I heard a preacher the other day speaking on Malachi. He came to the passage in the first chapter that says, "'Was not Esau Jacob's brother?' declares the LORD. 'Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation, and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness'" (Mal 1:2-3). The preacher went on to say that this passage is echoed in Paul's epistle to the Romans, so it was important to be clear what God was saying here. "He was talking not about individuals, but about groups. He was talking about the nation of Israel and the nation of Edom." And, of course, this is the popular contradiction to seeing Romans 9 as an abundantly clear presentation of the doctrine of Election.
Well, I thought about it. And I had a couple of questions.
The first question was regarding the general referencing of Old Testament passages in the New Testament. As an example, Isaiah speaks of a virgin (or maybe even a "maiden" as if that makes a difference) who will give birth. Matthew says that prophecy was fulfilled in the Virgin Mary's having borne Jesus. Is Matthew's reference the same as Isaiah's? Maybe not. Later Matthew tells how Joseph and Mary spent a couple years in Egypt, fulfilling Hosea's "When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son" (Hos 11:1). Clearly in this example Hosea was referencing something different than Matthew. Hosea was talking about Israel coming out of Egypt and Matthew saw it as a prophecy. This may sound like an error or a contradiction, but given the inspiration of the Spirit, there is no reason that both could not be true. The point, then, is that not all Old Testament references in the New Testament necessarily rely on their Old Testament contexts. So if the Malachi reference is in terms of Israel and Edom, why could it still not be in terms of Jacob and Esau as individuals when Paul uses it?
The second question, though, struck me as I looked at the passage itself. Note that God indeed is talking about Israel and Edom. No question. Still, He speaks first in terms of individuals. I say "first" because He seems to start with individuals (Jacob and Esau) and move on from there. He starts with Esau but then expands "I have hated Esau" to include "and ... his inheritance". The question, then, is this. When God said, "I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau", did He mean "Oh, I don't mean those guys as individuals, but the nations they spawned" or did He mean "I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I carried that on to their offspring"?
It would seem to me that given the fact that the New Testament relies more on the inspiration of the Spirit than formulaic hermeneutical principles when it references the Old Testament, and that God seemed to begin with individuals as He carried out His warnings to Edom that it is entirely possible and even likely that Paul's reference in Romans 9 is indeed a reference to individual election and not some nebulous "group election" concept.
2 comments:
I would imagine that since the Romans 9 passage talks only of the individuals and not the inheritance, then Paul had the individuals in mind when he wrote it, and since all that is written in Scripture is penned by men by the movement of the Spirit, I would have to assume that the point Paul was making about individual election was the goal. There is obviously some context of group election, in that all those individuals that are elected are part of a group, but seeing as we know that being a Christian is not by blood or birth, then that pastor's conclusion is faulty, since the Malachi passage is talking of hereditary inheritance.
I'm with you.
I notice that Malachi (and Paul) are arguing from the position "This is what God did with individuals, so this is what God will do with you as a group". All of Paul's context is in terms of individuals -- Isaac, Sarah, Rebekah, Jacob, Esau, Moses, Pharaoh. None of it is in terms of groups. Now, while obviously a bunch of individuals make up a group, the nebulous "group" concept means absolutely nothing without individuals. So the idea that God calls a "group" with not idea of the individuals makes zero sense to me. Happily, I don't see any reason to take either Paul or Malachi as talking about groups apart from individuals.
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