Justification

COMING third of the patriarchs, we have Jacob and we find that he is the example of divine justification. Jacob, the crook, the rascal, the cheat, the liar, the thief, the conniver, the supplanter, becomes the example of justification. That really is something divine. “Whom He called, these He also justified.” – Romans 8:30. Why did God choose Jacob? Why would He call him? Certainly not on the basis of his worth; certainly not on the basis of his own merit. Then on what basis did He call him? It was again on the basis of sovereign grace, appropriated through faith.

Esau, his brother was a gentleman compared with Jacob. Esau was a home-loving boy, kind to his father as far as the record goes. When Isaac, the old man, wanted comfort in his old age, he called Esau, not Jacob. You may search the record and you will find nothing derogatory to Esau, except that he sold his birthright and despised the promise of God. But from every other standpoint, morally and otherwise, there is nothing bad recorded about Esau. He was a pretty good fellow, as fellows go. But now look at Jacob. He schemed with his mother, took the goat skins about his neck to fool his father, and when poor, old, blind Isaac becomes suspicious, Jacob tells a brazen, boldfaced lie and more or less says, “Don’t worry father, I wouldn’t lie to you.” It was Jacob who stole the birthright from his brother Esau, cheated his father, connived with his mother and then ran away, and then almost ruined his uncle Laban. Yet, to God, he was justified rather than Esau.

Jacob is the kind of person God justifies. God does not save good people. A man must be a sinner to be saved. He has to be absolutely helpless before God can do anything with him. Grace is unearned favor to the unworthy, and the more unworthy a man is, the greater he needs the grace of God. That is why the Lord chose folks like you and me—not because we were better, but in spite of what we are. God’s grace is exalted, not in choosing nice people, but rather “not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” – 1 Corinthians 1:26. God has taken the foolish things of this world, the base things of this world, because of His grace (1 Corinthians 1:27). Thus He steps aside again from the natural course of things and puts aside Esau, the eldest, first from the human standpoint. Of course, Esau deserved to lose his birthright from the standpoint of human responsibility, for he despised it; but that is the human side. Paul, however, is not talking about the human side in Romans 8. He is dealing with sovereign grace. In grace God chose Jacob, good-for-nothing Jacob, because he believed the promise, and even that belief was a matter of grace. So again we see, “Whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified.”

Adapted and modified excerpts from Studies in the Life of Abraham by M. R. De Haan (1891-1964)
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.