I have to tell you that the passage in Malachi about God hating Esau has always troubled me. And what troubles me more is that I know it shouldn’t trouble me. Nothing that God does or says should trouble me.
Yet, for some reason, this does. And as I closed out the Old Testament in my daily Bible reading, the passage came up again.
“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob
but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” (Malachi 1:2-3 ESV).
This doesn’t sound fair, does it? Perhaps my preconceived notions of God have a lot to do with how I feel when I hear that phrase. God is love, right? God is no respecter of persons. God loves the world. All of these sentiments are bedrocks of our Christian faith that are taught in Scripture.
And when God came to earth, wasn’t it Jesus Himself who said He would make a place at the table for the Gentiles?
“I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 8:11 ESV).
Doesn’t Scripture say that God would make Gentile believers sons of Abraham and thus, heirs of the promise to Abraham?
“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (Galatians 3:7-9 ESV).
And who can forget this:
“For God shows no partiality.” (Romans 2:11 ESV).
But it is just a little further in Romans when Paul, the same apostle who wrote that God is not a respecter of persons and who wrote in Galatians that Gentiles are made the sons of Abraham, quotes Malachi:
“As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Romans 9:13 ESV).
What is the Lord trying to say? A reading of Romans 9 helps us understand what God means when he says this. God makes a choice on who to choose to be His special people and who He will reject. This is precisely what happened to Esau and Jacob.
Some may ask if God is unfair when He makes this kind of choice between Jacob and Esau. As I said when we started this discussion, for many of us, it just doesn’t feel right that God would love one person and hate another. And Paul addresses this very natural thought we might have about this:
“What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!” (Romans 9:14 ESV).
Paul goes on to say,
“For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:15-16 ESV).
It is God’s prerogative to whom He extends grace and to whom He rejects. God did not make Esau His chosen people, nor did He restore them to their land. That grace was reserved for the descendants of his brother, Jacob. Why? Because God chose it to be that way.
But even the Edomites had the right to join as proselytes with the Jews. They could still choose to submit themselves to God as did any Gentile. God did not shut the door for them just as He didn’t shut the door for any Gentile. Yet the simple truth is this: God chose to extend grace to one people by selecting them as His chosen people while rejecting to do so to other people.
Jacob was not chosen based on merit. He was not chosen based on works. He was chosen because God chose to extend mercy and compassion to him and not to his brother. That should teach us all a powerful lesson.
When the Lord rejects the goats on the Day of Judgment, it is His prerogative. When He accepts the sheep, it is His prerogative. It is up to God to whom He will extend grace and upon whom He will reject.
None of us are in a position to tell God who He has to accept, yet we try to do this all the time, don’t we? Even our society attempts to co-op God’s prerogative. We think we can mandate to God who will be accepted by Him and who will not be accepted by Him. Whether we are woke or not, whether we are politically correct or not, we feel that we can dictate who God should and should not accept, who God will and won’t extend mercy and compassion on.
But the same truth that Malachi spoke and the same truth that Paul spoke still applies today. God will love who He will love, and He will hate who He will hate. He will extend mercy and compassion to those He chooses because it is His prerogative to do so.
Grace is His gift. He can extend it to whoever He wishes and withhold it from whoever He wishes. That is His prerogative. We will not earn His favor. We will not be able to demand His judgment in our favor. He extends grace to whomever He wishes.
In the days of Malachi, God told the people, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.” The people of Edom could not demand God’s grace, but neither could the people of Jacob. God always gave the people of the earth a path to Him, but only to the people of Jacob, this path was given by birth.
Today, it is still God’s prerogative to give grace to whom He wishes and to reject whom He wishes. No one will be in a position to demand anything from God.
Today, God loves whom He loves and hates whom He hates. But as another extension of His grace, God invites all men to His table. He has told us to whom He will extend grace.
May we humble ourselves before our Creator and choose to be among those whom the Lord loves and not among those whom the Lord hates.
God’s sovereignty demonstrated. There is none like Him! Praise God for being above all. This is the One in whom I put my trust.
“A Psalm of Asaph. God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”
Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!” (Psalm 82:1-8 ESV).
If King Jesus returned in 15 minutes, would you be ready? One day, He will be 15 minutes away from His return. That day could be today.