# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1856_S309
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Doctrine of the Election of Grace and Some Related Matters, etc. 309

Dietrich-edited lectures on Genesis, on Genesis 25:23 (Leipzig edition, vol. II, p. 433), thus: "In these bodily promises the spiritual ones are also comprehended — for this reason St. Paul treats this text in such a way that he makes two kinds of birth, namely of the flesh and of the promise — just as I have said before concerning the Cainite and Ishmaelite church, namely that they were rejected, yet in such a way that this rejection was meant to serve to humble them, so that they would give up the inheritance which they had presumed they would have on account of their fleshly birth; they were nevertheless still saved through repentance and faith in the promise: thus the text also testifies that many who came from Edom were saved, not because they were children of Edom — for that line is rejected — but because they laid hold of the promise with faith and held fast to it, according to the saying of Paul, etc. (Romans 9:8) — for this reason they attached themselves to the Ishmaelites and would have said: Sarah is our grandmother and Abraham our father; but through this I shall not be saved, for the bodily birth is of no use; rather I believe in the seed which was promised to the fathers, just as Isaac and Jacob believed and were saved. And all who have had this faith have obtained the inheritance of eternal life. But those from this lineage or descent who have remained in such presumption, that they were the greater ones on account of bodily birth, are all lost and damned — therefore one should learn from this text that all honor or glory of the flesh is rejected and damned by God, and that we cannot thereby become righteous, just as the fathers also did not become righteous through such glorying in the flesh or in blood-descent. This example teaches and proves this mightily, and is a very excellent example, one worthy indeed to be written in letters of gold." By far the greater number of Lutheran theologians refer both divine sayings, Genesis 25:23 and Malachi 1:2f., to temporal circumstances and outward advantages and disadvantages alone. Quenstedt, following the lead of others, understands all the rest of it in the same way as well, and says, since his Calvinist opponents concluded from Romans 9:13 that God does not will the salvation of all, in his Theologia Didactico-Polemica, Leipzig edition, vol. III, p. 12, by way of reply: "1) The text does not speak of Esau and Jacob according to their persons, but of their posterity; 'two nations,' says the divine answer to Rebecca, 'are in your womb, the elder shall serve the younger,' Genesis 25:23. 2) This testimony does not concern eternal predestination to salvation, or reprobation to destruction. The Calvinists therefore rashly assume that the love of Jacob and the hatred of Esau refer to the former's election to life and the latter's reprobation to eternal death, and indeed an absolute one; but the apostle, in chapter 9, verses 10 and 11, treats