Does God Do Harsh Chastening?

One of my favorite blogs is Ray Comfort’s blog, “Atheist Central”.  Today he answered a question that, sooner or later, any apologist gets. 

"Do you really believe the holocaust was God's punishment of the Jews?"

In answer to the question, Ray, I believe made one of the few mistakes he makes in that great blog.  In a very good desire, I think, to direct the attention of the questioner, to the Gospel, he actually denied the truth that God was using Germany in dealing with Israel.

I would never say that God used Hitler to punish the Jews. If God treated any of us justly and punished us according to our sins, we would all be in Hell in an instant. I’m Jewish and I am as guilty as any Gentile of violating His Law.

He then went on to talk about our sinfulness and our need for mercy as a people, all very commendable and very true.  The problem is, that it is not the truth. 

There are at least three  Biblical examples where God used horrible oppressors to chasten and correct Israel.  The first was Egypt.  Israel was there by choice, but God used Pharaoh (the embodiment of national Egypt) to chasten Israel and cause Israel to cry out to Him for deliverance.

God raised up the Assyrians to take the Northern Kingdom into captivity in 705 BC, never to return!  Some portion of the peoples of that area drifted down to live in Judah, but the 10 tribes were taken and never formally returned.  The Assyrians were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Babylon is another example of a terrible oppressor, responsible for innumerable deaths and the displacement of the nation that God raised up deliberately and with the sure purpose of bringing Israel back to obedience and causing him to forsake the idolatry and false religion that become a staple of their national existence.  Babylon kinds many, many tens of thousands over the three separate captivities they exercised (605, 597 & 586 BC)

Those three are very clearly put forth in the Scripture,  and we haven’t even talked about God raising up the Roman Empire, and allowed it to conquer the nation and exercise harsh rulership over that area.  We haven’t mentioned that God raised up Cyrus the Persian, mentioning him by name some 150 years before he came on the scene and conquered both the Israel and the Babylonian empire.  The Persians weren’t the nicest guys on the block either.

The point here is that is wrong to assert that God does not use such instruments to chasten His people.  Israel is alone in this, God uses harsh methods to chasten us all.  Because Israel is a national entity, God used national-level methods.

I do agree with Ray in one area.  It may be a small distinction, but I think it an important one.  All that God has done of the centuries in Israel’s life has not been done by way of punishment.  I think perhaps that this is part of what Ray was trying to get across.  God’s aim with his people, with His chosen ones is never punishment, it is chastening.

Now, one might argue that there is little difference – I beg to differ.  From a human point of view, an experiential point of view – it may be that there is little difference.  But from God’s point of view, the only one that really matters in the long run, there is a big difference.

The aim in punishment is to satisfy God’s wrath against sinful behavior.  That is not the primary aim in any of the occasions we have mentioned.  The intention of in all of those occasions was not punishment – satisfying Himself.  It was chastening.

Chastening has as its aim the teaching of a lesson with the intent of causing the change of perspective, of mindset and the resulting change of behavior.  That was the aim of God in each of the captivities and likewise it was the aim in the holocaust. 

If God is sovereign, and He is, how can we draw any other conclusion?  Is He in charge, except for this?  Has He abandoned His people?  We the Nazi’s stronger than He was? 

It is always the case that God does as He desires and that what occurs in life is as He has planned.  The horror of the crucifixion was planned before the world began happened exactly as God desired it happen.  I completely agree that from a human point of view it makes no sense, and even seems contrary to common sense, but we are not the God of the universe and are not the architect of the world and of the all that is in it.  Our minds are subject to the fall and our reason tainted by the effects of sin.  There is no shame in admitting that.  There is only shame in the pride and arrogance of insisting God conform the creatures standards and not vice-versa.

Was the Holocaust God’s punishment of the Jews.  With the change of single word – (punishment to chastening) and remembering that the intent of chastening in bringing men to glory – I fear we must answer yes. 

God is willing to what He must to bring His people to salvation – to obedience to the Gospel.  He simply is.  Men make the issue any number of things.  Fairness.  Harshness.  Suffering.  Human ideas of right and wrong.  But none of that is what lies at the root.  At the root of the issue is the character of God and His unwillingness to compromise that character for any reason.  That is why Christ had to come and die, and that is why God’s people must be chastened.  It is not our conception morality that rules creation – it is His.  Like it or not – that’s what reality is.