“Jacob I loved, Esau I hated”. There are two key issues here. One is loved and hated. Hate here is being used more in the sense of “I chose Jacob and rejected Esau”, and is more of a relative term. Still we will react against this, but we do better to accept God’s choice. The second issue is whether this should be understood in individual terms or national terms, and this is a big argument between Calvinists and Arminians. Jacob and Esau clearly were individuals and God’s choice affected them as individuals. In the context of what Paul is arguing about it is individual response or rejection of Christ that counts. However, the nations of Israel and Edom came out of Jacob and Esau, and Paul is talking about what happened to the nation of Israel and is dealing with Israel was as a nation. So arguments can be made for both, and perhaps that is the answer. We want God to be dealing with individual or nations, when the truth is that He is dealing with individuals and nations. This also applies to our lives and is vital for understanding life. God deals with us as individuals, on a one to one basis, but we are also affected by the society around us and by God’s dealings with that society. It is not individual or corporate but individual and corporate. And the next time a preacher stresses one to the exclusion of the other just remember that it is always both.
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