Modern Christians Are Wrong About The Future

A very important guest for you right now on the show. One of our favorites is Dr. Andrew Sandlin. Dr. Sandlin is a Christian minister, theologian and author, the founder and president of the Center for Cultural Leadership in Colterville, California.

The young distinguished visiting professor of culture and theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary and faculty at Blackstone Legal Fellowship of the Alliance Defending Freedom in Phoenix. He was formerly president of the National Reformed Association executive vice president of the Chalcedon Foundation, minister of the Fellowship of Mere Christianity and was pastor of Church of the World and Cornerstone Bible Church.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Andrew Sandlin. Hey, brother, welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Exciting opportunity for us right here on next week. One of my faves, I think soon yours as well.

So you drove all the way from California.

I wanted to be on a nonjudgmental, noncontroversial show. You came to the wrong place.

So I just want to tell you how grateful we are that you took the long drive to get here and that you're here in our studio for the next two days. Lots of stuff we're going to produce together. Very excited about it.

The Imperial Gospel and the Kingship of Christ

So I think just leaping right into it to give everyone sort of a flavor of how we think and the way that we view the world. We had you recently on our television program and you were talking about something that got us very excited.

And it was the imperial gospel. Right. Which sounds so weird, kind of nefarious and scary. The imperial, because we think about Star Wars and the empire, the evil empire. But I think that this goes to the core of so much that is broken within us as evangelicals, as reformed folks in the United States, in the West.

Yes, we used to have a perspective of the kingdom of Christ and the world itself, particularly in American history. We come from a very Puritan heritage where they viewed the world as all under the rule and authority of Jesus.

Every realm, every sphere under his authority. And the purpose of the church was to advance the gospel of the kingdom to to renew and restore the world through salvation, redemption that's in Christ. But there was a view of of Jesus as well.

It just seems so so silly because everyone goes, I already believe that. So what's the difference? King of kings and lord of lords. And that is that Jesus is the ruler of the world. Today, he's the king over kings of the earth and lord over lords of the earth.

And when we say that, we really mean it. That's right, because it has implications. So I guess I'll just throw it at you. Imperial gospel. Why does that matter? What is it?

Well, I mean, the problem historically is that the gospel in the West has been influenced by a number of factors like pietism, a false form of pietism and Gnosticism, which maybe get into later. Yes. Dispensationalism.

Wait, did I just say that? Yes, I did. Yeah. And and and other sort of retreatist approaches. And essentially, the gospel has been turned into a subjective view of the faith, and it's become very perpendicular.

It's basically my relationship with God. And of course, the gospel does involve that. Sure. Yeah. But think about it. I mean, the gospel from the Greek is you and Gillian. It's the good news. Well, immediately we think, well, if it's the good news, what's the bad news?

Well, people would say, well, the bad news is that I'm a sinner. Well, that's true. But that's not all the bad news. Actually, the bad news is worse than that. The bad news is that as a result of sin, the entire creation has been brought under a curse and there's corruption anywhere, everywhere.

I mean, everywhere we look in education and in science and technology, economics, we see the influence of sin everywhere. Yeah. Well, what people don't understand is that, though the gospel is based in the death, the glorious death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it's not designed merely to save me.

It's designed to push back and eventually incrementally repel evil in all areas of life. That's what evangelicals have lost. Well, part of the reason for that is because they don't recognize what you said, Jeff, about the kingship of Jesus Christ.

Now, if they do recognize, well, yes, I believe Jesus is king of kings and lord of lords. What they mean by that, many of them is that, well, one day he's going to return. That's right. With a rod of iron and he's going to rule physically on the earth.

Or they mean he's king of kings today in a limited realm. I mean, Jesus is the king of Jesus is the king of my heart. He's the king of your heart. Yes. Well, that's not quite what the scripture says. I mean, think even about the Lord's prayer.

What are we to pray? One great plank in there. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Not in my little heart in yours, but in the entire world on earth, on earth, all over the entire earth. So when you and I, when those who believe like us and I believe recognize this fully biblical truth, the Puritans you invoked and many others in the Reformation tradition and perhaps some others from time to time, we recognize the goal of the gospel.

I think one way to put it is that the theologian Van Till, Cornelius Van Till says that the sweep of redemption is as comprehensive as the sweep of sin. Isn't that beautiful? That is. Wherever sin goes, their redemption has to go.

And so it's not enough to preach Sunday for sinners to come to Jesus. They do need to praise God. We must speak that way. But in addition to that, we must recognize that all of culture must be brought under the kingship of Jesus Christ.

That's not an implication of the gospel.

That's a part of the gospel. Yeah, it's I often say this and I always try to figure out ways to be better as a pastor, as a minister of the gospel. I often say it in this way and tell me if I'm if I'm getting the right spot.

I often say that it's not merely about the gospel, God's gospel, that I'm reconciled to God and have peace with God, that I have eternal life in heaven one day. But what we're missing is the gospel of the kingdom.

I often say that I don't know that I have a lot of confidence that the average Christian in the West today could articulate why the kingdom of Jesus itself is good news. Because that's what Jesus in Matthew four goes about.

Proclaiming is the gospel of the kingdom. That's right. And I think if you ask the average Christian today in the West, you say, why is the kingdom good news? Why is that good news from God? Beautifully put.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, when we use the term kingdom, basically it means the reign. Yes. The reign of God. Well, so what's good news about the reign? Well, the wonderful news about the reign is that sin is destructive.

It's not just destructive in my life with addictions and lusts and things that we say, hatred in our hearts and all these external things, people, we heard. It's not just that it hurts everything in society.

Yeah. So we can say that wherever the gospel goes and wherever the gospel is successful, there the reign of God goes and there the kingdom of God is. But a lot of people don't understand is when you have families, though not perfect, are submitted to Christ and churches and institutions like this with ministries like yours, that's a manifestation of the kingdom of God on the earth.

Yeah, but it needs to go wider. That's the key. And that's what we're called to do to extend that kingdom. That's right. By the gospel.

New Creation and the Cultural Mandate

So, OK, well, there's all kinds of stuff I want to talk about in terms of implications, what that looks like, how how we advance. Just what exactly are we saying? We say like every realm affected by the rule of Christ, his reign transformed, renewed.

I mean, when Jesus comes out of that, that garden tomb, death enters into the world, sin enters into the world in a garden. And then Jesus has victory over sin and death in a garden. He's mistaken as a gardener by the women who come to the tomb, which to me testifies that he was doing something that looked like a gardener.

He was working the ground. He's the beginning of the new creation. The Bible says the firstborn. And so he comes now in victorious splendor and majesty out of that tomb, victory over death and sin. And he begins to work the ground.

He's he's now beginning to behold. I make all things new, not making all new things. That's right. He's making all things. That's right. New. He's renewing the creation. Talk about that for a second. That that that new creation, you know, every Christian says it.

We talk about and we talk about in terms of our own individual relationship with Jesus, we say, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. We get that as Christians in terms of my individual relationship.

But Jesus is actually part of a much bigger project. What he's doing is a bigger project. It's the new creation.

That's right. You think and look about the creation. Let's go back to Genesis one and two. What a beautiful picture. God finishes his work in six days and he pronounces a verdict. What does he say? He looked at it and he said, it's not just good, but very good.

Well, we look at all of culture that comes out of creation and all of these areas of life, music and economics, exchange in the marketplace and education and all of these things. All of those are good things.

Let's think of it this way, Jeff. Had sin never entered the world, what would have happened? Oh, no. Adam and Eve would have stayed in the garden. Well, not really. They couldn't have stayed just there had they had children and their children, of course, had children.

Yeah, they would have expanded over all the earth and they would have developed culture. But it wouldn't have been sinful culture. Now, think about this for a minute. What would a world have been like?

What would the discoveries have been like had sin never entered? Well, now I'm going to sort of bring this boomerang, this back to what I was saying. Imagine that's the kind of world we can look forward to in the future with the success of the gospel, not just Jesus and the religion, but all of these areas of life.

So that means that Christians that, well, let's take electricians, software writers, entertainers, comedians, teachers, salesmen, people that work on mechanics or any area of life. As a believer, what you're called to do is operate according to biblical truth, Christian truth, God's holy law, and bring that into conformity, your field of endeavor.

Bring that into conformity by the power of the Spirit of God to the word of God on the basis of the gospel. Now, as that happens incrementally over time and more people are converted, as I believe the Bible quite clearly teaches, the world little by little is not just restored.

God isn't pushing us back to the garden. He is enhancing what happened in that garden you were talking about. And one day the Bible predicts and the prophets of the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

So that's kind of the calling of the individual to press the claims of Jesus Christ, where God has called him or her. That is their calling. And that's how the kingdom of God expands in time and history.

Gnosticism, Dualism, and Escape Religion

So you mentioned when you started talking, something that most Christians don't really understand has genuinely affected impact in our thinking and the church, the view of the world. You mentioned Gnosticism.

Yes. So some Christian says, I know about those Gnostic heretics. I know about the Nag Hammadi library. I know about all that, that mess. I'm not a Gnostic. I don't believe in that nonsense. But it's true.

Gnosticism has heavily impacted the church. That's right. Sort of dualism and unbiblical dualism where the earth is is all the sin and curse is bad. It's evil. This is really a throwaway. What God is most interested in is he's interested in the spiritual realm.

He's interested in taking us out of this awful place, getting us to heaven one day so that God can just sort of be done with this and burn in all of fire.

Oh, it's a tragic. It's not just an ancient view. So many Christians today basically believe and I hesitate to use the language, but that the earth itself is a garbage heap. But it's not. The Bible doesn't say that.

No. The heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 19 says, and that was even in a sinful realm. Yeah. The heavens declared the glory of God. So they believe that the body is bad, that healthy sexuality is bad.

And of course, they can't drink or smoke or and all sorts of physical things. Or here's a good example. We don't want to get involved in politics because that's dirty business. And Christians withdraw from politics.

And sure enough, it becomes dirty business. It sure does. So the Gnostics essentially believe that the defect in the world. I mean, everybody, we all look around and say there's something wrong here. I mean, there's a lot of good stuff, but there's a lot of bad stuff.

Well, the Christian answer to that is the little three letter word in English, sin. The Gnostic answer is the creation. The creation itself is defective. And so they're trying always to escape creation.

And I believe to a degree, this is behind part of the rapture view of today. The Christians are constantly trying to escape. Yeah. But I must say, Jeff, the theology of the Bible is never a theology of escape.

It's always a theology of holy engagement. Yes. We're called to go everywhere in the world preaching the gospel. Even ancient Israel was called to engage, not escape. Yeah. Jesus Christ didn't escape.

He didn't escape the cross. He went through a very difficult. We can't even imagine the horror that he went through for us. And he gets victory after the cross. And so we're called to go through difficulties.

People talk about the church escaping the great tribulation. Well, I'm sorry, we might go through some tribulation. Right. This has actually happened to Christians historically. You know, it actually.

Yeah. Yeah. So but in tribulation, God has called us to move forward in great victory. So there's nothing wrong inherently with this world. There's it's under the curse of sin. Yeah. There's sin in this world.

But we don't need deliverance from the world. We need deliverance from sin. Gnostics don't understand that.

Justice, Righteousness, and Gospel-Centered Life

That's right. And so we you mentioned it. I mean, you said it's popular and people watching right now. Many of you believe this. The idea of disengagement because these are unholy empires, the political arena itself is is that that's a realm that Jesus doesn't have much concern with.

You know, we talk today. People talk a lot about issues of social justice. And we often we poo-poo the idea of social justice because we see it coming out of the mouths of the liberal, unbelieving humanist, you know, social justice.

It's just this sort of very strange, not defined term in itself. They don't know what they even mean by it. They can't give you any solid foundation of what are you saying? What do you mean? So we hear the liberals, liberal theologians and the cultural Marxists of today, neo-Marxists of today saying things like social justice.

And we even want to further, further distance ourselves from it because we will think that, well, Jesus in a new covenant, he's not concerned with justice in the world today. He's concerned with souls for heaven, Dr. Sandlin, but not justice in the world today.

That's just utterly false. I mean, you think about the Great Commission. Jesus says, go and make disciples of all nations. He means disciple the nations. Yeah. It's interesting you hear that term social justice in the Bible.

Apparently, a lot of people don't know justice is basically the same word as righteousness. Yes. I couldn't imagine today if the liberals would start saying we're standing for social righteousness. Well, they wouldn't use that term.

Because that's too Christian-y, that's too religious. Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with social righteousness. That's what we're called to do. But according to the law, word of God, according to the word of God.

That's right. So you see, when Paul preaches, he begins by preaching. Let's even take in Galatians and Romans. He's preaching on justification. Well, that's justice. He's preaching on justice. How do we treat one another?

That's justice. He speaks in Romans 13 about the state. The state's supposed to act according to the law of God, ideally. Well, that's justice. So throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, there is a concern that the world is a world of justice, which is to say righteousness.

Now, think about this for a minute. The goal of the gospel is to extend the reign of God, the righteousness of God in the world. That's what Jesus Christ is all about. If that is the case, if we are not preaching and not just preaching, but living and acting according to and perpetuating that righteousness, we're not living as gospel people.

It's ironic. We hear this expression. You've heard it a lot. Gospel centered. We want to be a gospel centered church. Yeah. People finally asked me about that. And I say, oh, yes, I think we need more gospel centered people as long as we know what the gospel really is.

That's right. Gospel centered doesn't just mean we go to church on Sunday and hear a message that people are sinful and need to trust Jesus. Yes. Gospel centered means that all areas of life should be brought under the authority of King Jesus.

That's right. That's what you mean by gospel centered. Amen. We need more gospel centered churches.

This is my favorite interview. Dr. Andrew Sandlin. Thank you guys so very much.

Next week with Jeff Durbin, the late night show with the unpopular opinion. Tuesday only on Facebook Live.