Jacob I Loved But Esau I Hated

A recent FB post reminded me of the fact that American Christianity is essentially liberal when it comes to its ethics. Matthew Rose writes about the liberal view of humanity by summing up Adolph Harnack's view of Christianity.

"He assured believers that modern thinking was an unambiguous blessing, as it could liberate them from a metaphysical mindset that was foreign to the original spirit of their faith. And that spirit was animated by a simple creed about the universal Fatherhood of God and his presence in every human soul."

This "fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man" mentality pervaded the American religious spirit so much that even fundamentalists made room for it when it came to evangelism. It was an easy transition since entire towns had been made up of professing Christians, i.e., the visible covenant community, since the early days of the Christian Roman Empire on into the period of American colonization, understanding "neighbor" literally as everyone within one's sphere of influence was a natural leap.

Since Evangelicalism is a hybrid of fundamentalist and liberal traditions, it is no surprise that it often adopted the theology of their fundamentalist forebears and the ethics of their liberal ones.

One of the problems, of course, is that the Bible teaches a very exclusive God with a very exclusive gospel of salvation. God chooses Jacob over Esau. He chooses His people over the Egyptians, the Amalekites, the Canaanites, etc.

This is the very concept of love that the phrase, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" coneys. Love is preference. Love is choosing one over another, and the one who is not chosen is said to be hated (i.e., not the one given priority over the other). It is giving care to Israel at the expense of other nations rather than giving care to other nations at the expense of Israel. A choice has to be made. Either God will give preference to the Egyptians over the Israelites or the other way around. He must choose that Israelite babies live and Egyptian babies die, Israelites live and Canaanites die, etc. One can argue that He stays out of it so that no preference is given, but this too is an unbiblical (and illogical) concept.

Ultimately, He loves His Son, and only those who are placed in the Son. Outside of the Son are the chaotic agents of the world, the wicked who are destined to destruction. Because of this, there is no fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man in the Bible because only the Son is loved by God. This means that only those in the Son are brothers of the Son and brothers of one another. The Bible teaches, therefore, the "Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Christians," not of humanity in general.

Paul even argues in Romans 9 that the unbeliever may be created as one who will receive the wrath of God in damnation in order to display what mercy looks like to His elect. Jesus tells the Syro-Phoenician woman that He has no obligation to her as one who is not of the covenant community, i.e., a child of God. This only changes when she exercises faith in Him, displaying that she, in fact, does belong to the covenant community via faith.

Likewise, the Pharisees evidence that they are not of the covenant community by their lack of faith. They receive only condemnation from Christ, not some affirmation that God cares for them as His own. Jesus also holds back doing miracles when the assumed covenant community evidences that they are not truly "of Jacob" because of their lack of faith. In fact, being a visible member of Jacob, i.e., the covenant community, is mandatory to receive the blessings of Christ. He does not heal a single person who rejects Him. He does not heal a single person who is outside the covenant community. He gives priority to Jacob because He loves Jacob, and does not give kingdom resources (i.e., the blessings of the eternal kingdom to come that are given in a smaller part in Jesus' ministry and beyond) to Esau because He hates Esau. The nations still receive a common grace because they are being used to sanctify His people, but the Bible teaches that they will be removed from His blessed earth once that is all accomplished.

What this means is that God/Jesus has priorities, and these priorities are set up according to whom He loves over others. By choosing a people for Himself, He gives preference to those people at the expense of other people. This is the logical outworking of love, and why love must be seen as a work of prioritizing groups for which one is responsible to care for.

As I've said before, if a man walks into my house with a gun and desires to murder my children, I must decide to whom I will give preference, who has priority over the other. I don't give some sappy liberal answer that Jesus just wants us to love everyone. No, He doesn't. He wants us to give priority to those to whom He gives priority, and we know this because every verse that discusses taking care of the poor, oppressed, etc. is in the context of the covenant community. We are to love one another. We are to take care of the least of these brothers of Mine. If any believer sees his brother in need and turns away the love of God, i.e., the prioritizing love of God that gives preference to His people, does not abide in him. Even loving one's opponent within the covenant community, i.e., the enemy in terms of someone in the church oppressing you is to be loved due to their visible connection to the church. Christ tells us that if He returns and a professed believer is mistreating other believers that He will assign Him a place with the unbelievers. All of this is exclusive to believers, and yet, if the Fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man were true, why is there any specification at all? Why not say that Christians are obligated to love everyone equally, regardless of whether they are believers? Why limit the scope to fellow Christians? Either by virtue of the implicitness of the audience of the biblical text or by virtue of something explicit said in the context, every single text that places a burden on believers to care for other human beings refers to the human beings within the covenant community.

And why is this? Because God loves Jacob, but hates Esau. It might even be clearer to translate it as, "I chose to prioritize My care of Jacob over Esau." Any rejection of that is a denial of the God of the Bible, the true Christian ethic of love, and the exaltation of another religion the Bible simply does not espouse.

The irony of interpreting the Bible in an inclusive manner is that the very nature of love forces one into choosing one over another. One must choose to house his children in a safe environment rather than letting a hundred pedophiles live in the same house with them. One with limited resources must choose to give those limited resources in a way that diminishes giving. Either he will diminish giving to one by giving to the other, or both by diminishing the amount he gives. Choices are made daily, and the sad commentary on the liberal evangelical ethic is that when it reads the Bible it has more care for Esau than it does for Jacob. After all, if loving your enemy refers to the pagan then great care is taken to treat him well, but since the Christian isn't your enemy, less care can be taken. Theoretically, everyone knows this isn't right, but it works out very practically when you see in conversations how much concern is given for speaking to the unbeliever "lovingly," but other believers, who are in opposition, like garbage.

The truth is that because of this false teaching we are in a war over what love looks like when choices have to be made. It affects our politics, our understanding of the church's mission, church finances, etc. And all of that is very important because if we love Esau over Jacob then that means we are hating Jacob. And hating Jacob is the opposite of God's revealed love in the Bible.