THE HOLOCAUST WAS A HORRIBLE EVENT. It’s been over seventy-five years since it ended and it is still the reigning example of ultimate evil. In 1939 there were nine million Jews in Europe. In 1945 after the Holocaust only three million remained. If the Nazis had their way none would have survived. The Germans starved them, tortured them, raped them, gassed them, and killed them in other gruesome ways. It was a fundamental collapse of civilized life.

I want to ask an important question about the Holocaust, then answer it, and last apply the answer to our current situation.

Question

What part did God have in the Holocaust? That’s a silly question, you answer. Of course God had no part in the Holocaust. It was evil, and God can do no evil.

The problem with that response is that the Bible teaches God’s absolute sovereignty. Nothing, good or evil, happens on planet earth without his permission. On a parallel track the Bible teaches human responsibility and the truth that God never tempts people to sin, not does he promote evil.

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one (James 1:13, ESV).

This means that God did not tempt Hitler to kill the Jews. So then, did it happen without his permission? Was he not powerful enough to stop it? Maybe he just turned his head and looked the other way?

Answer

Those answers will not satisfy an informed Christian. Certain Bible texts speak very specifically to this issue. Dr. Bruce Ware at Southern Seminary calls them Spectrum Texts. They are difficult to accept, but here they are, and if God is God they must be true.

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand (Deuteronomy 32:39, ESV.)

I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things (Isaiah 45:7, ESV).

Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it? (Amos 3:6, ESV).

The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts (1 Samuel 2:6–7, ESV).

The Lord “kills and makes alive, he “creates calamity,’ he brings “disaster…to a city,” he “makes poor and makes rich?” Yes! The clear teaching of scripture is that nothing happens in time and space that God has not brought to pass through his sovereign will. Yet, because he is infinite in wisdom and power, he is able to do this without violating human responsibility or participating in sin. In other words, we are not robots. We make real decisions for which God will hold us responsible. Hitler and all the Nazis will stand before God and give an accounting on the Day of Final Judgment.

The Old Testament prophets contain the best examples of this teaching. Isaiah chapter ten describes Assyria, a ruthless nation, as God’s tool. God raised Assyria up to Judge the northern ten tribes. The Assyrians were nasty. They routinely staked prisoners to the ground and skinned them alive, but they were the people God chose as his tool. Nevertheless, Assyria, not God, was fully responsible. After they finished his work, God punished them for their ruthless cruelty.

Similarly, God raised up Babylon as his tool to conquer Judah, destroy Jerusalem, and haul the remaining Jews off into captivity. Jeremiah chapter fifty declares God’s punishment of Babylon, the nation he raised up. Nevertheless, God did not tempt Babylon to commit evil. They were fully accountable for their sins.

So God is absolutely sovereign over good and evil, over blessing and curse, over good time and bad times, over pain and pleasure, and we can rejoice in God’s sovereignty for at least two reasons. First, he is infinitely just. Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem deserved the wasting punishments laid on them by Assyria and Babylon. God did not sin in bringing this judgment. He acted virtuously. Second, the God who exercises this sovereignty is infinitely good. He is benevolent, loving, kind, and gracious. Here is how he described his essential glory to Moses.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation (Exodus 34:6–7, ESV).

So, what do we conclude? What was God’s connection to the Holocaust? Nazi Germany, like all nations, was God’s tool to bring to pass his purposes in history. Why the Nazis? Why the Jews? Only God knows the answer to that question. But here is the wonderful news. Every Nazi that participated in the Holocaust will answer to God on the Last Day. I would not want to be in that position. In addition, because he is merciful and gracious, God works all things together for good to those who love God, to those called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), even horrors like the Holocaust.

Application

We are in unstable times. Our nations is radically divided, right down the middle. And for the first time in our history the division is over two irreconcilable views of what constitutes the good life, what is the role of civil government, the future of our constitution, the nature of justice, the rule of law, and the rules that govern human sexuality.

For this reason many are fearful. Their feelings are rational. Where will it all end? A nation this divided will not stand. Equilibrium will be established. Either one side will vanquish the other through civil war, or we will amicably divide into two countries.

In either event, God is sovereign. He knows the future because he has planned it. He is both sovereign and infinitely GOOD. If you are a Believer he holds your life in the palm of his hands. He loves you. Nothing can separate you from his love (Romans 8:35-39.

The Proof!

The cross of Christ is the greatest example of God’s sovereignty over evil that he turned for good. It was the most wicked sin in history. The Jews put God, the very God they claimed to love and worship, to death. They committed deicide. They tortured to death the only truly innocent man that ever lived. The evil that occurred at the cross shrinks the Holocaust and the sins of Assyria and Babylon into insignificance. Yet, without motivating it, or tempting the Jews to sin, God was completely in control of this horror. He planned it. He predestined it. And he has used if for infinite good.

This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men (Acts 2:23, ESV).

For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place (Acts 4:27–28, ESV).

The cross was according to God’s “definite plan and foreknowledge.” Without violating the responsibility of the Jews who crucified him, Christ predestined and planned his death. He used ugly, gross, consummate evil for massive, cosmic, earth-shaking good.

That is our hope going forward. Whatever the future holds, Christians have great confidence that God has brought it to pass. It is no accident. And the God who will bring it to pass will use it all for our infinite good.

So, here is the answer to the question with which we started—did God bring the Holocaust to pass? Yes, and he is using, and has used it, to glorify himself and to bring good to all who believe the gospel.