Malachi 1:2 “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,”
I have read many times that God did not hate Esau
because God does not hate any person. I understand that people see certain
places in the scriptures that the bible “appears” to say something that it does
not actually say the way it is read. If every scripture was to be takes exactly
as we read it, then the bible would be in contradiction. This is why we must
study the bible in the context of the entire scriptures as they are written.
God said, “Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the
Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of
the hearers. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:14, 15.
To study the bible is to dig deep into it and find what God is saying to us,
what He is teaching us. If a person simply takes the scriptures as read and does
not study them, they will be very confused. If a person does not piece the
puzzle of the bible together, they will always be “spiritually discerned.” This
means this person will never be able to make a spiritual determination of what
God is saying. They will never be able to put the scriptural puzzle together.
While no human will ever understand the bible in full (because it is God’s word)
we must spend our entire spiritual life on this earth in study of it to “rightly
dividing the word of truth.” The difference between men of old (like
Spurgeon and others) were so biblically intelligent is because they have little
else to occupy their time. Therefore, they (as a family) would sit under a candlelight
or other burning lights reading and studying the bible and praying for the Holy
Spirit to teach them. This is what made these men so scripturally intelligent.
This is why so many (including myself) read and study their work. Most Pastors
today have seminary learning or have been to school that teaches men to become
Pastors. The greatest seminary is the local church under a scripturally sound
Pastor. They will teach you how God is Sovereign, how He is all-knowing, and
how He is eternal and never changes. How that the bible is God’s word penned by
people that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Your Pastor will teach you to
take the time to study God’s word in-depth, looking up words and putting the
context of the bible together, and “rightly dividing the word of truth.”
That in that study you will “…shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed” It will be in that in-depth study that you will
learn the right answer to this question, “Hath not the potter power over the
clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto
dishonour?” Rom. 9:21 You will also learn that “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy,
and whom he will he hardeneth.” Rom. 9:18. And in all this scriptural understanding we
have learned, and the Holy Spirit has taught us, we may have “the mind of
the Lord” and “have the mind of Christ.” 1Cor. 2:16 When the Lord blesses us with this
understanding, because we worked hard to learn it, then we will understand how
it is that God loved Jacob and hated Esau his twin brother, just as God loved
Abel and hated Cain. God loves us with an eternal love, He did not come to love
us, He never did not love us. However, with people like Esau, God never loved them,
God did not come to hate them, God hated them as He did Esau in eternity past. Once
you learn this then you will shun off silly preachers comments like “God can’t
change your will” or “God did not hate Esau because God does not hate
any person.” God’s love to us is an act of mercy on God’s part, and the
reason God saved us is an act of grace on God’s part. People that refuse to
believe this has not studied enough to rightly decern the scriptures. That is,
they are not able to separate by the differences between Truth and fiction. God
loves us because He chose to, not because He had too.
