Election: How to be Regarded
T. Chalmers, D.D. Romans 9:10-12 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;… The doctrine ought never to be a stumbling-block in the way of your entertaining the overtures of the gospel. Leave it to God Himself to harmonise those everlasting decrees, by which He hath distinguished between the elect and the reprobate, with His present declarations of goodwill to one and to all of the human family. Your business is to let the decrees alone, and to cast your joyful confidence upon the declarations. Should an earthly monarch send a message of friendship to your door, must you reject it either as unintelligible or unreal because you have not been instructed in all the mysteries of his government? Because you cannot comprehend the policy of his empire, must you therefore not receive the offered kindness which has come from him to your own dwelling-place? And ere you can appreciate the gift which he holds out for your single and specific acceptance, must you first be able to trace all the workings and all the ways of the vast, the varied, superintendence which belongs to him? It is truly so with God, who, although presiding over a management which embraces all worlds and reaches from everlasting to everlasting, has nevertheless sent to each individual amongst us the special intimation of His perfect willingness to admit us into favour; and must we, I ask, suspend our comfort and our confidence therein till we, the occupiers of one of the humblest tenements in creation, and only the creatures but of yesterday — till we shall have mastered the economy of this wondrous universe and scanned the counsels of eternity? (T. Chalmers, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; WEB: Not only so, but Rebecca also conceived by one, by our father Isaac.