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“Esau have I Hated.”

Romans 9:13

My friend, Pastor Bruce Crabtree, wrote, “It’s a very serious matter to think God has the capacity to hate. This is most offensive to some people who could never bring themselves to believe God has such capacity.” Offensive as it is to proud, fallen rebels to hear it, it is twice recorded in Holy Scripture, “Esau have I hated.”

Sovereign Hatred

God’s hatred was a sovereign hatred. That is obviously the message of Romans 9:13. When the Lord God says, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,” he is using those twin brothers as an illustration of his great and glorious sovereignty in the salvation of sinners (Romans 9:10-26).

The Spirit of God, using Jacob to represent God’s elect and Esau to represent all who perish at last under the wrath of God, teaches us and teaches us plainly, as he does throughout the Word of God, that the difference between God’s elect whom he saves by his almighty grace in Christ and the reprobate who never shall be saved is a difference of God’s making, and God’s making alone (1 Corinthians 4:7; 1 Peter 2:7-10; Matthew 11:25-30).

Bro. Crabtree also wrote, “God’s first hating Esau had nothing to do with Esau being a bad person. God simply passed him by in election. God did not put his name in the Lamb’s book of life. Determined never to save him. And none of this was because Esau was a bad person. It all happened before Esau had done any evil. God did not love and choose Jacob to salvation because Jacob was a good man, nor did God hate and reject Esau because he was an evil man. So, this love for Jacob and hatred for Esau had only to do with the election of the one and the rejection of the other.” God’s hatred of Esau, like his love for Jacob, was altogether a matter of divine sovereignty. — “He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (Romans 9:18).

Negative Hatred

God’s sovereign, eternal hatred of Esau was a negation of benevolence, a resolution and determination not to have mercy on him, not to give him grace and life eternal in Christ, a determination to leave him alone. — All it takes for you to go to hell is for God to leave you alone! All it takes for you to go to hell is for God to leave you alone! Well might we cry…

“Pass me not, O gentle Savior,

Hear my humble cry,

While on others Thou art calling,

Do not pass me by!”

God passed by Esau, giving him no consideration. His only consideration was for Jacob. God loved Jacob. He considered Jacob. He chose Jacob. The only cause was in himself. The cause was the sovereignty and freedom of God’s eternal will.

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s