just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love
—Ephesians 1:4

You may have heard of so-called “election by God“: God chose some for destruction and others for salvation. Scripture has verses like: “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” [Rom.9:13]. For a long time, reading this verse, I was puzzled: on the one hand it is written that God shows no partiality, and here it turns out He loves some and hates others. What is more, our minds usually lean towards the negative, and if we come across a verse that divides people into categories, the thought immediately comes: “What if I’m one of those whose name was not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world?”

In fact this happens because we often judge and divide by outward appearance, by what we see. But God chooses and divides quite differently. Paul draws the line very clearly and shows what God’s election is all about: “That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed” [Rom.9:8]. You see, it doesn’t matter at all what a person does, how he behaves, what he looks like, or what nationality his dad and mum are — all this is of the flesh, which Paul counted as rubbish, or dung, closer to the original [Phl.3:8]. What matters is what seed abides inside a person. What seed is meant here? “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ“ [Gal.3:16].

It is the same with Esau and Jacob. The first, Esau, is a type of the man of the flesh, who is from Adam, who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow and lives in constant struggle, working to earn his blessings. The second, Jacob, is a type of the heavenly man [Jesus Christ], the man of rest, whose blessings are like the morning dew. This is the essence of God’s election: from the creation of the world God chose the second Adam, the man after God’s own heart, to be the heir of the world. However good the man of the flesh may be, he cannot rule the earth, for he was taken from it. Only the heavenly man, who is not of this world, can reign.

So everyone who receives Christ into his heart receives the heavenly seed and is born again. “And what if someone is not born again?” Beloved, it is not the man of the flesh who is born again, for he was taken from the earth; it is Christ who is born in a person. Jesus said: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” [Jhn.3:6]. He said this about Himself, for He was born of the Spirit. That is why Paul said: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me“. And he goes on: “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” [Gal.2:20]. In other words: “Even if my flesh tries to tell me that I am sinful or unworthy, I do not live by what I see, but by faith.” And what does faith say? “If it is no longer you who live, but Christ in you, then regard yourself not as of the flesh and of the earth, but as heavenly, holy and blameless, for your life is Christ!” [Phl.1:21].