Dutch online archive identifies suspected Nazi collaborators

In all the annals of sin, Naziism must rank as among the worst in human history. Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, a fourth of them children. Millions of others were also killed by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945.

Such horrific crimes would have been impossible without collaborators: those who turned in Jews and others, aided in their deportation, and actively participated in their murders. Now we are learning that nearly half a million suspected World War II Nazi collaborators are finally being identified to the public.

A Dutch project called “War in Court” has digitally released a list of such names. The archive, consisting of thirty-two million pages, includes about 425,000 mostly Dutch people who were investigated for collaborating with German occupiers during the war. The law restricting public access to the information expired on New Year’s Day.

Of course, after so many years, the vast majority of those who aided the Nazis in their horrific crimes are now deceased.

If God is just, how can this be?

“Be sure your sin will find you out”

The Bible repeatedly calls us to seek justice in all its dimensions. For example:

• “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17).
• “What does the Lᴏʀᴅ require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
• “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
• “When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers” (Proverbs 21:15).

God’s word also assures us that those who commit injustices will face judgment for their sins:

• “I the Lᴏʀᴅ love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense” (Isaiah 61:8).
• “God will judge the righteous and the wicked” (Ecclesiastes 3:17).
• “The Lᴏʀᴅ loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off” (Psalm 37:28).
• “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).
• “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).

Why, then, do sinners so often seem not to suffer for their sins? Why are criminals so often not caught? (Only 14 percent of burglaries in the US are ever solved, for example.)

Some criminals in Scripture are forgiven by their victims, as when Joseph pardoned his brothers (Genesis 50:20) and Jesus prayed for his Father to forgive his executioners from the cross (Luke 23:34). Some are punished, such as Cain after he murdered his brother (Genesis 4:11–12) and Daniel’s enemies in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:24).

But many do not seem to face judgment. The religious authorities who arranged Jesus’ crucifixion faced no justice so far as we know; those who persecuted Paul and the other apostles were never held accountable, at least in the biblical narrative.

Five factors to consider

In response, let’s consider these biblical facts.

One: God delays judgment to give sinners an opportunity to repent.

Scripture declares, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). If God punished our sins as soon as we commit them, we would have no chance to repent and experience the forgiveness he offers by grace (1 John 1:9).

Two: If God were to judge all sin fairly, none of us could escape his wrath.

The Bible famously states, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “All” includes everyone who has ever lived except for the sinless Lord Jesus (Hebrews 4:15). God “knows everything” (1 John 3:20), including the sins we think are private and unknown to the world. If he is to judge all sins and sinners, all of us would face the exposure of our shame and the wrath of his response.

Three: Sin brings its own punishment.

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) in every dimension of this consequence. Sin separates us from a holy God, causing us to forfeit the transforming power and joy of his presence. It brings shame and guilt that plague us long after our sins are committed. And it often leads to consequences we cannot imagine when we are being tempted.

Satan hates us, seeking “only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). He will therefore never tempt us to do anything that will bring more benefit than cost. The pleasure or reward of sin must always be outweighed eventually by the pain it produces. This is an inevitable fact of life.

Four: Sin, even when confessed, leads to loss of eternal reward.

Paul notified us:

No one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw–each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:11–15).

When we confess our sins, God forgives us for them and cleanses us from “all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). However, he cannot reward sin. As a result, even when we confess it, we forfeit the rewards we would have received if we had chosen obedience instead.

I heard a pastor warn many years ago,

Sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay.

Five: We can trust an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God to always do what is best.

I don’t understand why so many Nazi collaborators did not face justice in this life, though I am certain they did in the next. I don’t understand why so many sinners seem to get away with their sins.

But God, by virtue of his nature, must always do what is best in each case. The fact that I cannot understand his ways makes them no less trustworthy. In fact, if I could understand fully the ways of God, either he would not be God or I would be.

Here we find an opportunity for faith. As Spurgeon said, when we cannot see God’s hand, we can trust his heart.

Three practical responses

Let’s close by asking how we should respond personally to this conversation.

One: Expect temptation.

The Lord warned Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door,” so “you must rule over it” or it will rule over you (Genesis 4:7). And if even Jesus faced repetitive temptation (cf. Luke 4:13), so will we.

Two: Turn temptations immediately to Christ for his help and victory.

Scripture assures us, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). 

Jesus has faced every temptation we face, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). As a result, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (v. 16).

Three: Make Christ the Lord of every dimension of your life.

So many of our spiritual failures stem from the spiritual compartmentalization of our secular society. We separate Sunday from Monday, religion from the “real world.” We think of our time spent in church and spiritual activities as belonging to God and the rest to us.

As a result, when the Enemy attacks us in our “secular” lives, we are ill-prepared to respond. But when we submit to the Holy Spirit at the start of every day (Ephesians 5:18) and make Christ the king of every room in our house, we can claim his strength and victory over our enemy: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7, my emphasis).

Billy Graham wrote:

If Christianity is important at all, then it is all-important. If it is anything at all, then it is everything. It is either the most vital thing in your life, or it isn’t worth bothering with.

So don’t give the lie to the Christian faith by professing Christ without possessing Him. Don’t lock the church door with the key of inconsistency and keep the lost from coming to Christ. Don’t hinder revival by your unbelief and prayerlessness. Don’t cheat yourself out of spiritual victory by allowing sin to imprison you. Seek God’s face and turn from your wicked ways. Then you will hear from heaven and true revival will begin—starting with you.

The Church holds the key to revival. It is within our grasp. Will we rise to the challenge? Will we dare pay the price? The supply of heaven is adequate for the demands of our spiritually starved world. Will we offer that supply to the hungry masses?

May the revival that the world needs begin in you—starting today.

Will our nation see a true spiritual awakening this year?

More to the point: Will you?