Let us take the case of Jacob and Esau, which is a cardinal point with these extreme Calvinists. They contend that “God loved Jacob and hated Esau, and that before they were born” (p. 30), but this is not stated in Scripture. This is another case of overstepping what is written and adding to God’s Word. Let us read Romans 9:1112: “The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.” Surely it was before the children were born that God said to their mother, “The elder shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:2323And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. (Genesis 25:23)). What was wrong with that? God had chosen Abraham as the depositary of His promises and blessings, and then He said that “in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Next, He chose Jacob to continue the line of earthly blessing and the seed through which the Messiah was to come. But let the dedicated followers of Mr. Pink search the Scriptures for one inkling that God hated Esau before he was born. Not until the last book of the Old Testament — Malachi — did God say that He loved Jacob and hated Esau, and then it is not merely Esau that He hated, but Esau’s posterity. Note carefully the language of Malachi 1:34: “I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places.” It is “his mountains” and “his heritage” and “Edom” — the descendants of Esau. They say, We will build what God has destroyed. Is it not abundantly clear that Mr. Pink has overstepped more than propriety in adding to what God actually said? Furthermore, Esau had shown himself to be “a profane person” by despising “his birthright,” which was, in fact, a divine title to the land of Canaan. God’s choice of Jacob for the preeminent place over the elder brother Esau, who had it by nature according to birth, did not make him profane.
We quote the words of another on the subject: “It must be carefully observed that this [in Malachi] is not an appeal to God’s sovereignty in His choice of Jacob as in Romans 9, where the Apostle indeed cites this passage (after he has recalled the scripture [Gen. 25:21-2321And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the Lord. 23And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. (Genesis 25:21‑23)] which announced the divine purpose respecting Esau and Jacob) to show, not only that Israel was entirely indebted to grace for the difference God had put between themselves and Esau. . . . The evidence here given is drawn wholly, not from God’s action toward Esau himself, but from God’s judgment upon his posterity — ‘I laid his mountains and his heritage waste.’ And in other scriptures we find (see especially Obadiah) that these judgments were visited upon them because of their irreconcilable hatred of Israel and their triumph over and their vengeance upon them in the day of their calamity. God had chosen Jacob — let not this truth be ignored, albeit Esau despised his birthright, but the scripture before us concerns the ways rather than the sovereignty of God.”
And still another has written: “God withholds the sentence of hatred till it is evidently justified by the conduct and ways of Esau, more particularly towards Jacob, but indeed towards Himself. In short, it would be quite true to say that God loved Jacob from the first, but that He never pronounced hatred until that was manifested which utterly repels and rejects Himself with contempt, deliberately going on in pursuit of its own way and will in despisal of God. Then only does He say, ‘I hated Esau.’ Along with this He draws attention to the fact that He ‘laid his mountains and his heritage waste.’ ” “When God says, ‘Esau have I hated,’ He waits till the last moment, till Esau has shown what he is. . . . He is patient in the execution of judgment. Long-suffering belongs to God and is inseparable from His moral nature, while He delays to execute judgment on evil. . . . Yet Esau’s ill conduct to Jacob was not the only or worst element of evil which comes into judgment. He was profane Godward, despising everything done on God’s part, save that which brought sensibly before him the greater dignity to which his brother was promoted. . . . He had no confidence in God: beyond this life no thought, no desire. . . . Why should he seek more than to enjoy present life?”
We will also quote from another book: “In short, then, not only not Paul but no other inspired writer ever speaks of ‘eternal reprobation’; it is merely a dream of a certain school. So the curse of God follows, instead of causing, the impious ways of men. Arminianism is wholly astray, no doubt, in reducing God’s election to a mere foresight of good in some creatures, but Calvinism is no less erroneous in imputing the evil lot of the first Adam race to God’s decree. They both spring from analogous roots of unbelief: Calvinism reasoning, contrary to Scripture, from the truth of election to the error of eternal reprobation; Arminianism rightly rejecting that reprobation but wrongly reasoning against election. Like other systems, they are in part true and in part false — true in what they believe of Scripture, false in yielding to human thoughts outside Scripture. Happy those who are content as Christians with the truth of God and refuse to be partisans on either side of men! Our wisdom is to have our minds open to all Scripture, refusing to go a hairbreadth farther.”