From David Chilton’s Days of Vengeance, regarding Revelation 17:17:
The sovereign Lord is thus not at the mercy of the
Beast and his minions; rather, all these events have
been predestined for God’s glory, through the execution
of His decrees. For God has put it into their hearts to
execute His purpose by having a common purpose,
and by giving their kingdom to the Beast. Obviously,
it is a sin for these kings to give their kingdoms to the
Beast, for the purpose of making war against the Lamb.
And yet it is God who put it into their hearts! Some
will complain, of course, that this makes God “the
Author of sin.” The obvious answer to such an
objection is that the text says that God placed the evil
purpose into their hearts; at the same time, we are
assured that “the LORD is righteous in all His ways.” If
we believe the Bible, we must believe both Revelation
17:17 and Psalm 145:17. We must hold firmly to two
(seemingly contradictory) points: First, God is not
responsible for sin; Second, nothing happens in spite of
Him, or in opposition to His purpose.
(These seem contradictory to us because we are creatures.
Problems such as the relationship of God’s sovereignty
and human responsibility, or of God’s sovereignty and
God’s righteousness, or of unity and diversity within
the Trinity, cannot be “solved” by us because we are
not capable of comprehending God. Cornelius Van Til
writes: “Human knowledge can never be completely
comprehensive knowledge. Every knowledge transaction
has in it somewhere a reference point to God. Now
since God is not fully comprehensible to us we are
bound to come into what seems to be contradiction in
all our knowledge. Our knowledge is analogical and
therefore must be paradoxical”)
Thus, to those who fight against the Word of God,
the Biblical response is blunt: “On the contrary, who
are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing
molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make
me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right
over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for
honor, and another vessel for dishonor?” (Rom. 9:20-21).
St. Augustine observed: “It is, therefore, in the power of
the wicked to sin; but that in sinning they do this or
that is not in their power, but in God’s, who divides the
darkness and regulates it; so that hence even what they
do contrary to God’s will is not fulfilled except it be God’s
will.”
