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| Predestination to Eternal Life is Wholly of God’s Free Grace.
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Chapter
98.—Predestination to Eternal Life is Wholly of God’s Free
Grace.
And, moreover, who will be so
foolish and blasphemous as to say that God cannot change the evil
wills of men, whichever, whenever, and wheresoever He chooses, and
direct them to what is good? But when He does this He does it of
mercy; when He does it not, it is of justice that He does it not
for “He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will
He hardeneth.”1279
And when the apostle said this, he
was illustrating the grace of God, in connection with which he had
just spoken of the twins in the womb of Rebecca, “who 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.”1280
And in
reference to this matter he quotes another prophetic testimony:
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”1281
But perceiving how what he had
said might affect those who could not penetrate by their
understanding the depth of this grace: “What shall we say
then?” he says: “Is there unrighteousness with God? God
forbid.”1282
For it
seems unjust that, in the absence of any merit or demerit, from
good or evil works, God should love the one and hate the other.
Now, if the apostle had wished us to understand that there were
future good works of the one, and evil works of the other, which of
course God foreknew, he would never have said, “not of works,”
but, “of future works,” and in that way would have solved the
difficulty, or rather there would then have been no difficulty to
solve. As it is, however, after answering, “God forbid;” that
is, God forbid that there should be unrighteousness with God; he
goes on to prove that there is no unrighteousness in God’s doing
this, and says: “For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
compassion.”1283
Now, who
but a fool would think that God was unrighteous, either in
inflicting penal justice on those who had earned it, or in
extending mercy to the unworthy? Then he draws his conclusion:
“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy.”1284
Thus both the twins were born
children of wrath, not on account of any works of their own, but
because they were bound in the fetters of that original
condemnation which came through Adam. But He who said, “I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” loved Jacob of His
undeserved grace, and hated Esau of His deserved judgment. And as
this judgment was due to both, the former learnt from the case of
the latter that the fact of the same punishment not falling upon
himself gave him no room to glory in any merit of his own, but only
in the riches of the divine grace; because “it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.”
And indeed the whole face, and, if I may use the expression, every
lineament of the countenance of Scripture conveys by a very
profound analogy this wholesome warning to every one who looks
carefully into it, that he who glories should glory in the Lord.1285
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