Maybe I’ve just been a Calvinist too long, or (I’d like to think) I simply try to embrace everything scripture says regardless of whether or not I can easily make sense of it. But I don’t have any difficulty making this “jive” with anything else. Simply put, James tells me God does not tempt anyone to sin, and he doesn’t, and I take that seriously and believe it.
The basic Calvinist understanding is that what God has predestined and planned is entirely outside of our knowledge or experience, and that in his larger purposes, he has most certainly ordained and planned things, for his purposes, that are in fact contrary to his morals and directives.
Judah and the brothers selling Joseph into slavery; Jesus being executed unjustly due to conspiracy, hatred, and jealousy, the brutal Assyrian conquest… these are my favorite three examples… these were things that wicked people did, freely, purely due to their own sinful and selfish choices. God wasn’t dangling some kind of temptation in front of them, directly inclining their hearts, or dragging them kicking and screaming against their will to do these wicked things. They did them utterly freely.
Simultaneously, in these three cases especially, the Bible describes God had planned them for such purposes, and intended their very actions in order to accomplish his purposes. This was simultaneously their destiny, their purpose, and what God had unerringly planned for them to accomplish.
How do such things “jive” together? Can I work it out all neat and tidy in my mind? Of course not. But what I think is beyond clear is that Scripture claims a “both/and” in such cases, and doesn’t go to the “well, either the choice was free, or God intended it, it can’t be both” that our minds seem to want to do.
All three cases are quite explicitly “both/ands”, both God’s absolute set purpose and free, uncoerced, and responsible human choices. The passage in Isaiah is perhaps most explicit, going into great detail about how this was God’s set purpose to use the Assyrian for his purpose in punishment and discipline, and that this is not in the Assyerian’s mind - his own freely chosen purpose was to cause the destruction he desired… and that God will punish the Assyerian for the “willful pride” in his heart, even though it was God who “sent him”.
So in short, absolutely, even though God may well have planned from all eternity that I would fall into the various sins of which I am guilty, for the very purpose of “having mercy” on me that I might know the height and width and length and depth of his mercy… in no way was I forced, coerced, or made to sin in some way against my will. Every sin I’ve ever committed was because I wanted to do it, not because God was tempting me.
I’d encourage you to consider those references I mentioned, if for nothing else than to recognize that this “both/and” perspective is certainly there in the Scripture.
Genesis 50… “you intended evil against me, but God intended it for good.”
Acts 2…“this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
Isaiah 10… 5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger;
the staff in their hands is my fury!
6 Against a godless nation I send him,
and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder,
and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7 But he does not so intend,
and his heart does not so think;
but it is in his heart to destroy,
and to cut off nations not a few;
8 for he says:
“Are not my commanders all kings?
9 Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10 As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,
whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
11 shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols
as I have done to Samaria and her images?”
12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. 13 For he says:
“By the strength of my hand I have done it,
and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;
I remove the boundaries of peoples,
and plunder their treasures;
like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.
14 My hand has found like a nest
the wealth of the peoples;
and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken,
so I have gathered all the earth;
and there was none that moved a wing
or opened the mouth or chirped.”
15 Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?
As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,
or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!
God neither tempted, forced, coerced, or manipulated Judah to sell Joseph into slavery, Pilate et al to execute Jesus, nor the Assyrian to go on the destructive rampage, or the host of other examples we could give. But all of these things were simultaneously and explicitly the “intention” and “definite plan”, of God, to borrow Scripture’s language
Enter aborigine, stage right.