Was The Holocaust For Real?

Hamas is in denial, but not about some of their more vicious terrorist activities. But now some of the organization’s leadership, including the infamous Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are highly irritated about teaching children that the Holocaust of World War 2 really occurred and was anything but minor in scope.

After hearing that a new United Nations program, one that deals with Palestinian refugees, may teach the Holocaust to eighth grade students from a human rights perspective, Hamas leader Younis al-Astal wrote, "Adding the Holocaust to the curriculum would amount to marketing a lie and spreading it. I do not exaggerate when I say this issue is a war crime, because of how it serves the Zionist colonizers and deals with their hypocrisy and lies.”

Many Palestinians are reluctant to acknowledge such major proportions of Jewish suffering. Their attitudes range from a total denial of the reality of a historical Holocaust to challenging the horrific scope of the brutality inflicted on the Jewish people.

When it comes to the Bible, the reality of God, and His precise requirements for salvation, some also enter into a total denial. They either scoff at the very concept of an eternal and personal Deity, or they may resist believing in the realness, and the absolute seriousness, of their sin and its dreadful consequences.

The Psalmist addressed that faulty kind of belief system as simply and directly as he could in the first verse of Psalm 14. He recorded there, “The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God.” But there is a God, like it or not! And it is absolute silliness to think otherwise.

We are all free to believe, with all our heart’s energy, that the earth is flat, that the moon is made of Swiss cheese, or even that the government would be best at running a national health care system! But these things will never be true or line up with reality no matter who passionately believes them or not. Likewise, a denial of a holy God of creation, of sinful man’s guilt before Him, or of the only effective solution He offers through the sacrifice of His Savior Son is irrelevant. In the final analysis, these things are true or false because they are either true or false – not because of man’s personal preferences and whims.

Romans 1:18-28 gives what is the single most comprehensive description of why the race of men is in the ruin it is. And whether or not man denies his desperate plight, and his responsibility in it, Scripture assures repeatedly that God is real, sin, judgement and justice are real, salvation is real, and that there is no real excuse for not knowing and dealing with all of it through Jesus Christ.

Paul writes in verse 18 of chapter one, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”

Verses 25-28 then go on to vividly describe the downward spiritual spiral that comes when God’s Word and will is stiff-armed and the glory due Him ignored. Paul writes that a mind that rejects God will not only engage in extreme forms of sin, but will, over time, be unable to even properly judge simple right from wrong. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.” (Romans 1:28)

There is more than ample evidence for the existence and the severity of one of history’s most brutal regimes and for the massive suffering they dealt out during World War 2. But even so, there is even greater proof that a loving, omnipotent, and omniscient Creator God is real and that He has clearly presented Himself and His will to a broken human race through His creation, His Word, and His Son.

Arguing about the details of history may be interesting and, in many cases, of some redeeming value. But not getting the facts straight about God, sin, and the reality of being redeemed by His Son, is the only thing of value when all is said and done.

“Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (1 Peter 1:18-19)

Bill Breckenridge