transferFrom function works but approve does not

Question

I'm building an escrow contract and using web3js to interact with it. Currently, I am trying to approve and send an amount of custom ERC20 token from a wallet to the escrow contract. The problem is, the approve function doesn't work, but the transferFrom function that I call from the escrow contract itself does. I know the approve function doesn't work because I check the allowance from Remix and it shows none. Why does one transaction work and not the other?

Transaction Data:

//This doesnt work
    let approveSpender = async(batch=false) => {

                const txOptions = {
                    from: address_from,
                    nonce: await web3.eth.getTransactionCount(address_from, "pending"),
                    gasLimit: web3.toHex(210000),
                    gasPrice:web3.toHex(web3.toWei('30', 'gwei')),
                    to: gntAddress,
                    data :gntContract.approve.getData(escrowAddress, (40e18)),
                    value: "0x0",
                };
                let transaction = new EthereumTx(txOptions);

                if(batch) return sendRaw(transaction);

                const txResult = await sendRaw(transaction);
                if(!txResult) {console.error('Something messed up')}
                else console.log('Actually worked?');
            };
//This works
    let depositToEscrow = async(batch=false) => {
                let nonce = await web3.eth.getTransactionCount(address_from, "pending");
                if(batch) nonce += 1;

                const txOptions = {
                    from: address_from,
                    nonce: nonce,
                    gasLimit: web3.toHex(210000),
                    gasPrice:web3.toHex(web3.toWei('30', 'gwei')),
                    to: escrowAddress,
                    data :escrowContract.deposit.getData((40*1e18)),
                    value: "0x0",

                };
                let transaction = new EthereumTx(txOptions);

                if(batch) return sendRaw(transaction);

                const txResult = await sendRaw(transaction);
                if(!txResult) {console.error('Something messed up')}
                else console.log('Actually worked?')
            };