# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1856_S308
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

308 On the Doctrine of the Election of Grace and Some Related Matters, etc.

Esau — bodily, and, without repentance, spiritually and eternally as well —, so are all separated from the right of the firstborn (James 1:18) and from the inheritance of grace who walk in the footsteps of these two, entering into the opposite of sonship through the believed word of promise, that is, into bondage under the yoke of the law, of sin, and of death; but whoever partakes of such true sonship of God is regarded solely as Abraham's seed in Christ; in them, indeed, the divine promise is fulfilled, which comes true in those called and elect through the faith promised and worked by it; the birth of the flesh contributes nothing to this, (even though it formed the genealogical register from which the Messiah was to spring;) Esau was even begotten of the very same mother, the free woman, at the same time as Jacob, from the one on whom the promise of the covenant line already rested, to the exclusion of his brother alone; still less are works something to be taken into account here, not even insofar as God foresaw them, for it was out of the grace of the One who calls, before the children were yet born and had done good or evil (even before Him), that — in order that God's unchangeable purpose regarding the free election might stand — (because He foreknows, and therefore creates, those who will believe, with whom alone His grace wills to have to do, verse 32 —) they were already distinguished before Him, as the much later prophetic writing of Malachi again confirmed. In the outward course of life of those mentioned, above all in Isaac's birth through the promise and in the calling of Jacob to the primogeniture, the standing of them and of their descended generations toward the covenant of grace was bound up, so that, in keeping with Old Testament typology, the spiritual was joined together with the bodily, though not indeed without exception (compare Genesis 27:40), and without being dependent on any absolute necessity of predestination, since rather the blessing of Abraham was meant to become the portion, without distinction, of believers among all nations.

Note 1. God's covenant with Abraham embraced his seed in Isaac and Jacob, to whom the land of promise, the statutory worship, and the descent of the birth of the future blessing and ruler of all nations were thereby promised; the seal of this covenant was circumcision, which all who were born in the household, children and servants, or purchased from strangers, received; but to believers in the Messiah it was a token and a sure pledge of the righteousness of faith, of sacramental power and validity, whereby they were received into the testament of grace.

Note 2. Luther's interpretation of Romans 9:10ff. in his treatise "That the Free Will Is Nothing," against Erasmus, 1525, (Leipzig edition, vol. XIX, p. 95ff.) is justified by the context. (Compare the Formula of Concord, German edition, Rechenberg, p. 1121; Latin, p. 821.) He himself explains what may seem obscure to some there, in his 1544 [preface] by Veit