For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
Acts 4:27-28 ESV
Jesus’ death by crucifixion on a Roman cross was a part of God’s plan—a plan God had predestined to take place from creation (1 Pet. 1:18-20). But what role did the people involved in his crucifixion play? Did they have a choice, or were they predestined to play the part they did?
Herod, Pilate, and the Jewish Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to die and had him executed. Each of them played a role in Jesus’ execution. This passage says that they did what God had determined would be done.
It is easy to look at this passage and see these people as simply actors playing the part God assigned to them. They did what God predestined them to do. Actors with no choice in the part they played.
Did They Have a Choice
But was that really the case? This passage does not say that God had predestined the individuals involved. Only that God had predestined what took place.
The preceding passage refers to the peoples plotting in vain and the kings and rules of the earth setting themselves against the Lord and his Anointed (Acts 4:25-26). They plotted and set themselves against Jesus, doing what they chose to do. They were not mindlessly carrying out a role assigned to them.
But, if that is the case, how could God be sure they would carry out the actions he had predestined to occur? What if Pilate had instead refused to give in to the Jews and have Jesus crucified? Would he not have foiled God’s plan?
He would have. But the God who knows our hearts and what we will do in any given situation could have stacked the deck. Putting into place the people who would, of their own free will, do what God had planned to have happen. Just as he raised up the Pharoah of the Exodus (Rom. 9:17), so he raised up Pilate, Herod, and the Jewish religious leaders to carry out his plan.
