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In the New Testament, the responsibility for the death of Yeshua of Nazareth is placed at the feet of two human groups. One is the leaders of the religious establishment in Jerusalem. The other is the Roman Empire and its local representatives: Pontius Pilate and Herod. There is also a non-human agent who ultimately orchestrated ending Yeshua's life.
Cause 1: Jerusalem
The leaders who opposed Yeshua are typically described as the "elders and chief priests and scribes." They encompass the Pharisees (the evangelical fundamentalists or orthodox Torah teachers); the Sadducees (the controlling party over the Temple operation, the national vatican); and the formally trained transcribers of Torah and Scripture (who were the theologically-trained seminarians).
The responsibility of Yeshua's execution is never laid at the feet of all Israel, the whole Jewish people. Only those who were directly involved in his rejection and called for his crucifixion are culpable (Acts 3:12-17). Even then, their culpability is less than that of their leaders, whom they followed. [See the study Did the Jews Reject Jesus?]
Israel, in the New Testament, is divided about Yeshua, not unanimously against him.
Cause 2: Rome
Yeshua and his disciples also put blame on the heads of "the Gentiles," the "godless men" whose kingdom he opposed and whose machine of justice actually performed his execution. These were the agents of the occupying Roman government, not the entire Gentile world—not every non-Jew living then or in the future.
Cause 3: Heaven
But the overriding power that moved Yeshua into the hands of all his enemies was God himself. It was his "plan" to do so. And, the NT says, he foretold its outworking in the writings of the Hebrew prophets (Acts 3:17).
So even though specific human beings are held accountable for their hatred of the Messiah and their plotting to destroy him, their plans fit into the larger Plan. A plan by which God would reverse their evil and turn it into incomprehensible good. He turned Yeshua's demonic execution on Golgotha into a holy Passover ransom that would save anyone who came to the table to participate.
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Matthew 16:21
From that time Yeshua Messiah began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
Matthew 20:18-19
The Son of Man will be delivered up to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him up to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him, and on the third day he will be raised up.
Acts 2:22, 23 [Peter in Jerusalem at Shavuot]
Men of Israel, listen to these words: Yeshua the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God . . . this [man], delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you fastened to a tree by the hands of godless men and put [him] to death.
Acts 2:36 [Peter in Jerusalem at Shavuot]
Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah—this Yeshua whom you crucified.
Acts 3:12-15, 17-18 [Peter in the Temple portico]
Men of Israel, . . . the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers has glorified his Servant Yeshua, the one whom you delivered up and disowned in the presence of Pilate. . . . You disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life. . . . I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Messiah should suffer, he has thus fulfilled.
Acts 4:8-11 [Peter to the Sanhedrin]
Rulers and elders of the people, . . . let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Yeshua Messiah the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this [healed] man stands here before you in good health. [Yeshua] is the Stone which was rejected by you, the builders.
Acts 4:27-28 [The disciples in prayer to God]
In this city there were gathered together against your Holy Servant Yeshua, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.
Acts 5:30 [Peter to the Sanhedrin]
The God of our fathers raised up Yeshua, whom you had put to death by hanging him on a tree . . . a Prince and Savior.
Acts 7:51-52 [Stephen to the Sanhedrin]
You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
Acts 10:39 [Peter to people in Caesarea]
We are witnesses of all the things he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And they also put him to death by hanging him on a tree.
Acts 13:26-27, 30 [Paul to the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch]
Brethren, sons of Abraham's family, and those among you who fear God, to us the word of this salvation is sent out. For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning him. And though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked Pilate that he be executed. . . . But God raised him from the dead.
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