Half-way House Theology

Playing the Game on the Devil's Terms

There is the world-view of the Bible. Then there is the world-view held by many Christians. The two are different. Which is to say that many professing Christians need to shape up.

When we become converted, we are united to Christ: the complex of death, which once reigned in our lives, dies. This means that we put away all of the old ways, all of the attributes and remnants of the way of death, and take on the life and attributes of Christ. This means that when we are converted, the house changes owners. But it takes a while for the new owner to get rid of the grime and the filth.

Much of the dirt resides in clinging to pagan ways of thinking. We continue to nurture and nurse views of reality and of the cosmos (world-views) that belong to Unbelief and the complex of death. We need to be aware of this shortcoming. We need to hunt out these remnants of false belief and skewer them. In order to do this we need to become self-critical of the way we think about ourselves and the cosmos. We need to subject even the way we think and the fundamental categories of our mental furniture to the mind of Christ.

Here is an example. Many Christians think that the cosmos consists of three realms. The first realm belongs to God and His heaven. The second realm belongs to the Devil and his hell. The third realm belongs to neither, but it is the field of battle upon which the two (God and the Devil) clash. This third realm is neither believing nor unbelieving. It is neither for God nor against Him. It is neutral, objective, even-handed, disinterested and impartial. It is the world of "facts", "data", and "science". It is mediated by "reason" which is impersonal. This world carries an objective authority which is beyond God and the Devil. Both need to be subject to it.

The idea is that the Devil and Unbelief come out on to this no-man's-land and try to take control of it. It is said to be the duty of Christians to get out on the neutral middle ground and do battle with the Devil for the hearts and minds of men. But this is wrong. There is no middle ground. No-man's-land does not exist. There is no neutral realm. There is no third way. There are only two realms.

Put bluntly, either you are a servant of the Lord, or you are a servant of the Devil. If you are not a servant of the Lord, you have been taken captive by the Devil to do his will. (II Timothy 2: 25, 26). This is the fundamental Christian world-view. The introduction of a third realm which is independent of God and therefore has the authority to sit in judgment upon God is not Christian. It is of Satan.

As someone once said, there is no soul so firmly in the control and grasp of the Devil as the person who disbelieves his existence. Following closely behind is the person who believes that whilst God and the Devil exist there is yet another realm which is independent of both. The Devil has that person under his influence. Satan is perfectly comfortable with the person who professes to believe in God, yet also believes that there are realms of creation that are beyond God and independent of Him. Such a person is busy manufacturing an idol; he has already disbelieved what the Scripture reveals about the Living God and all other reality.

God has definitively declared Himself to us. He has revealed that He alone is God, and there is none other. He created all things of nothing. All things live and move and have their being in Him. There is no third realm. No neutral ground. All is from Him and to Him and through Him. This is the God Whom we love, serve and worship.

Any human or angelic thought, word, or deed which presupposes or assumes independence against God is therefore rebellious and evil. If we are not with our Lord, we are against Him. He who does not gather with Him, scatters. He who does not believe has the wrath of God abiding upon him. There is no neutral, half-way house, where we can be neither for Him nor against Him. There is no third realm, no middle way.

The world-view of Belief is that such neutrality is impossible. It does not exist. Independent objectivity is a myth—a falsehood encouraged and perpetuated by the enemy. The assertion of neutrality, of independent objectivity, presupposes from the outset that the God spoken of in the Scriptures does not and cannot exist. The Devil is perfectly happy to play the game on that chess board.

Ever since Adam's sin that fateful day in Eden, all human beings descending from Adam by ordinary generation, agree with him. That is, unless and until they are regenerated by the Spirit of God.

Yet there remains the embarrassing reality that many Christians still cling to that old world-view. They still hold to the neutrality, objectivity, and autonomy of the human mind. They still want God to be the way they want Him to be. They still lust after a god who is in their own image. Shape up, guys. Put off your cloying idolatry. Such things are unbecoming the citizens of Jerusalem.