An unbeliever might vigorously claim neutrality, but we take God’s Word over the unbeliever’s word. This person is lined up against God. By God’s grace, Christians are on the other side of this great divide. They didn’t place themselves there; God put them there. Through Christ they’ve been reconciled to God, placed in a friendly relationship of fellowship with him. We call that relationship the covenant of grace.
I grew up during the Cold War and quite aware of it. In fact, in St. Albert, the city where I spent most of my youth, we had an air raid siren in a central location. A Canadian air force base was right next to our city, so we would’ve been an attractive target for the Soviet Union. During those Cold War years, we often heard stories of defectors. Many brave people risked their lives to come to the West from communist countries. You’d hear stories, for example, of people who tried to tunnel underneath the Berlin Wall to find freedom.
What few people know is that there were also Westerners who defected to communist countries. One of the most famous of these was James Dresnok. He was an American soldier in South Korea, but in 1962 he defected to North Korea. He traded freedom for life under a totalitarian regime. Dresnok went on to become somewhat of a celebrity in North Korea, often appearing in films as the requisite evil American. He died in 2016, still behind communist lines. We can understand defecting from a communist country to the free West. But the other way around? Why would anyone ever do that? It seems completely irrational.
There’s another major defection in world history that’s equally irrational. It made zero sense for Adam to defect from God to Satan in Genesis 3. He traded freedom, joy and peace for slavery, misery, and war. That was a completely insane defection. Following this defection, there’s been a great divide in the human race. Human beings are now divided on the basis of their attitude towards the King of kings. In principle a line has been drawn between traitorous defectors and loyal citizens. On each side of this line, there’s movement, but it’s in opposite directions. By God’s grace, the loyal citizens are heading for the New Jerusalem. The traitorous defectors are on their way to the lake of fire. In Reformed theology, we have a special name for this great divide: the antithesis.
This is a concept found throughout Scripture. It’s quite evident in places like Ephesians 5.
