TO IMPLY GOD’s FORGIVENESS TO THE
NAZIS,
WELL IT IS JUST NOT THERE.
After thoughtful analysis from Scripture, the answer
would be a qualified NO! Divine forgiveness is always based on repentance and
faith (Mark 1:14). Jesus made this clear, and said so more than once in Luke
13: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5).
Scripture teaches that if the sinner does not repent
and ask for GOD’s forgiveness, he will not be forgiven but will eternally
perish. God’s forgiveness is effectively given when the sinner admits that he
has sinned and needs to be forgiven by GOD (Luke 18: 9–14). Some people might
say that the statement made by JESUS CHRIST on the cross in Luke 23:34
(“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”) contradicts this, but
that verse cannot be used for the Nazis because those words, from their
context, applied directly to those who crucified the LORD.
To apply it to the Nazis is to read into Luke 23
something that simply is not there. Most of the Nazis never repented before God
for their crimes against the Jews. They never asked the LORD or the Chosen
People to forgive them. Indeed, those Nazis who were brought to justice either
denied that they had murdered Jews (Herman Goering) or justified it as simply
“following orders” (Adolph Eichmann). So, because Nazi Germany refused to
repent, GOD justly condemned them and brought utter destruction upon their country,
using the Allied powers as His instrument of judgment in the process.
Many passages in the New Testament tell us to Love our
enemies and to pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:47–48). These verses
do not mean, however, that we are to overlook the wrong acts of others. The
Love that is meant here is one that includes a righteous hatred for sin and
evil. Until the surviving Nazis see the terrible harm they have caused and ask
GOD to forgive and save them, they cannot be forgiven. We do not Love what they
did, nor can we condone or excuse their atrocious acts against the Chosen
People and the rest of humanity.
On the contrary, we must constantly remind the world
of what they did to the Jewish people so that it will not happen again. Jesus
said that GOD will “avenge” His “elect” (Israel and the Church) and mete out
punishment on those who seek their harm: “shall not GOD avenge His own elect,
which cry day and night unto Him… I tell you He will avenge them speedily”
(Luke 18:7–8). The Nazis certainly fall under this category, if anybody does!
The eternal promises that God made to Abraham stand
for all time. Among the unconditional blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant is
the one that clearly says that GOD will curse anybody who seeks to harm, curse,
or destroy the Jewish people. In this covenant, God said, “I will bless them
that bless you, and curse him that curses you” (Genesis 12:3).
This has been fulfilled throughout the course of
history. Hitler’s Nazi Germany brought GOD’s eternal curse of Genesis 12:3 down
upon itself, just like all the other nations, empires, and individuals before
it that sought to destroy the nation of Israel. The Nazis are the latest of
those who joined the graveyard of anti-Semitic nations when they tried to
exterminate the Chosen People. If GOD were to grant forgiveness to the Nazis
who have not repented, He would in effect be breaking His own promise to
Abraham and the Jewish people.
The Bible teaches that there is no forgiveness for the
reprobate, this includes Nazi Germany. The biblical doctrine of reprobation
begs the question of what is a reprobate? A reprobate proves by his very
actions that he is an enemy of GOD who will not change, no matter what GOD
does. He remains hardened against GOD even at death. Human reprobates (like
their spiritual counterparts, Satan and the fallen angels) cannot be forgiven
by God because they have closed their hearts to Him.
The Pharaoh of the Exodus and Judas the Apostle are
biblical examples of reprobates. We discover from these two individuals that
there are two distinct features of being a reprobate: (1) a permanent hatred
for the Jews and (2) an incorrigible unbelief and opposition toward CHRIST.
Obviously, the Nazis possessed these two traits. They
proved by their resistant to change theirs was a reprobate rule. They rejected
and sought to destroy the Jews, and so GOD justly rejected and destroyed them.
Some right of Attila the Hun Churches are fond of
speaking about a GOD of Love, to the point that they exclude the God of
judgment. They would say that GOD loved the Nazis and forgave them, and that
the Jews and the rest of us Christians need to make peace with the past by
forgiving Hitler and his followers. Even though this kind of non biblical
thinking is symptomatic of the universal apostasy in some of the Church today.
Some Churches are known for worshiping an attribute of God rather than
worshiping GOD Himself. They especially do this with the attribute of His Love,
to the exclusion of God’s wrath, holiness, and righteousness, which require GOD
who is also Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient that He punishes sin.
This Holy GOD raised up the Allied powers to
mercilessly destroy Nazi Germany so that the Nazis could not prevail in their
satanic quest of exterminating the Jewish people, which would have rendered the
promises of GOD to the Jews null and void.
For those in the Church to tell the Jews they need to
forgive the Nazis is hypocritical. Christians need to wake up and realize that
the Church has also been responsible for the long historical mistreatment of
the Chosen People. Jews who survived the Holocaust can tell you how the Nazis
who sent them to the death camps and gas chambers claimed to be Christians and
followers of JESUS CHRIST. When Christians tell them to “get over it” the
Holocaust and forgive the Nazis, the Jews understandably interpret such advice
as a belittlement of what they suffered and a denial of the grave reality of
what happened to their people at the hands of these self-proclaimed “Christians.”
The churches of Europe did little or nothing to save
the six million innocent Jews who were killed. Instead, they looked the other
way, or worse, gave theological justification for Hitler and the Nazis. It is
the Church, not the Jews, that needs to ask for forgiveness from both GOD and
the Jewish people for its passivity and complicity in the Holocaust.
The Church needs to stand up and take responsibility
for its part in the Holocaust and the historical abuse of the Jews. Until this
is done, Jews will naturally view Christians with suspicion?
The same IMO also applies to Armenians, African
Americans, First Nations etc. and “NO”, GOD does not forgive non-repentant
Nazis sadly time is running out for that batch.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock …
Vengeance is mine saith the LORD!
My Opinion by,
Sir Richard.
