As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
Rom 9:13
Romans 9 is key to the formation of the doctrine of predestination espoused by John Calvin in 1536. Arminianism is the response to Calvin’s doctrine of predestination framed by Jacob Arminius in 1610. The primary difference between the two is in their Soteriology. Soteriology is the study of the doctrine of Salvation.
Calvin said that man has no role or power in choosing to be saved. God chooses whom He will choose and rejects whom He will reject. The chosen are the elect and can not resist salvation once they hear the gospel. Once they are saved they are always saved.
Arminius said that man has free will and the power to decide whether or not He is saved. God desires that all men be saved 1 Tim 2:4 God has foreknowledge of who will be saved. But He does not force anyone to come to Him against their will. Free will reigns supreme, therefore man can accept the gift of salvation and then later reject it.
Now, you might say, and rightly so, that Calvin and Arminius are not in the Bible. Yet every Christian denomination that does not represent outright heresy leans towards Calvinismism or Arminianism – predestination or free will.
Take a moment and consider which way you instinctively lean. How did you come to know Jesus? Did you choose Him or did He choose you? What made you believe the gospel? Did someone argue you into it? Or did something just seem to click into place and you suddenly believed? Before you answer consider this. Suppose every one of your thoughts, decisions and actions were predetermined by God.
How would you know?
What does scripture say?
Paul begins Romans 9 with a lamentation. He says he wished he were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brothers, to whom belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises, the patriarchs. It was from them that Jesus came. It may be worthy to note, especially here, that accursed is the same word Paul used in Galatians 1:8-9 regarding anyone preaching a different gospel than the one they have heard. Accursed means going to hell. This lends greater weight to his admonition not to go beyond what is written. 1 Cor 4:6. The word of God is not something to toy with or take lightly as so many charasmatics do.
Paul is grieving that so many of his Jewish brothers who seemingly should be saved are not saved. He might have wished he could go to hell in thier place. Yet his wishing had no effect.
Think about that.
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
Romans 9:6-10
Paul continues
though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Romans 9:11-13
God told Jeremiah,“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 God knew Jeremiah and by extension us before we were in the womb. Some might wonder, albeit philosophically; did Jacob and Esau act in ways before they were born that predetermined their status before the womb? Did we? Paul clearly answers that it was not because of works but because of him who calls she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
It seems that Calvin might have a point.
All that being said, it occurs to me that while God knew them, the Bible does not say that Jeremiah, Jacob, and Esau knew God. Could it be that our only purpose on earth is to know God? If so then it follows that the entire work of God is to believe in the one He has sent. John 6:29 Thats it! Solomon who wrote the ultimate “been there, had that, done that” book of Ecclesiasties concluded the same.
Fear God and keep His commandments,
Ecclesiasties 12:14
For this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.
Of course we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Eph 2:10. Arminians might imagine God needs our works to complete His plan. Calvinists would say He does not. We simply have the privilege of coming along for the ride. Speaking of Ephesians 2, exactly how much free will are dead people able to exert?
Paul continues to affirm the doctrine of predestination by quoting Exodus 33:19 and Exodus 9:16. A common argument among Arminians is that God only hardened Pharaoh’s heart after Pharoah first chose to harden it himself. Yet God told Moses beforehand that He would harden it so that Pharaoh would not let the people go. Exodus 4:21 Still, an argument previously put forth by me is that the “hardening” was more akin to a “giving up” or “giving over” to sin as described in Romans 1:24-28. If we insist on sinning, God allows us to go the way we desire. That may be true in the context of Romans 1. As it turns out I was wrong. The hardening – chazaq– of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus 4 means exactly that. God, not Pharaoh, chose to harden Pharaoh’s heart because that is the prerogative of a Sovereign, omniscient, and omnipotent God. Argue with the Potter if you will.
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
Romans 9:20
So many today presume to know and declare the plan purposes of God. Some do it propheticly. Others make philosophical assertions. Meanwhile, His word declares.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Ecc 3:11
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your waysand my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
God doesn’t want us to know what He is doing and why. He wants us to know Him.
Of course, Paul is not debating Calvin versus Arminius here. He is laying a foundation for explaining the relationship between Israel and the gentile church in the context of His perfect sovereign will. Israel is not Israel because they were superior. Israel is Israel because God, in His sovereignty, chose Jacob to become Israel before he was in the womb. Gen 32 The same principle is applied to the gentile church. Paul paraphrases the prophetic declaration from Hosea 2:23
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
Romans 9:25-26
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
Hosea was told to marry and remain faithful to a prostitute who remained a prostitute. The prostitute represents Israel, and as we will see, us, the church.
Paul concludes with a prophetic reference to about Jesus in Isaiah 8 and Isaiah 28:16.
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
Romans 9:33
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
As I said, I’ve always tended toward Arminianism. I preached the gospel to sell Jesus. I did good works in hope that people would see Jesus in me and “accept Him.” Anyone will believe if I can just make a good enough case – offer an apologetic defense that is solid enough. Aside from illustrating the futility of ideas that counter biblical claims, I don’t think that debate has ever worked. Not even once. Roland Baker who is a Calvinist, recently posted the following.
When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this… One week-night, … the thought struck me, “How did you come to be a Christian?” I sought the Lord. “But how did you come to seek the Lord?” The truth flashed across my mind in a moment – I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him.I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray?
-Spurgeon Carry The Light-
I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, “I ascribe my change wholly to God”
If I am honest the same truth applies to me. I didn’t come to Jesus of my own free will. Heck! I was trying my very best to reject Him and die. He saved me despite me. Not because of me. It occurs to me that the driving force behind Arminianism might be the very self that Jesus commands us to deny as a first step in becoming His disciple. Mat 16:24 Here in the charismatic I-dentity culture, we can not fathom that the imagined exaltation of the almighty “I” in His eyes might be the problem instead of the solution it is proported to be. If indeed I am in Christ Jesus, then I am a new creation. 2 Cor 5:17 I am also dead. Col 3:3. Becoming a new creation is not an invitation to shift my focus from Him to my I-dentity. Today, I am more convinced than ever that my sole purpose on earth is to know HIM and deny the little “i”. Less of me. More of HIM is key. I will be eternally grateful to be nothing here on earth if I can simply pass through the gates of heaven into His Holy presence for eternity.
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