Did you forget the verse after that? “33He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.”
In other words, Christ violent crucifixion was going to be public and will draw a lot of attention by many. Yet you read in some universalist salvation into the verse. Really?
The doctrine of predestination is only in regards to salvation as mentioned in Romans 9 and other verses. The act of repentance to Christ whether it be privately or publicly is just a formality. Just like in the book of Acts where it was the Holy Spirit that convicted the crowd and drew them to repentance and not due to some fancy preaching. We have freedom to choose but no where in scripture does it say it is absolute freedom of choice. Human freedom is not some absolute wall that God cannot penetrate. The moment you start saying to yourself, God saved me because on my own I ultimately made the choice or that I triggered God to save me due to my choices. That’s were you fall into error. Our repentance is a by product of election, not the cause of it. Even if you say, well God saw into the future who will repent and therefore wrote down the names in the Book of Life ahead of time, you are still saying you still caused God to write your name down. In other words, it’s still about you and not God.
That is actually a really good point and I am very glad you brought this up. It is too bad God shows partiality, doesn’t love everyone, and even worse yet, punishes them eternally because He failed to do His very best for them.
There are New Testament parables that make this point. Without water and sunlight, plants don’t grow and can’t do anything about it. “No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him…” It’s that simple.
I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Some verses do sound like predestination although some that are quoted are not actually about salvation like Rom 9.
About 10 times as many tell us to repent and make choices. Clearly God intervenes when he wants but not always and IMO gives us enough rope to use as we will.