Ambrosiaster

Paul says that Sarah was not the only one to give birth in a typological manner. Rebecca, the wife of Isaac, did the same, though in a different way. Isaac was born as a type of the Savior, but Jacob and Esau were born as types of two peoples, believers and unbelievers, who come from the same source but are nevertheless very different.… One person represents the entire race, not because he is their physical ancestor but because he shares their relationship to God. There are children of Esau who are children of Jacob, and vice versa. It is not because Jacob is praised that all those descended from him are worthy to be called his children. Nor is it because Esau was rejected that all those descended from him are condemned, for we see that Jacob the deceiver had unbelieving children, and Esau had children who were faithful and dear to God. There is no doubt that there are many unbelieving children of Jacob, for all the Jews, whether they are believers or unbelievers, have their origin in him. And that there are good and faithful children of Esau is proved by the example of Job, who was a descendent of Esau, five generations away from Abraham and therefore Esau’s grandson.

These things are said of the Jews … for not all who are called children of Abraham deserve to be so called, as I have already pointed out. Therefore Paul restricts his grief to the fact that he discovered that it was long ago predicted that not all would believe, and he grieves for them only because they refused to believe out of jealousy. They had the opportunity, however, as Paul demonstrates. At the same time, there was no point in grieving over those who were not predestined to eternal life, for God’s foreknowledge had long ago decreed that they would not be saved. For who would cry over someone who is long dead? But when the Gentiles appeared and accepted the salvation which the Jews had lost, Paul’s grief was stirred, but this was mainly because they were the cause of their own damnation.God knew those who would turn out to be people of ill will and he did not number them among the good, although the Savior said to the seventy-two disciples whom he chose as a second class and who later abandoned him: “Your names are written in heaven.” But this was because of justice, since it is just that each person should receive his reward. For because they were good they were chosen for this service, and their names were written in heaven for the sake of justice, as I have said. But according to foreknowledge they were among the number of the wicked. For God judges according to his justice, not according to his foreknowledge. Thus he said to Moses: “If someone sins against me, I shall delete him from my book.” The person who sins is deleted according to the justice of the Judge, but according to his foreknowledge his name was never in the book of life. The apostle John described these people as follows: “They went out from us but they were never of us, for if they had been of us they would have remained with us.” There is no respect of persons in God’s foreknowledge. For God’s foreknowledge is that by which it is defined what the future will of each person will be, in which he will remain, by which he will either be condemned or rewarded. Some of those who will remain among the good were once evil, and some of those who will remain among the evil were once good.