¹⁴ What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! ¹⁵ For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶ So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

Make no mistake about it, God chose one human being over another—and it had nothing to do with anything Jacob or Esau did. Rather it had everything to do with God’s mercy and compassion. It did not depend on the will (free choice) of Jacob or Esau. Some try to temper this down with a variant view of God’s foreknowledge: God simply knew what Jacob and Esau would be like. That is, He chose the one over the other because He knew the one would in time have the redeeming behavior He was looking for.

We would question, philosophically, does not God’s foreknowledge render Jacob’s behavior unchangeable? Esau could not act in any way contrary to what God foreknew him to act. Therefore, using the theological idea of God’s foreknowledge to temper the impact of God’s sovereignty does not provide a satisfactory solution, but rather defers it to another place.

Is this unjust? Paul answers with his classic “Me gnoito” (“May it never be!”). The question does not catch him off guard—he anticipates it; in fact, he sets it up and then slams it with the flat-out truth. He does not deny or mitigate the assertion of God’s choosing Jacob over Esau. Nor does he focus his response on theological argumentation (although he is not averse to doing such in other places). Rather he attacks the objection by simply quoting God Himself, when He spoke to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (see Ex 33:19).

The implications are clear. How can anyone find fault (i.e. injustice) with God for showing mercy and compassion! This would imply that God must (is obligated and morally constrained) to be merciful and compassionate. But why must He be merciful to anyone, for all have sinned against Him and fallen short of His glory? What higher authority requires an undeserved compassion, an unmerited mercy? The popular objection today is, “God is unfair for not choosing Esau.” But on what grounds can we call that unfair, when Esau was equally a sinner, fallen short of God’s glory and deserving of death (Rom 3:23, 6:23)? Fairness, if it applies, should mean all die. But if God chooses to show mercy and compassion on some, that does not mean He is unfair when giving the just consequence of death to all others.

Lord, I praise You for controvening fairness by showing me mercy, for I did not deserve any of it.