Does God love all humans and want to save them, or does He love certain ones and hate others? This portion of chapter nine which we are reading today is a central passage to which people will turn to "prove" that God chooses who will or will not be saved. According to that doctrine, the most important truth to emphasize about God is His sovereignty, meaning His control of everything. It is assumed that if humans have any choice in the matter of their eternal destiny, then God isn't totally sovereign. So repentance is renounced as a basis for salvation because it involves the human will making a choice. Even faith in Christ is discounted. This doctrine says faith is something God gives to a person only after He regenerates them, meaning after He places His Holy Spirit inside them. Those who teach this say it is wrong to think a person can choose to believe the gospel. We don't choose God; He chooses us, they say. This makes grace all the sweeter, they say. And on what basis, you might ask, does God choose one person but not another? The answer, they say, is found in this passage of Romans. After all, God loved Jacob but hated Esau before the twins were born or had "done anything good or bad" (v11). So there you have it, they say, the decision of who will or will not be saved is determined by God before we are born. And if you take this passage out of its context, you can indeed make it say that. But the God you end up with is very different from the loving Father Jesus reveals to us. And the conclusion you draw is very different from Paul's own conclusion at the end of the chapter (vs30-33). Though all of this may sound like a pointless theological debate, what's at stake is nothing less than the character of God. These two views of Him are so different they really present two different Gods.

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