for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Romans 9:11-13
The late great J.I. Packer once said that “People treat God’s sovereignty as a matter of controversy but in Scripture, it is a matter of worship.” This statement couldn’t be more true in the world today. Anytime you bring up how God does everything for sake of His own name which is clearly laced through scripture and here are but a few examples:
Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power.
Psalm 106:8
But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.
Ezekiel 20:14
Or saying that God has mercy on whom He chooses:
And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
Exodus 33:19
Or saying that he does whatever He pleases or that He doesn’t need human hands:
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
Psalm 115:3
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Acts 17:24-25
Any of these will be met with little to intense scorn from your peers. God’s Sovereignty is something many don’t want to surrender themselves to, to the point that they are willing to compromise and say that there are some things that God can’t actually do which is extremely scary because as R.C. Sproul famously said:
“If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s Sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.”
The reason this is scary is that when we say this we are basically making Him like one of us when He is far and above beyond us in every way as the creature can never beat its Creator (Isaiah 55:7-10 for emphasis). This is even made more heinous when you have certain people, people who claim to be professing Christians no less, say that God can’t override your unbelief. Then if that’s the case what about Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3), Paul (Acts 9:1-19), Lydia (Acts 16:14-15) just to cite a few examples that come to mind immediately. None of these and by proxy all of us knew God or truly knew God before their conversion (Romans 3:11-23) but by some supernatural conviction, they and we came to a knowledge of Him and His Son crucified even Paul admitted as much (Philippians 3:5-11). However, if it is true that He can’t override human decisions then I have to ask why do we refute atheism then because the base argument for atheism is essentially humans have all the say in matters concerning the universe, and where we don’t then it happened by chance. If that’s true, then we have more problems than we can begin to count.
Then Are Our Decisions Meaningless?
Pretty sure that this question would pop up after my argument and the answer to this question is absolutely not. None of the decisions we make are coerced or forced upon us. However, that doesn’t mean God isn’t aware of them while we make them because as Joseph says to his brothers in Genesis 50:20:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
More on that in a moment but let’s look to the greatest crime ever committed and Peter in Acts 2:22-24 summarizes it perfectly for us:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
We won’t delve into this as much as this is but an introduction to what will be a recurring series but essentially what Peter is saying here is that still the decisions made were accounted to them as they did it of their own choosing. Though the upshot is that God used these decisions to bring about the greatest gift ever known and that is the gift of salvation. Thus, not only did God know of their decisions but used these decisions to fulfill the prophecy He made through Isaiah 700 years before (Isaiah 53).
Now onto Genesis.
The Older Shall Serve the Younger
Before I take a look at the book of Genesis, I have to say that the book of Genesis is one which most of us take for granted and that was made starkly clear when I did my first comprehensive study of it. There are truths shown in a more comprehensive light than most books of the Bible and His Purposeful Sovereignty is one of those truths especially in the statement of the older shall serve the younger.
Whether it be in the case of Isaac and Ishmael (Genesis 21:12) or even in the case of Joseph and Reuben in which Joseph got the double portion that is usually reserved for the eldest brother (Genesis 48:22) and even his birthright (1 Chronicles 5:1-2) or in the famous case we all know of and the one we will cover and that is Jacob and Esau. As Romans 9:11-13 says God had sovereignly chosen Jacob to be the child of promise even before He was born to the point He said; “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated,” (Malachi 1:2-3). However, the world tries to twist the purposes of God and God’s purpose here was:
The Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.”
Genesis 25:23
Isaac didn’t see it this way though and at the beginning of Genesis 27 tells Esau:
Now it came about, when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” And he said to him, “Here I am.” Isaac said, “Behold now, I am old and I do not know the day of my death. Now then, please take your gear, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me; and prepare a savory dish for me such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die.”
Genesis 27:1-4
Isaac had to have known that God had chosen Jacob over Esau but that didn’t seem to matter to him. God in His great wisdom had already thwarted Isaac’s plan as verse 5 tells us that Rebekah heard Isaac’s instructions to Esau. Yes, the plan she hatches with Jacob, which is a sort of tongue and cheek as his name means supplanter, is not one that is done to the glory of God but is extremely centered on them trying to gain something for themselves and thus they still had to bear the consequences of their actions with Jacob being deceived by Laban (Genesis 29:22-26) and even by his own sons when they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:26-34).
Alistair Begg once said:
Evil never thwarts God’s Good Purpose. It doesn’t. It can’t. Neither is evil ever justified because it is used by God for Good.
What was the good purpose? The older shall serve the younger.
What were the means used to achieve it? Jacob and Rebekah deceived Isaac by making it seem that He was Esau even going as far as to take advantage of the fact that He was nearly blind (Genesis 27:6-29).
Were God’s purposes achieved? Yes, they were.
Does that mean Jacob got away scot-free? No, as we have seen He paid due penance for it through being given Leah instead of Rachel and his sons making it seem as if Joseph had been killed by ravenous animals. Speaking of which,
You Meant it for Evil, He for Good
Joseph was Israel’s favorite son. Born to him in his old age and his firstborn by his beloved Rachel. These were basically catalysts for Jacob favoring him more than the rest of his brothers. However, these weren’t the only reasons that Jacob loved him, another reason for it was because Joseph was basically a perfect son compared to his brothers who basically massacred the people of Shechem in Genesis 34. Even if the brothers had a justified reason in the rape of their sister Dinah the means they used to seek justice were reprehensible in that they even defiled God’s covenant with the patriarchs.
Now as a result of this favoritism Joseph’s brothers hated him. To add on top of that Joseph was a dreamer who dreamt of his brothers and parents bowing before him and so that didn’t help matters either. So the brothers planned to get rid of him and they struck gold when Joseph went to see them in Dothan at the command of his father. Here once we see God’s working hand in the decisions of man because they had at first planned to kill him but Reuben interjected saying; “Let us not take his life,” (Genesis 37:21). Then added on to his earlier statement saying; “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not lay hands on him” (Genesis 37:22). The plan was that they would throw him into and then Reuben would come later and remove him.
However, God needed him and by proxy the Israelites in Egypt to fulfill the promise to Abraham (Genesis 15:13-16). So in Genesis 37:26-27 after Judah see a caravan of Ishmaelites coming their way he said to his brothers;
“What profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.”
His brothers listened to him and pulled Joseph out of the pit and sold him for 20 shekels of silver. Then the Midianites sold him to Egypt and there began his journey that first led him to prison as he was falsely accused of sexual assault (Genesis 39:14-20) and then he was forgotten by the cup-bearer for 2 years after interpreting his dream. At times I am sure he had to have asked himself what is God’s plan here. It was all by design as the cup-bearer forgetting him was by God’s design as the perfect moment hadn’t arrived. All these misfortunes change in chapter 41 though when he not only interprets Pharaoh’s dream but also by God’s providence gave him the solution to the dreams and thus showed Pharaoh that he could be a wise and competent statesman. Thus, he was made Prime Minister, second only to Pharaoh.
All of these crescendos in what is one of my favorite verses in the Bible:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
Genesis 50:20
All the afflictions that Joseph suffered at the hands of his brothers, the Ishmaelites & Midianites, and the Egyptians were all producing a weight of glory beyond all else (2 Corinthians 4:17). Thus, was God sovereign? Yes, He was because if the cup-bearer remembered him and Joseph was released from prison, who knows what would have happened. I for one know one of my first instincts would be to return to my family. God needed him in Egypt though and as a result, all that happened did so that the end result would the glory of God’s name in Egypt.
Rest on His Sovereignty
The reason that God sovereignly acts in all things isn’t mainly for our good but for the glory of His own name which in turn becomes our good as our chief end is to enjoy and glorify Him forever (Isaiah 48:9-11; 49:3, Jeremiah 13:11, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 1:4-6). That should be a matter of controversy as the world has made it but rather one of great joy and comfort. This is due to the fact as we said earlier we would have no reason to trust in God and not only that but to pray to Him if He was sovereign over all things. In a recent sermon Jonny Ardavanis said:
God is absolutely sovereign in whom He saves but His sovereignty is never supposed to be a catalyst for your passivity and disobedience but is supposed to be the comfort, strength, power, and fuel you need to go: This is a mission that cannot fail, Here I am, Send me.
His sovereignty shouldn’t make you lax but rather push you forward to make His name known in every corner of the globe and every opportunity that He affords you and that is one of Infallible Joy exists. We found absolute joy and comfort in His Sovereignty and now we have made it our life’s purpose to make Him known.
My plea is for you to make it yours as well. Till next time, rest on that glorious truth. Shalom.
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