We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
How do you respond to Genesis 25:23?
The Lord told Rebekah, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” (cf. Rom. 9:12–16)
Old Testament scholars agree that the author (and later, Paul in Romans 9) has the descendants of Jacob and Esau more in mind than the individuals themselves. The Lord is exercising his sovereign right to choose the lineage of his elect people—viz. a unique nation intended to function as priests to the entire world. When read in the light of Romans 9, it is clear that the Lord doesn’t just “happen” to know that the descendants of Esau will serve the descendants of Jacob. Rather, for providential reasons the sovereign God is ensuring that this will be the case. The passage, then, is not about something which God “happens” to know: it’s about God’s ability to sovereignly shape history according to his will.
We should also note that, as in most biblical prophecies, there is a conditional element in this declaration. Interestingly enough, Esau never actually served Jacob in his lifetime. Nor has it usually been the case that the descendants of Esau have served the descendants of Jacob. This illustrates God’s flexibility in giving prophecies. He can say in very general terms that the descendants of Esau shall serve the descendants of Jacob without specifying how long and to what extent this will be true. In the light of the passages which reflect a partly open future, we might conclude that God chose to leave these matters somewhat open to be decided by free agents.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism, Responding to Objections
Verse: Genesis 25
Related Reading
The Future is Not Like the Past For God (or Us)
Image by seier+seier via Flickr Everyone agrees that we are not free to change the past. No sane person would claim, for example, that I can now make any free choices about whether John F. Kennedy will be assassinated or not on November 22, 1963. This deed, like all past deeds, has already been accomplished. Now consider,…
Is Free Will compatible with Predestination?
Question: Isn’t “freedom” simply our ability to do what we want? And if this is so there seems to be no incompatibility between saying that a person is “free” on the one hand, but predestined (or at least foreknown) by God, on the other. But why do you say that freedom is not compatible with…
How do you respond to Isaiah 44:28–45:1?
This passage is one of the most persuasive evidences of divine foreknowledge in the Bible. The verse proclaims the Lord as the one “who says to Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose’; and who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be rebuilt,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall…
Free Will: How free will presupposes a great deal of determinism
This particular video was recorded last week when the forecast called for a high of -4F. Greg makes light of the freezing conditions before he settles into the topic of how a mostly determined world is actually the needed context for free will to operate. Stay warm out there!
Did God use Satan to test Job?
Question: In Job 1:21 and 2:10, Job seems to accept “adversity” from God while continuing to trust him. Job blames his troubles on God (i.e. “He shattered me” [16:12], “He breaks me down on every side” [19:10], “For he performs what is appointed for me” [23:14]). In Chapters 1 and 2, God even seems to…