When we understand that God's plan for Abraham was to become the father of a nation which would be distinguished from all other nations because it was the one God chose for Himself after disinheriting all the nations at Babel ...
And when we understand that within that family line, God was working through history to bring about one particular individual who would be The One to bring reconciliation between all humanity and God ...
And that to be a part of that ancestral line would then be quite an honor ...
And that the lives of those individuals in that blessed line would be shaped by that role that God gave them...
(And, by the way, that focus on their lives by God brought them closer to functioning as the Image of God that they were always supposed to be, since now they were being tasked with doing His will and with high stakes.)
Then we start to grasp what the Old Testament meant by "chosen" and "elect". When the twins Jacob and Esau were born to Isaac, only one of them could be part of the family line of the eventual Messiah.
God chose Jacob.
To think that God in that moment was choosing Jacob for salvation and Esau for damnation is a complete misreading of the text.
Way off!
To think that the Apostle Paul equated election with salvation and had that in mind when he referenced the choosing of Jacob over Esau in Romans 9 would be ludicrous. Paul knew what election was.
And what it wasn't.
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