God’s Sovereign Choice

(Genesis 25:19–28, Malachi 1:1–5)

6 [It is] not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who [are] descended from Israel [are] Israel. 7 Nor because they are Abraham’s descendants [are] they all [his] children. On the contrary, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”[fn] 8 So it is not the children of the flesh [who are] God’s children, but [it is] the children of the promise who are regarded as offspring. 9 For this [is] what [the] promise stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”[fn]

10 Not only that, but Rebecca’s [children] were conceived by one [man], our father Isaac. 11 Yet before [the twins] were born [or] had done anything good or evil,[fn] in order that God’s plan of election might stand, 12 not by works but by Him who calls, she was told “The older will serve the younger.”[fn] 13 So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[fn]

14 What then shall we say? [Is] God unjust? Certainly not!

15 For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[fn]

16 So then, [it does] not [depend] on man’s desire [or] effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh “I raised you up for this very [purpose], that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[fn] 18 Therefore [God] has mercy on whom He wants [to have mercy ], and He hardens whom He wants [ to harden ].

19 One of you will say to me, “Why[fn] does [God] still find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? [Shall] what is formed say to Him who formed [it], “Why did You make me like this?”[fn] 21 {Does} not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and [another] for common use?

22 What if God, intending to show [His] wrath and make His power {known}, bore with great patience [the] vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction? 23 [What if He did this] to make the riches of His glory {known} to [the] vessels of [His] mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory—24 including us, whom He has called not only from [the] Jews, but also from [the] Gentiles?

25 As He says in Hosea: “I will call [them] ‘My People’ who [are] not My people, and [I will call her] ‘[My] Beloved’ who [is] not [My] beloved,”[fn]

26 and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You [are] not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of [the] living God.’ ”[fn]

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, [only] the remnant will be saved.

28 For [the] Lord will carry out [His] sentence thoroughly and decisively in righteousness, because He will cut short [the] matter on the earth.”[fn]

29 [It is] just as Isaiah foretold: “Unless [the] Lord of Hosts had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.”[fn]