In his latest sermon Barton covered one of the clearest sections in the Bible where God’s absolute sovereignty over all things (including sin and evil) is affirmed. In Acts 4:27-28 we are reminded of the most heinous, the most evil, the most spectacular sin of all, namely the murder of the Son of God.
27 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, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
In v27 the human agents responsible for Jesus’ murder are named. In 4:10 Peter calls out these same people and accuses them personally of crucifying Jesus (“whom you crucified”). So we can correctly say that they gathered themselves together against Jesus for his murder, which they intended for evil.
But in v27 notice the verb “gathered” is passive. These human agents were gathered against Jesus. Who did the gathering? God did. He not only gathered them, he anointed them to do whatever he had predestined to take place by his sovereignly powerful hand, according to his sovereignly wise plan. And the apex of that wise plan was the murder of Jesus, which God intended for good.
What does this say to believers in times of suffering or opposition? Consider this: if the most evil, most sinful event the world has ever witnessed did not occur apart from God’s sovereign wisdom and good plan, then believers can be confident that God is sovereignly orchestrating the events in their lives for their good, including the evil, sinful, painful ones.
Piper has written a new book on this topic called Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ.
[...] Keller makes another good point. He writes, ”Just because you can’t see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesnt mean there cant be one.” That was written in response to those who dismiss God because they just can’t see any point or reason to their suffering and thus conclude that a loving, good God must not exist. But in the Bible we have countless stories of evil acts and tragedies that looked pointless in the moment, but in hindsight we are able to see God’s good purposes behind it all. For example, read the story of Joseph in Genesis or look at the cross of Jesus. If you were standing at the foot of the cross on the day he died, his death looked pointless, but after the resurrection then you would begin to see God’s good purposes behind the horrific evil of killing the Son of God. [...]