are the product of the ebbs and flows of mature believers during the course of history. That means that when the number of mature believers on the earth drops below some critical mass the exit resurrection will occur.
Rom 9:12; is a quote from Gen 25:23; "Eipon autos hoti" (it was said to her)
"ho megas douleusi elassonai" (The greater (older) will slave (serve) the lesser (younger)).
In eternity past God's omniscience knew that Jacob would believe in Jesus Christ and his twin brother, Esau, would not believe so Jacob who was elect would be the recipient of God's promised eternal blessings that were given to Abraham and Isaac.
Rom 9:13; "Kathos grapho" (As it stands written), referencing a quotation from the TANAKH in Mal 1:2,3.
We have "ton Iacob (the Jacob) the use of the definite article with the proper name Jacob makes it monadic so it refers specifically to Jacob, whose identity is well known to the reader.
The definite article is used here as a demonstrative pronoun to call special attention to this specific person who was no better or worse than his twin brother but because of God's grace that was conveyed when he believed in Jesus Christ he became one of the great people of human history.
Because the definite article is in the accusative case it is assumed that the proper noun Jacob is also in the accusative case so it is the direct object and that God is the subject so the correct translation is "that Jacob."
Next is the aorist active indicative from the verb "agapo" (loved) "I loved that Jacob." The constantive aorist tense describes the action of the verb in its entirety and describes a situation that occurred over a long period of time, from the time that Jacob believed in the Lord and received the imputation of God's judicial righteousness.
God's justice and God's righteousness combine with God's omniscient to form God's holiness or God's integrity that is described as God's love. At the moment Jacob believed in Jesus Christ God's justice imputed God's judicial righteousness to Jacob that made him a target for God's personal love.
Therefore the love of God that has always loved His own righteousness from eternity past now loves Jacob who is also a possessor of His righteousness. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb that is the product of God's propitiation, redemption, and justification by imputation.
The qal active participle of the Hebrew verb "ahab" (love). In the active voice describes something that is continuous.
With this we have the conjunctive particle "de" (but) that is an adversative conjunction emphasizing the contrast between God's attitude toward Jacob and His attitude toward Esau.
Then another accusative singular direct object from the definite article "ho" (the) used as a demonstrative pronoun with the proper noun Esau. So we have the same construction for the phrase "that Esau."
The direct object comes first because it emphasizes the individual personal difference between the twins. Then the aorist active indicative from the verb "miseo" (hate) that is a mental attitude sin of hatred so our phrase is translated, "but I hated that Esau."
Again the aorist tense is a constantive aorist that describes the action of the verb in its entirety, and refers to the fact that Esau refused to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ so he remained under God's condemnation and wrath.
But his twin Jacob by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ received God's grace gift by believing and became the origin of the Jewish race that formed up the priest nation Israel.
The active voice: God produces the action of the verb as an anthropopathism which indicates the divine attitude toward Esau by using language of accommodation do describe the consequences of his rejection of God's grace gift.
Hatred is a sin and God is perfect so He cannot sin so God does not actually hate Esau but He uses an anthropopathism and the language of accommodation to explain His judicial policy toward unbelievers.
Unbelievers remain under condemnation and wrath because they refuse to accept God's gift of perfect imputed judicial righteousness and eternal life.
We understand hatred and therefore we can understand that Esau as an unbeliever was under a principle or policy of rejection, condemnation and wrath.
The indicative mood is declarative for language of reality and anthropopathism. This is not describing the actual attitude of God but it is the attitude that we can understand .
We see here that God's omniscience only fed actual facts into the divine decree and the actual facts find that Esau is an unbeliever while they find Jacob as a believer. They are twins so one becomes a Jew the other remains a Gentile. The only difference between them was that one was born again; one was not.
The printout for Jacob was election, foreknowledge, and predestination whereas the printout for Esau was reprobation, condemnation, retribution, judgment and wrath.
Both Jacob and Esau had the same free will so they both had the same opportunity for salvation.
When Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross the sins of both Esau and Jacob were imputed to Jesus Christ and judged by the justice of God the Father. They both had the same opportunity but one used his free will to believe in Jesus Christ; one used his free will to reject Jesus Christ.
It was God's will that both Esau and Jacob be saved. The directive will of God was that He wanted both of them to be saved. 1Tim 2:3-4;
The fact that Esau rejected Jesus Christ indicates the reality of human volition acting independently from God's sovereignty and God's directive will.
This emphasizes the fact that God through the divine decree did not coerce or tamper with free human volition. The divine decree only records the reality of what happens in history before it happens.
Foreknowledge in the divine decree establishes certainty with regard to the believer but God's decree does not originate from His foreknowledge. The decree originates from His omniscience that feeds the facts and only the facts into the decree.
To put foreknowledge before omniscience or on a par with omniscience is the beginning of a series of confusions that result in a total and complete blackout with regard to ones personal responsibility after salvation.
These doctrines have a great deal to do with what constitutes the Christian way of life and to put foreknowledge on a par with omniscience, even though both are functions of God, is one of the most disastrous things that could happen.
God's foreknowledge makes nothing certain; it simply perceives what is in the decree that is certain. What is certain is the fact that you have free will. What is certain is the fact that your free will is going to make decisions.
What is certain is the fact that God knew what decisions you should use your free will to choose to do. God is not going to tamper with free will He is just going to let it play out. If He tampered with free will we are simply robots, and the angelic conflict is not resolved.
God's decree determines the certainty of future of events but the decree does not directly affect or cause any event. Cause and effect is the interrelationship of innumerable free volitions interacting.
God knew that Esau would reject Jesus Christ and that Jacob would believe in Jesus Christ and he let both happen and the consequences play out.
For example: Until a lady gets married she is a free agent. Then one day she makes a free will decision and she accepts some man to be her husband.
Once she does that she has surrendered some of her free will to him and therefore he makes decisions. One day she might want to stay in bed and catch up on sleep but the husband says she is going to get out of bed and go to church with him.
When that happens you have exactly what we have here. She surrendered her free will to him so he makes the final decision. That is cause and effect. She willingly submitted her own free will the authority of the husband.
One of the greatest issues in marriage is that the woman surrenders her volition to the husband so that the husband can overrule her at any time. But you still have the interaction of volitions. Gen 3:16;
You have the female challenge; you have the male veto. The doctrine of God's decree at all times recognizes interacting free will choices.