Romans 9:13-14

NO UNRIGHTEOUSNESS WITH GOD

‘As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.’

Romans 9:13

Jacob had great sins, but they were falls! He rose; he repented, and he was forgiven. In his heart of hearts he owned, and loved, and served, and honoured God. There was a secret hidden life in the man which you must set over against the visible and the public life. In the end and in the main he was a religious man. It is like what the Psalms were to the life of David, or the Chronicles to the life of Manasseh. The child of God comes out, and grace prevails.

Esau was, in a worldly sense, moral but godless. Not very wrong with man, but never right with God. There was no real fear or love of God in him. ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.’

And would not you feel the same?

I. Suppose you had two sons.—The one lived a perfectly correct life; but you were nothing to him. He avoided your society; and he never recognised either your authority or your love. The other did many bad things, and often grieved you; but he loved you fondly, and acknowledged his obligations to you, and was very sorry when he hurt you; and you were always in his heart. Which would be the one you loved? Would not the faults of the one be as nothing compared to the coldness and the indifference of the other? He who proved himself after all the son, would not he have the father’s affections? ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.’

II. The world is very much made up of ‘Esaus’ and ‘Jacobs.’—Some lead very correct lives. What is God? A cypher. Where is God? Nowhere. Others are really religious. They love God. But they do many, many very inconsistent and very bad things. They repent; they are forgiven. They strive; they are miserable. And then they go and do the same thing again. And the process repeats itself hundreds and hundreds of times. And the correct, moral people of the world, see the sins of the religious people, and suspect and despise them. And the religious people scarcely remember how very inferior they are, in many things, to the world.

III. The sequel.—Then what will be to the Jacobs? They will be punished, as Jacob was, by a retributive justice. They will go through severe ordeals of purification. They will suffer even to the fire! But they will be saved! And what to the Esaus who live and die Esaus? A retributive justice too; a negation. No God in them; then, no God for them! No birthright! No blessing! No repentance! ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid!’