Does anyone else see a contradiction here?
At the end of Romans 8, we find that wonderful passage that concludes, "nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." These verses have given comfort and encouragement to millions over the centuries--including me. I've heard them read (more times than I can count) at funerals and memorial services and gravesides. I've heard them used as a text for sermons, and done so myself as well. They provide wonderful assurance.
But this morning's Bible study took me from the end of chapter 8 into most of chapter 9. And it kind of rubbed my nose in a seeming contradiction. Notice these verses from chapter 9. Verse 13 quotes Malachi 1, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Malachi seems to use the statement looking backward in time; but Paul quotes it as if God determined before they were born that He would love Jacob and hate Esau. Or notice verse 18, when Paul reflects on God's treatment of Pharaoh. Paul says, "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden." Does that sound to you like love from which nothing in creation can separate us? Apparently, at least for Esau and the Pharaoh, there was indeed something that could separate them from God's love--that is, the will of God could separate them from the love of God. Or look at verse 22: "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction?" It seems, in light of the previous verses, that God created these objects of wrath simply so that He could "make his power known."
Are these truly contradictions? And do you ever wonder if you are unknowingly part of the group that includes Esau and the Pharaoh?
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