Romans 9:13-18
Even as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.
God is always in charge and He chose everything before it happened. I don’t know how He does it but He is able to make me choose what He wants. It is interesting that many think that this passage is controversial. It is quite the opposite, we really have no choice but to accept this! You see, God is all-powerful and all-knowing and because of this everything that happens was His choice. That doesn’t mean that we don’t choose. We recognize our choices as being our own, but they really were God’s choice first. It has to be that way because He is all-powerful and could have decided to not make us, but He is also all-knowing and made us anyway knowing that we would sin. An all-powerful, all-knowing being makes all the choices!
God hated Esau in advance and that comes as a surprise to us, but it shouldn’t. It would only make sense for God to hate both Jacob and Esau as well as you and I because we are very evil people and we know it. We shouldn’t think God is bad because of this. Think of it this way. If you were the author of a story would you be bad if you choose to put a villain in it? What if you did this in order to make the story express the depth of the love between the lovers in the story? Would you be a bad author?
The thing we should be surprised of is that He loved Jacob and that He loved you and I. In God’s story (His-tory) He allowed us to be just as evil as everyone else but chose to love us when we didn’t deserve it at all. That’s the thing that should be shocking us. May God give us eyes to see his great love for us.