God Hated Esau – Therefore He Does Not Love Everyone

My response to the idea that God loves everyone and that we must believe in order to be saved:

Sadly, the gospel you have been taught and outline above has grievous errors in it.

The Bible does not teach that God loves every human being. This Scripture alone proves that is not true:

Romans 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

If God were to love everyone else in the world except Esau it would still mean that God did not love everyone. And of course, the idea of God loving everyone except for one man is ridiculous. Esau, like Jacob, is representative of a certain people. This is what God told their mother Rebecca when the twins struggled together in her womb and she asked why it was so:

Genesis 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

Two nations are in your womb. One nation identifying with the nation of the ungodly. And the other nation representing the nation of God's elect:

Revelation 21:24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it:

Two nations. Two manner of people. One loved by God with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) and the other hated by God.

Therefore, when the Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son-it is referring to the nations of them which are saved. The loved of God chosen by Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-5). It is not speaking of the world of the ungodly (2 Peter 2:5).

Secondly, your statement makes reference to those who "put their faith in Christ" to receive forgiveness of sins. This also is incorrect. No man has ever become saved by putting his faith in Christ or choosing to accept Christ. Rather, salvation has always been accomplished by the faith of Christ along with the choice of Christ to save this one or that one according to His good pleasure.

There is choice in salvation but it is always God's choice and never man's. This Scripture tells us that those who are saved are saved by Christ's work of faith and not our own (as Ephesians 2:8,9 declares we are saved by faith and that NOT of ourselves):

Galatians 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Unfortunately for many who hold to the false free will gospel, the exercising of one's faith as preachers encourage their hearers to do-is a work of faith-and like any every other work it is unable to justify (save) the sinner:

1 Thessalonians 1:3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, ...

The Bible's definition of a work is simply an act of obedience (or attempted obedience) to the commands of God. And since God commands man to believe those attempting to obtain salvation by keeping that command are attempting to become saved by a work of faith.

1 John 3:23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.

Notice above: "this is His commandment, that we should believe..." God commands belief. The attempt to believe then is unquestionably a work. However, no work can justify us (Galatians 2:16). Which is why no man can be saved by his work of faith. It is only through Christ's work of faith that a sinner can become saved. Thus, we are justified by Christ's faith which is why the declaration, "Salvation is of the Lord" is made. Salvation is of the Lord and not of man. Nor of the will of man.

John 1:13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And,

Romans 9:15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.