Some 6,000,000 Jewish people died in the Holocaust during the Second World War. Half of them were Jewish people from Poland In addition, another 3,000,000 non-Jewish Polish people perished during that disastrous period of history. How can we even begin to understand this catastrophe? What does a travesty of this magnitude tell us about humanity’s nature?
The world tells us that by nature, the human animal is basically good.
“If we’re given the right tools, the right opportunities and the right encouragement, then the basic goodness within us will rise to the benefit of us all.”
Or so the argument goes.
But then, what about the Holocaust? We’re told,
“That was an aberration – an unnatural, horrific event in the course of human history. Those horrors were committed by humanity’s monsters, not by normal people.”
But both the Bible and the course of history tell us something else:
“The heart is more deceitful than all and is desperately sick,” the Bible explains (Jeremiah 17:9).
No matter how good we think we are, and no matter how good we hope to be, there’s an illness in our hearts called sin. When that sin runs freely in society, then there’s no limit to the brutality that we can unleash upon ourselves and upon others. The Bible tells us that we need to be rescued from the sin that lives within us all.
The Bible also tells us that we cannot rescue ourselves, and the Holocaust confirms that sobering truth. We can’t hide behind the notion that the Holocaust occurred because a new “Dark Ages” had suddenly descended upon the world. Science and technology had been racing forward. Art and culture had flourished. Philosophy and psychology had given us new insights into how we think, what we believe, and why we act. But none of these advances could stop the Holocaust from taking place. Despite our achievements, the human condition and the human heart remained the same.
The Holocaust would leave us with no hope at all, if it weren’t for the fact that there is hope in a biblical message called the Gospel or the Good News. God promises, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a [new] heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Jesus the Messiah died as a substitutionary payment for our wrongdoings and then came back to life, just as the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament of the Bible) says that He would. When we ask Him to forgive us and change us, then He gives us a new heart that works miracles in two directions. That new heart safeguards us from committing crimes in the future, and it gives us access to forgiveness for crimes we’ve committed in the past.
Some years ago, a Jewish believer in Jesus and a German believer in Jesus stood side by side, telling the stories of their lives to a crowd of people in a lecture hall in Budapest, Hungary. They spoke of their mutual love for the Jewish people, because of their mutual love for Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and Savior of the nations. In this small instance, the Holocaust proved that God is the God of the impossible. He can transform former enemies into friends, even into “family.”
The Holocaust proves at least one more crucial truth about the Bible and the Good News. It proves that no arena of human tragedy is beyond God’s supernatural reach. No darkness can prevent the penetration of His light and love. Rachmiel Frydland, Vera Schlam, Eliezar Urbach, Rose Price, Manfred and Laura Wertheim – these are just a smattering of the Jewish men and women who lived through the nightmare of the Holocaust, and then found peace when they became followers of the Messiah Yeshua.
So, what does the Holocaust prove? It proves that we need to be rescued. It proves that we cannot rescue ourselves. And it proves that God can touch our hearts and change our lives, even in the darkest of times.
The Holocaust is a personal, troubling topic. We’d love to hear your thoughts, if you’re willing to share them with us.
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