How our experience of faith is shaped

I remember a conversation I had a long time ago. A young woman red-lined everything in her Bible from which she read a condemnation of God for herself. God would be against them, was their firm conviction. No wonder her life was plagued by fear and doubt. I know people who have done just the opposite, emphasizing God’s love and mercy in their Bible. Of course, such emphasis leads to confidence and trust. So it does matter how we look at the Bible. Our self-image, image of God and worldview depend on it.

This woman, who red-lined all the statements in her Bible in which she thought God condemned her, was greatly disturbed. We spent an evening talking about how there were other passages in the Bible and how their view did not reflect reality. Such thoughts as she cherished can make life impossible. Correcting this is tantamount to reprogramming.

I also remember another situation. I regularly visited an elderly gentleman in the hospital. He was paralyzed and lying in a black suit on the white sheets of his bed. The black suit was an expression of the Calvinist-influenced church, to which he belonged. He was not sure of God’s love. The doctrine of this religious community was strict. Only the one who was “worthy” of it could obtain grace.

Of course, no one was worthy and so no one was allowed to enjoy grace who had not been touched by God in a special way. This touch of God was, first of all, a tons of sin experience. Those who do not feel sinful enough do not need grace. The result was an unredeemed Christian community. This man desperately needed God’s grace, but the teaching and community shaped his understanding and denied it to him. I shouldn’t always talk about God’s grace either, he said, because “it doesn’t work that way.”

With these two examples I would like to illustrate how strongly our experience of faith is also dependent on the theology and environment to which we feel we belong. That is why I am convinced of the necessity to deal with the Bible in a completely new way, and also to allow oneself to ask questions about the Christian culture in which one finds oneself. Theology and faith culture condition and shape each other. In Paul’s letters, we read “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1). From this realization grows a positive, faith-affirming culture. However, it stands crosswise to the bondage of some ideas that like to sell themselves as “biblical” but are not.

Does God hate some people?

Our understanding of faith is also shaped by what we believe, trust and accept. Those who read things like “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom 9:13; Mal 1:3) with a tarnished self-image may be tempted to interpret this as God’s ambivalent attitude toward himself. That would be a God who loves some but “hates” others. There is a great danger that people will then refer such statements to themselves, even though they were mentioned in a completely different context.

Quite a few communities teach that you should relate everything in the Bible to yourself. Of course, this is not entirely wrong, but in absolute terms it is not right either. If one does not learn differentiation when reading the Bible, some people get into pressure and distress because the teachings and expectations of the community have little more to do with life and with the Bible.

Only when I want to get to the bottom of the text can I gradually understand the text better. This is a process of differentiation. Of course, one reads a text first from today’s point of view, with the meanings one knows today. However, this understanding can be expanded. For instance, you can check how such a term is used in the Bible. One can check the respective context. Thus, a new and more differentiated understanding gradually emerges.

This reads excellently in the New Testament, for example, according to the way biblical passages from the Tenach (the Old Testament) are quoted and used. How did Paul quote this text from Malachi, for example, according to which God “loves Jacob but hates Esau”?

This much in advance: God does not hate certain people while loving others. This is not the issue, neither in Paul, nor in Malachi, nor in the original story in Genesis (Gen 25).

I hate you because I go a different way

Today, people think of hate as condemning another person. In the biblical context, however, it has a different meaning. There, the point is that the one who hates has a different focus. In the first place, it is a statement that someone makes about himself: “I do not choose this path!”.

Whoever “hates”, one thing hurts him and he turns away. There is, according to the ancient Hebrew, the idea of a thorn in the word, something that is unpleasant and leads to a turning away. Those who hate turn away because the experience is not good.

Hate: It is the experience of something that leads to turning away.

With such an interpretation, the path of the other is not automatically approved. In fact, there may be things that are “really wrong.” These may also be called by name. However, the word “hate” does not aim at condemning the other, but at turning away from a wrong thing. Even though the word “hate” names a person, it does not mean the person, but what that person does. It is not a personal hatred that wishes something bad to the other person, but the reason that one turns away oneself (who hates something, for example, can separate and turn away with the sentence “Not like that!”).

Esau is not condemned

It is said that God “hates Esau but loves Jacob”. What does this mean? Does God condemn Esau? Not at all! Jacob receives the blessing of the firstborn, but Esau also receives a blessing:

“Then Esau said to his father, ‘Do you have ⟨only this⟩ a blessing, my father? Bless me, even me, my father! And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Then Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, far from the fatness of the earth shall be thy habitation, and far from the dew of heaven above. By thy sword shalt thou live, and thy brother shalt thou serve. But it shall come to pass, when thou shalt break loose, that thou shalt break away his yoke from off thy neck.”
Gen 27:38-40

Paul is not quoting the story from the first book of Moses, but is quoting a statement from Malachi that came much later. Malachi did not speak of Jacob and Esau as persons, but as emblems of their descendants:

“Saying, word of the LORD, to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, says the LORD. But ye say, Wherein have ye loved us? Did not Jacob have a brother Esau?” says the LORD. And I have loved Jacob; but Esau have I hated.”
Mal 1,1-3

Malachi spoke to Israel. The word of the Lord is addressed to Israel, and wants to emphasize the love that God has for the people. It is not a matter of condemnation, but of answering the question, “In what have you loved us?” To this the answer shows that the Lord dealt with Jacob and Esau differently. The focus here is on Jacob and Esau was mentioned as a contrast.

When Paul quotes Malachi, he wants to explain that already in the descendants of Isaac two sons fought for supremacy, and only with one group God’s way was chosen. Now, one can get lost in the details – or derive much richness from them – or note Paul’s intent with these verses.

Neither Moses, nor Malachi, nor Paul was about the condemnation of certain people. Esau was also blessed.

“By faith Isaac also blessed Jacob and Esau in view of things to come.”
Heb 11:20

It became visible, however, that God’s work in this world does not always use all possibilities, but consciously chooses a certain way. Jacob was not a blameless man. He was deceitful and a liar. He was an image for Israel. Israel was not blameless either. God does not choose the best, most faithful, most successful people to carry out His purpose through them. God’s love for Jacob was undeserved.

When God “loves” one and “hates” another, it is not a human act of revenge. God is working toward His goal. For this purpose, he selects people or peoples. This is the election. Election is not the goal, but a means to an end. God loves, chooses, executes – all in view of His purpose, which is to embrace all (1 Cor. 15:28). Hate and love all serve this one purpose.

In Romans 9, God’s purposeful action is at the center. Paul mentioned various situations from the Old Testament, from which God’s sovereign actions emerged. Sovereign namely in relation to Jacob and sovereign in relation to Esau. God does not have a hate/love relationship with man. He is looking for every human being, but the history up to reaching His goal is characterized by many small steps, not all of which provide an explanation. It is then also not about love and hate, as humans coin it, but about the only God, who comes sovereignly with this world to the goal. In this He will reach the goal with everyone.