CHAPTER #1

The Gospel = “A Calling Out” into Separation

Jacob’s Salvation

My reader, I hope that you are beginning to understand God’s clear message, how that separation and holiness is vital for The Church! Without exception, the once born men are at enmity, in hatred against, and divided from those that are twice born, so that if the two were not separated then salvation would be discontinued, thwarted, and voided. The union (yoking, fellowship, communion, concord, or companionship) of these two companies is sure damnation for both, and this union, contrary to popular opinion, can never result in the salvation of the damned individuals (except for by the sovereign intervention of God for an extra-biblical act of mercy)!

My reader, just as Isaac was called… so was Jacob. The word “call” signifies the act of salvation which results from sovereign election according to Romans 9:10-13, an application which is but a greater commentary on former verses which stated this concept in Old Testament Church History (i.e. Isaiah 48:12 & 15).

“And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth😉 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:10-13).

“Hearken unto Me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am He; I am the first, I also am the last.” (Isa. 48:12)

“I have called him” (Isa. 48:15).

“And Jacob went out…” (Gen. 28:10).

Just as Abraham was “called out” and thus he went out in separation from Terah, and just as Isaac was “called out” by God and Ishmael was “cast out” into separation from The Church, Jacob had his own “calling out” into a wilderness experience resulting in much tribulation (and, notably, just before Jacob was literally “called out by God”, Esau was rejected by God). Can we be sure that Jacob was “called out” to become a continuation of what we understand to be The Church, my reader? Just after Jacob obeyed the call of God he found himself in the place that he called, “The House of God” (“Beth-el” in Hebrew), with angels ascending and descending in his very presence! He said, “How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven” (Gen. 28:17)! Esau demonstrated that he was not worthy to be numbered among “the called” in that he refused to “come out from among” what is abominable in God’s sight (he engaged in forbidden unions with unsaved foreigners). The sense of God’s grief can be heard in the words of Esau’s mother, Rebekah. “And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are the daughters of the Land, what good shall my life do me” (Gen. 27:46)? God’s call can be seen in the brisk actions of his father, Isaac.

“And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. ARISE, GO TO Padan-aram…And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the Land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went…” - Gen. 28:1-5

You see, “Jacob obeyed his father and his mother” (Gen. 28:7), parents who existed as ambassadors of the Lord’s calling, but Esau did, long before this, disqualify himself from the calling of God through an ungodly union to what God called The Church in separation from. It was written, “And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah” (Genesis 26:34-35). Esau was careless and rebellious to God’s call of separation, therefore Esau was a cast away and Jacob was a called out one! Esau mixed with God-rejected persons to his own destruction, and Jacob “went out” unto Padan-aram for union with God-receivable persons unto his salvation (Gen. 28:10)! My reader, do you think God is arguing something significant with these reoccurring similarities?

Shockingly, Esau is used by the inspired writer of Hebrews as an example of a twice-born backslider, a forewarning to all true believers in Christ. Esau didn’t follow “holiness”, contrary to the exhortation given in Hebrews 12:14 (“holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord”). Like Samson was slowly corrupted by the forbidden union he had with Delilah (a strange woman of the Philistines), Esau was corrupted by “the daughters of Heth” from the Land of Canaan (Gen. 27:46). As a consequence of Esau’s unrestrained lusts he was led into acts fornication with these strange women, acts which led into marriages with them, no doubt, otherwise he would not have been called a “fornicator” in Hebrews 12:16. Esau fell-a-lusting after these women, married them, and was deceived to think he would not be corrupted by their evil conduct, notwithstanding, the scripture warns, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33). Many people today are deceived to think that forbidden unions with what God commands separation from will never lead to personal damnation. And yet, “Did not Solomon King of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations was there no King like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him King over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin” (Neh. 13:26). It is written that “Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father” (1 Kings 3:3), but after evil communications corrupted his good manners, it was written, “his wives turned away his heart” (1 Kings 11:3-6). Could this be what happened to Esau?

Esau is set forth as an example to true believers, those to whom belongs the inheritance of the Kingdom of God and the blessing of Abraham via birthright (Gal. 4:28-31, Gal. 3:14, 1 Cor. 6:9-10, Gal. 6:19-21, Eph. 5:5), and Esau was reprobated in that he “sold his birthright” in Genesis 25:27-34. Esau “despised his birthright” (Gen. 25:34) like the backsliding Israelites were compelled so to do because their hearts turned back to Egypt (“they despised the pleasant Land” – Ps. 106:24). According to the contextual argument of Hebrews 12:1-17, the place from which Esau fell is clear and the interpretation sure: he lost his birthright to heaven! He had it… and then he lost it (he lost his salvation!), and after it was lost it became true to him what is written, “it is impossible…to renew them again unto repentance” (Heb. 6:4-6). Like the reprobated Israelites of the Exodus Generation who just lost their inheritance of the Promised Land, who sought a renewal of repentance by mourning over their sin (“the people mourned greatly”-Num.14:39, “we have sinned”-Num.14:40), even so Esau “found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb. 12:17, Gen. 27:34-41). “And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Blessing me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept” (Gen. 27:38)! At this notable conclusion we see a continuity of argument heretofore: the physically circumcised and birthright inheritor of Heaven, Esau, was justifiably turned into a castaway because he backslid from the spiritual lineage of salvation begun in the spiritual seed of Abraham, the true Jews, with the foremost evidence of his disqualification being manifest in that he departed from keeping “the righteousness of the Law” by the power of regeneration (an inward salvation in God by faith and through grace; Rom. 2:25-29).