Was the crucufuxion purposed or merely allowed?
Was the crucifixion evil?
Were those who crucified Him responsible for their evil action?
Was the crucifixion an evil action on God's part?
I think you make it all to hard. God has already given the answer in the example of Joseph, and a wonderful type of Christ:
Gen. 50:17-20 So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
So there you have it. God allows men to have their own evil thoughts and to make their own evil choices, and uses them all to His good purpose. Calvinists will apprecaite the fact it was the very men who had the evil thoughts and made the evil choices he chose to save. That certainly makes it entirely of grace, doesn't it?
Hank
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Your simple solution that God permits such actions does not allow the full force of this statement. This is not God allowing evil actions. This is pre-planning and pre-arranging. Daniel 9 even predicts the day of this action (cf Harold Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ. Hoehner, Dallas Seminary Greek Professor, did his PhD dissertation at Cambridge on Herod Antipas. He is a solid scholar - despite his insistance on using Macintosh computers and penchant for telling Aggie jokes).
"For every problem there is a simple solution, and usually it is wrong." -- drstevej
According to your line of thought, God certainly was "lucky" that Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, and that Potipher's wife had the hots for him, and that the baker and the cupbearer both had dreams, and that Pharoah had a dream, and that Joseph's ability to decipher dreams was remembered, etc. etc. ad nauseum!
Otherwise, the famine would have wiped out all of Israel's children, and God's promises to Abraham would have been null and void, and there would be no Jewish people, and Jesus wouldn't have been born, and He wouldn't have been crucified, and all of us would have gone to hell.
You make it sound as if God is a spectator on the sidelines, just hoping that men make the right decisions so that He can see His will accomplished.
Joseph's brothers meant it for evil, but God had orchestrated the entire scenario, actively working out His will.