Election according to purpose

It shows something belonging to another, since that which is set aside by the setter is belonging to another. And he shows how necessary his disposition is concerning them, so that no one might take the reproaches against them as an argument for turning away.

Since the things promised to the Israelites were transferred as if to the Gentiles (Rom 9:6-9), which was an accusation against God as if he were falsifying the promises, he shows the truthfulness of God, demonstrating that the Scripture did not signify the Israelites according to the flesh, but those showing through piety that they are worthy to be called Israelites and children of Abraham; for in Isaac, he says, you shall be called seed, and the things following. In Isaac, not through Isaac, which, explaining, he says: that is, not these children of the flesh are these children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed. But he wishes to say that not those from the flesh of Abraham, these are children of God, but children those from the promise, such as the pious and the righteous, whom God promised as sons to Abraham according to foreknowledge, since Isaac, having come to be from the promise, was shown to be righteous; for he foreknew and promised him righteous; for God would not be permitted to grant an impious son. Thus also he promised Abraham to be a father of nations, foreknowing the piety of the nations that were to come. Therefore he said: in Isaac you shall be called seed, that is, through the promise according to the pattern of Isaac, who was righteous and a pattern of the righteous. And the entire structure of the text is that the promise of God is according to foreknowledge, and the promise is according to the judgment of righteousness, and just as regarding Isaac, so also regarding the Gentiles.

It is a scriptural idiom from the Hebrew, that is, from its own interpretation, to say one thing as surpassing, and to set another thing as more primary and inversely. And the use of these is much not only upon the old but also upon the new covenant; for the apostle, for the demonstration of the same matter being before him, having remembered both Esau and Jacob (Rom 9:11), says thus: lest indeed, before they were born or had done anything good or evil, so that the intention of God according to election might remain, instead of 'the election according to the intention of those'—for God did not elect one and reject the other according to their own intention—but according to...

Regarding the other's purpose, He performed the election: the one He loved because of his own virtue, and the other He hated because of the badness of his disposition, from which it is clear that the apostle speaks of an election according to purpose and not a purpose according to election.

What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? (Rom 9:14) May it never be! For He says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion (Rom 9:15). Therefore, it is not of the one willing nor of the one running, but of the God showing mercy (Rom 9:16). Since before the birth of Esau and Jacob, it appears that God loved the one and hated the other (Rom 9:13)—and this seemed to be an injustice to those who do not consider the justice of God according to foreknowledge (Rom 9:18)—he teaches not merely to fall to the example, since many and other such things concerning God are said in the Scriptures having a deeper intellect. Behold, for God says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion (Rom 9:15). Therefore, according to you, it is not of the one willing nor of the one running, but of the God showing mercy (Rom 9:16). And the one striving is abundant (Rom 9:17). But it is not so; for God is not unrighteous so as not to give to each according to his merit (Rom 9:6). Therefore he says, he says, not all but the worthy (Rom 9:11). And again the Scripture says to Pharaoh: For this very purpose I raised you up, so that I might show my power in you, and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth (Exod 9:16). Is not then Pharaoh not to blame, but the one raising him up for the showing of his own power? But even this is not so; for he would not have raised him, even though through him he was admonishing the others, if he had not foreseen him being stubbornly diseased. And if nothing is against us as it seems, he says, O man, but in God are all things, and the hardening of Pharaoh and the showing mercy to another, you would followingly say: What is still being blamed? For who has opposed his will? For if he himself performs all things through us, we are nothing in authority over what we do. But indeed, O man, who are you, the one answering back to God? Does not the thing formed say to the one who formed it: Why did you make me thus? (Rom 9:19-20). Correcting all the preceding, he reproves indeed as if you were boldly searching out the will of God, but he also shows the insignificance of human nature, taking the clay of the potter as a fitting image.