Paul spoke to his Gentile readers about Israel’s disobedience in rejecting their Messiah: “So they too [Israel] have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you [Gentiles] they also may now receive mercy.” When Paul says that Israel was disobedient in order that Gentiles might get the benefits of the gospel, whose purpose does he have in mind?

Who Planned the Murder of Christ?

The evil Satan causes is only by the permission of God. And when an all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God permits something, he does so purposefully. What he permits is part of his plan. It would be unbiblical and irreverent to attribute to Satan (or to sinful man) the power to frustrate the designs of God.

The clearest example that even moral evil fits into the designs of God is the crucifixion of Christ. Who would deny that the betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a morally evil act?

Yet in Acts 2:23, Peter said, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” The betrayal was sin, but it was part of God’s ordained plan. Sin did not thwart God’s plan nor stay his hand. It accomplished his purpose.

Or who would say that Herod’s contempt (Luke 23:11) or Pilate’s spineless expediency (Luke 23:24) or the Jews’ “Crucify, crucify him!” (Luke 23:21) or the Gentile soldiers’ mockery (Luke 23:36)—who would say that these were not sin? Yet Luke, in Acts 4:27–28, recorded the prayer of the saints: “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.”

People lift their hand to rebel against the Most High only to find that their rebellion is unwitting service in the mysterious and wonderful designs of God. Even sin cannot frustrate the purposes of the Almighty. He himself does not commit sin, but he has decreed that there be acts that are sin,1 for the acts of Pilate and Herod were predestined by God’s plan. If we are going to understand the Bible, we must embrace the counterintuitive truth that it is not sin in God to will that there be sin in the world.

God Turns It Wherever He Will

Similarly, when we come to the end of the New Testament and to the end of history in the Revelation of John, we find God in complete control of all the evil kings who wage war. In Revelation 17, John speaks of a harlot sitting on a beast with ten horns. The harlot is Rome, drunk with the blood of the saints; the beast is the Antichrist; and the ten horns are ten kings who “hand over their power and authority to the beast . . . [and] make war on the Lamb” (Rev. 17:13–14).

But are these evil kings outside God’s control? Are they frustrating God’s designs? Far from it. They are unwittingly doing his bidding: “For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled” (Rev. 17:17). No one on earth can escape the sovereign control of God…

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