---
title: Acts 4:27
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-4-27/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-4-27.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Acts 4:27
testament: NT
section: Acts
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Acts 4:27

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "For truly both Herod and Pontius Pilate with men of the nations and with peoples of Israel were gathered together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed,"

## JW Usage

Read as the early congregation recognising that opposition to Jesus had been foretold in Psalm 2, which they quote just before this. The Watchtower's framework holds that Jehovah foreknew what would happen without determining it — the men acted on their own initiative and prophecy simply recorded in advance what Jehovah foresaw.

## Protestant Usage

Read verse 27 straight into verse 28, because they are one sentence and the second half is where the weight falls. Herod, Pilate, the nations and the peoples of Israel gathered against Jesus — "to do what your hand and counsel had determined beforehand to occur." That is the NWT's own wording. Determined beforehand, not foreseen beforehand. And notice that nobody in the scene is a puppet. Pilate weighed his political position; Herod mocked; the crowd chose. Every one of them acted freely and is held responsible — Peter says so at Acts 2:23, where the same event is both God's determined counsel and something done by lawless men. So the New Testament holds two things together: real human freedom and real divine determination, in the same sentence, about the worst act in history. That is the structure the Watchtower says it rejects, and it is in their Bible. Foreknowledge alone will not carry the verse. You cannot foresee something your counsel determined beforehand and call the determining mere observation. Compare Romans 9:18, Ephesians 1:11, Genesis 50:20.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Permitted Issue Is Still a Decree](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/watchtower-determinism-author-of-evil.md) — When Watchtower theodicy reinvents the predestination it denies [Authority]