Got some feedback about my comments that Esau never served Jacob:
"Charles Hodge proposed that Esau had served Jacob by forfeiting his birthright and by being "postponed" for Jacob in various ways."

and...

"How would you deal with the 'personalistic' elements of the Rom 9:12 prophecy?"

I'll need to address this within what I gather to be Paul's purpose in Rom 9:6-16 as a whole:
To show that God has the right to elect a People - ANY people, regardless of merit - for a special
destiny/privilege/role, etc.

The example of Esau and Jacob, I believe, blends together perfectly two concepts which characterize election: its corporate nature (their posterities) and its undeservedness (the announcement to Rebekah 'ahead of time' and the choice of elected descendants being of Jacob's, independently of his merit).

Given that primacy MUST be given to the corporate (and I just don't see how anyone can avoid the contexts of Gen 25:23 and Mal 1:2-3, which should leave no doubt that the corporate is the essence of what's being discussed by Moses, Malachi and Paul), it ceases to matter whether or not personal scenarios are present.  Because it would be clear that Paul's discussion of the NATURE of election (between 9:6-13) focuses on peoples, not individuals.

We simply cannot draw dogmas concerning the election of individuals from a passage which has "Election-is-a-corporate-thing" written all over it.

On to the questions...

1.  What about Hodge's comments (that Esau 'served' Jacob by forfeiting his birthright)?

I wouldn't so much challenge his comments as I would question where he intends to go with it and what he seeks to do with the (primary) corporate focus.

Because the way I see it, once the primary corporate nature of election is established, double
predestination cannot stand; DP and corporate election simply don't mix.  God elected ALL of Jacob's prosterities but - as 9:6-9 showed and 11:20 confirmed - this doesn't exclude the need for faith.

Point is, even if I conceded that Esau and Jacob were personally 'predestined', I don't see how we can move from that to salvific scenarios, nor how we can look past the corporate framework.

For Hodge's argument to 'work' for DP (and I'm assuming he supports it), he needs to show how the personalistic theme is the MAIN thing in election.  He has a lot more to do than merely suggest certain ways in which Rom 9:12 can be fulfilled...

2.  And the 'personal' element in Rom 9:12 and spoken of in Gen 25:23?

I would grant that the prophecy in Gen 25:23 is 'personal' only in the sense that two persons were employed (elected?) by God to represent future nations, of which the prophecy is primarily about.

And no I don't think Hodge is right with that comment of his, because the fulfilment of the prophecy in Gen 25:23 would only come after the event of Esau's lost blessing (of which Gen 27 speaks).

Remember that the prophecy, "The older shall serve the younger", is reannounced/respoken in Gen 27:37 and 27:40 by Isaac to Esau.

As such I think that Gen 25:23 could refer to NEITHER Esau's forfeited birthright NOR his stolen blessings, if only because Isaac's paraphrase serves to 'bounce' the prophecy's fulfilment into the future (or at least to after Gen 27)!

I'm of course making the (not unreasonable) assumption that Gen 25:23 and Gen 27 are linked, and that God and Isaac didn't just happen to make two independent prophetic statements which just happened to sound the same, *smile*.

Conclusion:  Gen 25:23 (and thus Rom 9:12) cannot convincingly be said to refer to Jacob
cheating his brother of the birthright nor the blessing.  This gives us a very strong reason to challenge any interpretation of Rom 9 which involves a divine rejection of Esau (a'la God predestined bad stuff to happen to him as an individual).
 

AL


Back to Main Page