God molds the clay after He foresees the yes’ and no’s; John 15:16.Title: God molds the clay after He foresees the yes’ and no’s; John 15:16.
Go back to: Rom 9:13 Just as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
Anthropopathism: ascribing to God a human characteristic which God does not actually possess in order to explain or reveal God’s policy towards mankind in a language of accommodation.
As we have noted this was written in Malachi 1, a thousand years after Esau, when after he rejected God and was antagonistic towards Jacob, so would his progeny the Edomites possess unrelenting hatred toward Israel.
It was common among the Hebrews to use the terms "love" and "hatred" in this comparative sense, where the former implied strong positive attachment, and the latter, not positive hatred, but merely a less love, or the withholding of the expressions of affection. (Barnes’ Notes)
Prov 13:24 He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
Matt 6:24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
The mental attitude of hate displays the gravity of these things. Esau not only lost his birthright, but by all accounts he will be spending eternity in the LOF; not disciplining your children has grave effects on their transition to independence and adulthood and therefore weakens the client nation; being apathetic with the word of God will rob you of love and God’s happiness. These are the most important decisions of your life and so God displays them in the most intense language.
The illustration is clearly one of election of the one who had faith and condemnation of the one who rejected the God of Israel. Why did God begin to elect out of the world His first client nation?
He knew that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be the origin of a new race, an elected race, God’s chosen people. What does that mean?
It became necessary in the course of human history to have a special nation to represent God, to become the recipients of divine revelation to be put in writing, which would become the canon of the Old Testament, to become the missionary nation, to set precedent for establishment freedom, and to produce the Savior of the world.
It became necessary for one nation to become the missionary nation, and to also set a precedent for all national function in the areas of freedom and establishment. Our great nation had been built directly from that precedent.
Then it became necessary for this freedom to become the basis for evangelism, the good news that Abraham’s seed (singular) would be the Savior of the world, and from the evangelism to the advance to maturity.
There had not been in history, in its first two thousand years [the Age of the Gentiles] such a nation. Internationalism inevitably occurred. Internationalism really is a system whereby Satan rules the world, gains control of the world as he did even after the failed tower of babble experiment. That is what is wrong with the United Nations or any system of internationalism, religious or political.
Therefore, Israel was to be God’s spiritual heritage through a racial line and not just centered on the racial only as is what had happened.
Therefore God started a new dispensation, the dispensation of Israel, and God’s chosen people is simply a way of saying election.
Rom 9:14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
Paul anticipates this question. Do Nahor and Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob reveal that God is unjust?
Ezek 18:23 "Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked," declares the Lord God, "rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?
Ezek 18:24 "But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his treachery which he has committed and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die [sin unto death].
Ezek 18:25 "Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not right.' Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?
Ezek 18:26 "When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies because of it, for his iniquity which he has committed he will die [by his own volition].
Ezek 18:27 "Again, when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and righteousness, he will save his life.
Ezek 18:28 "Because he considered and turned away from all his transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.
Ezek 18:29 "But the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not right.' Are My ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right?
Ezek 18:30 "Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct," declares the Lord God. "Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you.
Ezek 18:31 "Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel?
Ezek 18:32 "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies," declares the Lord God. "Therefore, repent and live."
Rom 9:15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
God’s mercy is the cross and God’s compassion is the application of election in time to the one who through faith has salvation adjustment to the justice of God.
Faith saves you, but God has freed up His justice through the cross of Christ to apply mercy and compassion to that faith.
This isn’t an arbitrary election, but an election based on foreseen faith in Christ.
Rom 9:16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs [not on works], but on God who has mercy [application of the work of Christ to the one who has faith].
Rom 9:17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth."
The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart evangelized the world, Josh 2:10-11.
Josh 2:10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
Josh 2:11 And when we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.
It is very important to note that Pharaoh hardened his own heart through negative volition before God hardened it.
Ex 7:8 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,
Ex 7:9 "When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, 'Work a miracle,' then you shall say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.'"
Ex 7:10 So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the Lord had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.
Ex 7:11 Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.
Ex 7:12 For each one threw down his staff and they turned into serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.
Ex 7:13 Yet Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
Ex 7:20 So Moses and Aaron did even as the Lord had commanded. And he lifted up the staff and struck the water that was in the Nile, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, and all the water that was in the Nile was turned to blood.
Ex 7:21 And the fish that were in the Nile died, and the Nile became foul, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. And the blood was through all the land of Egypt.
Ex 7:22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same with their secret arts; and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
Ex 7:23 Then Pharaoh turned and went into his house with no concern even for this.
Ex 7:24 So all the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink of the water of the Nile. Ex 7:25 And seven days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile.v |