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The sermon strongly affirms unconditional election, arguing that Jacob was loved and chosen not because of anything good in him but because of God’s sovereign grace. It distinguishes this from Esau’s condemnation, which Spurgeon attributes to Esau’s own sin, unbelief, and rejection of spiritual blessing. Human beings cannot fully comprehend how divine sovereignty and human responsibility coexist, but they must receive both as biblical truths. The practical conclusion is evangelistic: salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ, while rejecting Christ leaves the sinner responsible for his own condemnation.
Theological center: God saves sinners by sovereign grace, while those who perish are condemned justly for their own sin and rejection of Christ.
Applications: Receive sovereign grace · Believe in Jesus Christ · Seek Christ above controversy · Consider divine election
Primary texts: Romans 9:11-13 · Romans 9:22 · Genesis 28:13-22
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Romans 9:13 DO not imagine for an instant that I pretend to be able to thoroughly elucidate the great mysteries of predestination. There are some men who claim to know all about the matter. They twist it round their fingers as easily as if it were an everyday thing, but depend upon it, he who thinks he knows all about this mystery knows but very little. It is but the shallowness of his mind that permits him to see the bottom of his knowledge, he who dives deep finds that there is in the lowest depth to which he can attain a deeper depth still. The fact is that the great questions about man’s responsibility, free will, and predestination, have been fought over, and over, and over again, and have been answered in ten thousand different ways, and the result has been that we know just as much about the matter as when we first began. The combatants have thrown dust into each other’s eyes, and have hindered each other from seeing, and then they have concluded that because they put other people’s eyes out, they could therefore see. Now, it is one thing to refute another man’s doctrine, but a very different matter to establish my own views. It is very easy to knock over one man’s hypothesis concerning these truths, not quite so easy to make my own stand on a firm footing. I shall try tonight, if I can, to go safely, if I do not go very fast, for I shall endeavor to keep simply to the letter of God’s Word. I think that if we kept more simply to the teachings of the Bible, we would be wiser than we are, for by turning from the heavenly light of revelation and trusting to the deceitful willo’-the-wisps of our own imagination, we thrust ourselves into swamps and bogs where there is no sure footing and we begin to sink, and instead of making progress, we find ourselves sticking fast. The truth is, neither you nor I have any right to want to know more about predestination than what God tells us. That is enough for us. If it were worthwhile for us to know more, God would have revealed more. What God has told us, we are to believe, but to the knowledge thus gained, we are too apt to add our own vague notions, and then we are sure to go wrong. It would be better if in all controversies, men had simply stood hard and fast by “Thus saith the Lord,” instead of having it said, “Thus and thus I think.” I shall now endeavor, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to throw the light of God’s Word upon this great doctrine of divine sovereignty, and give you what I think to be a Scriptural statement of the fact that some men are chosen, othe…