The Mystery of Incarnation (3 of 9) — Art Katz

Framing the Mystery of Incarnation

But they are the questions that pertain to the subject of the mystery of incarnation. So when we consider these questions together, you'll have a framework of what it is that we're going to be considering in this final week.

You can begin to probe and examine yourself. Instead of printing it out, I felt to just rehearse them with you. You can write them and make your own list. So this is just the basic first examination on the great subject of incarnation.

So Lord, your blessing again we pray. It's a holy subject and it's sort of the consummation of the atonement. We're saved from sin, but saved unto something and it's that unto that we want to consider, my God, for which creation is groaning, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.

So bless us, my God, from the first day of this final week, because you know how we look to you as the great Alpha and Omega. You begin and you conclude. So give us a beginning for the conclusion and all that you want to invest in us and set into our thought and into our consideration that we will take from this place and walk out of the places from which we've come and where you're yet to bring us.

So we thank you Lord for a holy subject, still a controversy in many sectors of the church. Come and give us, my God, your illumination, your perception. We thank you and give you praise for the privilege of even considering this so great subject together in Jesus' name.

Amen. So first question, what are the implications for us as Christians today of the incarnation of Christ, God in the flesh? What are the implications for us as Christians today of the incarnation of Christ, God in the flesh?

Incarnation and the Necessity of Atonement

Of necessity, God had to be in the flesh, or there could not have been an atonement. It required a man who would suffer and die, but who had also to be more than man, because a man, however virtuous and estimable, can never satisfy the requirement of God's justice for sin, only God himself.

So God is faced with the difficulty of providing a sacrifice that his own justice demands, that is greater than calves and bulls, that no man himself could ever provide, and yet must be experienced by a man for men, and that man is Christ Jesus.

So we have of necessity for the atonement, God in the flesh, and the New Testament writers speak about those days as the days of his flesh, and this is unprecedented in the history of faith, that God would invest himself in man, that there would be some strange union between deity and humanity that is totally unprecedented, and the theologians have been breaking their heads over it from the earliest centuries of church history, because it gave rise to such speculation as would bring about deception and heresy, threatening the church itself, because one school could not believe that God could be crucified, and therefore their tendency was to depreciate the divinity part.

Another school, called Ebionites, could not believe that man could be united with deity, and sought to find a way to depreciate Jesus as a man, and so these were heresies that threatened the faith, and the church had to summon the ability to meet these dangerous threats by church councils, so in the fourth and fifth century you have six church councils, one of them is the council of Nicaea, they take their name from their location, about the issue of deity and humanity, and it brought some resolution, but it raised new questions, so then there was a subsequent, the council of Chalcedon, you don't have to know all this, though it's interesting in itself as church history, and they wrestled with the great questions, and out of that second council came a statement, I'll be able to read it to you somewhere here, that Jesus is both man and God, two persons of the same substance, and there's a Greek word for substance, and even the word persons was something that the Greek mind in that generation was able to conceive as answering the issue, but how there could be a union between the two persons could only be answered that they were the same substance, they were deity, they were God, so that has more or less been the prevailing theological foundation for understanding the mystery of God in the flesh, two persons united, but of equal substance with God, and that's why Jesus could be acknowledged as Lord, because his own testimony and the witness of the early church recognized his Lordship, and if he's Lord, he's also therefore God, so how God himself could be manifest in flesh with man seems to be itself heretical, and of course Jews to this day have been offended by that premise, how could a holy God be joined with man, seems to be an apparent contradiction, but it's a mystery, so I'm raising the question, what are the implications, yes it has served the purpose of providing atonement that required the death of a man who is also God, but what, beside rendering that service, what's the implication for us of the issue of deity and humanity somehow united together, is there an implication for us, are we a continuation of that mystery, is God in us, in our flesh, why do we say Christ in us, the hope of glory, why does Paul keep talking about in him, in him, in him, I live and move and have my being, for me to live is Christ, is a man reiterating the mystery as it pertains to himself, so it's not just that Jesus set something forth, but set something forth in which the church is to continue, and if it required the union of deity and humanity to serve the purposes of atonement, what is required to serve the purposes of God's glory, and how does that work, how did it work for him, what of his decisions and his conduct issued from his deity, and what of his conduct issued out of his humanity, and is there any way really to tell, could it be that even his miracles did not issue out of some omnipotence that he brought with him as God, but out of a faith, and a union with the father by faith through prayer and devotion, see these are remarkable questions, because if he acted in power only out of his deity, then we cannot hope to emulate him and that we're not God, but if he acted out of his humanity by faith, then there are implications for us, and maybe even the other way too, in what degree is God in us as the hope of glory, and to what degree can that God in us be appropriated, and given opportunity to express himself through our flesh as he expressed himself through the flesh of Jesus, so this is what we're going to consider in these great questions, it's not just an abstract theological or doctrinal consideration, the implications are astonishing, and the church has not rightly even begun to consider what this mystery of incarnation means for us, how can we ourselves continue in it or be the expression of it, and if we're not conscious of that mystery, and ourselves in a privileged place to express it, how shall we?

So what was demonstrated or affected by that act, the union of dignity and humanity, beyond the necessity of being a man, to suffer and die so as to obtain for us atonement, what's demonstrated by this Jesus, who is man of man, supremely man, and supremely God, and the necessity to provide the atonement, but what more is provided by that reality that needs to be considered?

I'm just taking the first question and kind of restating it, what are the implications of the union of dignity and humanity in Christ, beyond the necessity of being a man to suffer and die for our atonement, that we need to consider?

The Gospel of John and the Word Made Flesh

We need to read the prologue to John, whom our hands have handled and seen and known, the word of life that was from the beginning, that the word was with God, the word is God. This is a remarkable introduction to the fourth gospel, which I'm assuming that you know is different from the other three.

The first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are called synoptic because they all rehearse the basic history and life and teachings of Jesus, but the gospel of John is separated from the other three, making a statement in an altogether more radical kind than the first three gospels, and beginning with the prologue itself, that you can stupefy and choke and splutter over, in the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh and talked among us, and we beheld his glory, and we handled the word of life, so that the creator is also now a creature, but he was from the beginning, and was with us, and we saw and handled.

These are staggering statements, and at the height of offense, of course, to the Jew, which is to say also the modern world, so we need to probe those statements and their implication for us. What was demonstrated or affected by that act, the union of deity and humanity, beyond the necessity of being a man to suffer and die, so as to obtain for us atonement?

What else was demonstrated beyond that necessity that we need to consider? Because if we just consider that this was an expedient necessity for atonement, and that we ended there, we missed the greater glory.

It was great in itself. There would be no atonement, except a man was crucified, suffered and died. Only a man can die, and yet the man had to be God, or the sacrifice would not have been sufficient. You see the conundrum that the father is faced with, that is answered by the sending of the son.

I'm asking, what more is revealed, or are we to consider beyond the necessity for atonement, that comes with God in man, God in the flesh? What more is there? What did Christ exemplify or demonstrate in his obedience to the father in the days of his flesh, that instructs us about sonship?

Christ as the Pattern Son

Here we have opportunity to see a son of man in relationship to the father in the school of obedience by faith, who is impeccable in his obedience, and is considered the pattern son. So, will we know anything about sonship, or what it is that God is wanting us to attain to, except that we review in him what a son of God is in the flesh, in the earth, in all that is contrary to the flesh and opposed, that Jesus demonstrated in his own walk, and that we are also required to know and to express.

What did Christ exemplify or demonstrate in his obedience to the father in the days of his flesh, that instructs us about sonship? He was always the son, the pre-incarnate son, but the issue of sonship is demonstrated by his conduct and obedience in the flesh, which cost him, and it will cost us.

Did he have the advantage of deity, omniscience and omnipotence? Did he have, being God as well as man, did he have a power of God and a knowledge that God has that gave him an advantage in his days of flesh that is not available to us?

How is it he could say that he doesn't know the day, that the father has not told him? Does that indicate that he himself does not function in the faculty of deity, that is omniscient and all-knowing?

What does Philippians chapter 2 tell us, that he lay aside? What did he lay aside and forsake and give up? How did he empty himself, it says, and take upon himself the form of man and even that of a servant, even unto death, the death of the cross?

This is the nub of the controversy. If you want to know the Greek word, it's kenosis, K-E-N-O-S-I-S means emptying. And there's a school of theologians that subscribe to a complete kenosis, that the genius of Jesus is the emptying of himself.

Therefore, all that he performed, spoke and did, was not out of the power of deity, that's exactly what he lay aside. What he did, issued out of his humanity, on the same basis by which we're called to walk, namely by faith and in relationship with the father, that he had no advantage by virtue of deity than what is available to us.

This is exactly what he lay aside. Others say, who are not friendly to this view, and I'll be reading to you from different theologians, God cannot separate himself from God, impossible. He might forsake certain advantages, but he can never, God cannot divorce himself from God.

So that Jesus and the flesh cannot be understood, except you factor in also that there's a resident deity in his life and ministry. I'm going to read to you from P .T. Forsythe, that is a recent discovery, who says, it took the power of God for Jesus to empty himself of deity.

That's a remarkable statement, that mere man could not have vacated this remarkable reality. It took the power of God to forsake God, and that Jesus was willing and exercised that in order to walk as man.

So what does he reveal that would instruct us about what sonship means? Did he have the advantage of deity, omnipotence, omniscience, as an enablement not available to us? How then is he to be considered the pattern son?

If he had advantages not available to us, how is he the pattern? He's only one that we could admire, but not one that we can emulate. What can we hope to become other than a pale reflection of what Jesus himself exemplified and performed in his earthly life?

In what way is it possible to us to perpetuate, let alone fulfill, the mystery of incarnation? If he had advantages not available to us, how can we be called to fulfill this same mystery in the church?

Paul, Christ in Us, and Apostolic Life

Christ in us, the hope of glory. How does Paul, the apostolic man, exemplify this mystery? Because that last quotation is Paul's, Christ in us, the hope of glory. It's Paul who says that in him he lives and moves and has his being.

For him to live as Christ. If any man seems to have laid hold of this mystery of incarnation and expressed it consistently, it's Paul. So Paul needs to be examined. How does Paul show forth this kind of reality?

How is he the man of incarnation? Is he just talking out of his hat? Is it just a play on words, Christ in me, the hope of glory for me to live as Christ? Or is it the most awesome statement of his apostolic life?

And if it is that, how did he attain it? And if it was available for his attainment, is it available also for ours? Paul is the continuation, as it were, of Christ. Christ is incarnated in Paul. So what we have in the epistles and Paul's apostolic role to the Gentile church, the book of Romans, Ephesians, all of the great statements is all that Christ himself would have spoken and performed, but is now given over to another in whom Christ is living and having his being as the incarnate God in Paul.

Now is that just a freaky thing like once and for all, available only to a foundational apostle? Or is it a mode of being and a distinctive and foundational way of life that God intends for all the church that is to be called apostolic?

And our failure to appropriate that deity in that life and live from it is to the degree to which we ourselves are not apostolic. Can we say with equal faith and confidence for me to live as Christ? In him I live and move and have my being.

And if we can't say it, why can't we say it? What hinders us from the same appropriation of the deity of Christ that Paul was able to obtain? And here is deity that has passed in his human life in the earth through suffering, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

And that life now that has passed through all of that reality is poured out from the throne of heaven and becomes the baptism in the Holy Spirit that the church experiences at Pentecost. So that when we see Peter after Pentecost is a very different Peter than before.

And in fact it would be very invaluable to compare a post-Pentecost Peter with Paul if they both have now the life of the risen and ascended son, how is it that they don't sound the same? How are they uniquely different?

And yet both are empowered and enabled by the same life. You follow me? And isn't that a blessing? Should the life be so uniform that everyone who lives by that life is punched off the same assembly line?

They're little Jesuses, little resurrected Jesuses who sound and look and act the same? Or does God invest himself in the uniqueness of their humanity? And the expression through the human filter is uniquely different for each one.

Peter is uniquely different than Paul. And yet I would not give up first and second Peter because what is spoken there is so unbelievably precious that Paul never quite touches those things that the Holy Spirit reserves for Peter to express and the uniqueness that is Peter.

The Uniqueness of Believers in the Church

So this is not just interesting, it's important for us because what then is God waiting for in the uniqueness of our vessels that can only be expressed through us who formed us in our mother's wombs and birthed us in point of time in the history of redemption to bring a singular expression that is fitted and unique only to us that can only be operated by and enabled by the same life by which Paul and Peter themselves served God as apostles.

Got that? And to what degree are we living beneath that? What a shame, what a scandal that we would think to continue the apostolic inheritance or bring it to its consummation on a basis other than that by which it began.

The incarnate life of God and the apostles and the apostolic church. And we're continuing what? Out of our own humanity? Well-meaning and intelligent and gifted but less than other than incarnation. Why is that?

Is the life not as available to us as it was to them? Why then can we not say the same for me to live as Christ? Why are we living out of our humanity when there's another source available with the resurrection, with the ascension that is evidently lacking in the church today and it shows that well-meaning intention and the best sincerity is a miserable, what's the word, failure and scandal next to the apostolic standard that was the church at the first.

Is it that the church needed that at the first because of the hostility against the new faith and we are in another time when that kind of power and enablement and authority is not as necessary? Or would you say it's equally as necessary in every generation and especially at the end?

To conclude the age, it must require the same kinds of enablement by which it began because the church is called to glory. Unto him be glory in the church through Christ Jesus, catch that, world without end throughout all ages.

That's the end of Ephesians chapter 3, I believe. Unto him be glory in the church by or through Christ Jesus, the resurrected and ascended one, world without end throughout all ages. So why have we failed to appropriate the remarkable enablement of the life of God, that incarnation, the reality, the principle, the mystery can be continued in our flesh.

Kenosis, Emptying, and the Need for Divine Filling

What will it require? Are we willing to vacate? Are we willing to lay aside? Are we willing to be emptied? Getting the picture here? He's the pattern son, he emptied himself. Are we willing to empty ourselves, not of deity, but of our virtue, of our humanity, of our talent, of our gifts?

Or are we insistent that we're going to succeed on that basis? No emptying, no filling. Kenosis is emptying, I think it's pleurosis is filling. And maybe that's the problem right there. We're unwilling to be emptied.

Our egos require that we succeed on the basis of our own natural life and ability. We're unwilling to forsake. Jesus was willing, we're unwilling. And the church therefore is operating humanly and religiously.

So in what way is it possible to us to perpetuate or fulfill the mystery of incarnation? And how important is it that we should? Is this just an option for those who have this desire? Or what is at stake here?

If we do not enter into this realm of incarnation and its mystery and its expression, what is lost? How critical is this appropriation? Is it just for those individuals who have the faith and desire for it, who have been shown the futility of their own best efforts?

Or is this God's normative intention for all the church that is the church? Why have we fallen short of it? How are we to be encouraged to it? It's going to take sons of the resurrection to demonstrate before the church the reality and call the church to the reality by their own example and by the power of what they speak out of that life.

Where are these sons? So is Paul just, what's the word, probably vainly boasting when he says for me to live as Christ? Is that exaggerated? Is that vain? Is he talking out of his hat? Or is he speaking the most authentic statement of truth about his uniqueness as an apostolic man?

Can he be an apostle outside of that reality? Can anyone? And what is the threat to the church today is men presuming to be apostles and prophets outside of that reality. They're human, all too human.

Clever, but they lack the distinctive authority which is God. And so to compare Peter with Paul, eventuated by the same newness of life and yet radically different. And since the day of Pentecost, because what happened at Pentecost, what was it that came down according to the promise to the fathers from the throne of heaven?

Pentecost and the Power of the Early Church

Some innocuous and abstract energy called the spirit or the Ruach HaKodesh, the spirit of holiness or the spirit of a Lord, which is the sum and essence of the life of the Lord and of God came into men as flames of fire upon their heads.

And they spoke instantly and strangely in languages that they had not learned. And then we see almost in the next chapters a remarkable change in these men. Peter and John, who were vying and competitive and rivaling one another, are now together at Gate Beautiful.

And the man who was born lame, fixing his eyes on them, what did he see in them? This is a cogent phrase that Peter recognized that he had faith to believe and say, silver and gold have we none, not speaking, have we none, but that which we have we give unto you.

That there's a new kind of union, there's a new kind of fraternity, a new kind of heavenly fellowship by men who had previously been rivals and in competition with one another, vying for a foremost place with the Lord, who have now become a we.

In fact, the message at Pentecost itself is, these men are not drunk as you suppose, seeing it's only the ninth hour, by Peter. It says Peter, rising with the eleven, opened his mouth and said, these men are not drunk as you suppose.

And when they heard that message, what was it, three thousand were swept into the kingdom with one speaking? Is this already the greater works than I have done, you will do? But is the greatness of that work critically connected to the fact that Peter rose with the eleven?

What does that mean? Did they all stand up at the same time? Were they all speaking at the same time? It would have been a jangle of words. One man was the mouthpiece, but the unity and agreement of men who had been bonded by receiving the same principle of life was now expressed in a message out of that life with such power that those who came out of curiosity, thinking that these men were drunk, are swept into the kingdom of God.

The church has its inception by that message and that power, but it came out of a unity. Silver and gold have we none, but that which we do have, we give unto you, take up your bed and walk. And if this is the statement of life that has come down from heaven and is received by those who are in the upper room and brings a radical change in such expression of power and authority, where is it today?

Pentecostalism and the Loss of Apostolic Authority

Not only where is it today, where is it in Pentecostal churches? Where is it in the charismatic movement? Where is it in those places that purport to have received the same gift and the same life? Has it changed?

Is it that we have received something other than what they received at Pentecost? Or have we received? So it raises a remarkable question. Why don't we see the same result, the same outworking, the same authority, the same power, the same sacrificial lifestyle, the same fraternal, communal lifestyle?

No man thought that the thing which he had was his own. They gave liberally those that had houses and lands sold them and laid the proceed at the feet of the apostles who made distribution. There was not one among them that had want.

A kingdom had come, a new economy, a mode of living and being that was radically different from what we know Jews to be and to desire. They were changed by one infusion that had economic expression of a radical kind that has not again been emulated except in small places in the history of the church.

And it had to do with the infusion of a life. If we don't raise those questions, we will continue to remain in the lamentable condition that we presently are. Either we need a fresh baptism of that spirit and be willing for the outworking of it, where we don't hold things as our own, but have all things common, or something needs to be explained.

All of these questions are related to the issue of incarnation. I don't believe we're going to come to the appropriation, except that we raise these questions. Have you the faith to believe for it? The divine life in you, deity in you, and expressing himself through your humanity, in your accent, in your particular human form, that's what glorifies God.

It's not that there should echo from us, thus saith the Lord, we all sound like an echo chamber, but through you, your particular accent, your personality, the way that you were fashioned and formed, but the life and the content is not out from you, it's out from God.

Can you see that as a principle of life in which you can live continually? Wouldn't that be remarkable? Is this the rest that God has promised the people of God? Is this the basis out of which the great last day's works will take place?

Not out of our vexation and striving, but out of our rest and confidence of Christ in us, the hope of glory, who can answer to any situation because it is the wisdom of God, the righteousness of God. Can we trust for that and believe for that?

Can we believe it out of our own mouths? And in fact, if we can't, who is it that's going to address the dry bones of Israel in Ezekiel 37? That unless they hear such a word, not from God, but from the son of man, they'll remain in their death.

That the whole mystery of the consummation of the age and Israel's resurrection waits on a word that will not come to it directly from God, but only something called the son of man, not an individual, but a corporate expression brought to a place that can be commanded to speak to those bones and not just out of an obligatory speaking, but a willing speaking, a desire to see those bones raised and a great nation emerge.

Despite the fact that they don't deserve that consideration and that everyone desires that they be left to die, leave them in what they deserve by their own apostasy. So you'd have to be an uncommon man to be commanded to address those bones and to see them come to life because once they do, you have a new competitor.

Now God has a restored, resurrected nation that will be the object of his attention and his love. And where do you come off? You may be pouting like the older brother who is not happy to see the prodigal son return because he wanted to bask in the exclusive attention of his father.

Don't think I'm just touching some small thing here. This is a greater issue than you know. And unless the church rises above that issue, it will not address those bones. It will not desire to see them raised and it will shut its mouth and be obstinate as in fact many of us are now.

Something has got to happen in our humanity by which we welcome the return of the profligate and prodigal brother who does not deserve to be raised, even though we know that we will have a new competitor for the attention and love of God.

But our confidence is so great in his love and its infinite supply that we're not at all threatened that it will diminish anything of the father's affection for us. And therefore we can well afford to see this son returned because the issue of the son's return is in fact the glory of God the father.

Israel's Restoration and the Consummation of the Age

Because the issue is the issue of Israel's restoration, the consummation of the age, the coming of the kingdom reserved exclusively for them, the Davidic kingdom, though it pertains to much more than to the nation, it's universal, but it has its issue with them as a raised nation.

But raised by whom? By a people who will speak for God as God in his authority. Try it sometime and see if you can get away with it. If you're not in that place of incarnation, you'll fall as flat as the proverbial pancake.

Because whoever that son of man will be in the last days, he'll not be made of any better or different or other stuff than what is in this room right now. How do we come to that appropriation? And that reality is the issue of Israel's redemption and the glorification of God forever.

That's why Paul ends in Romans 11, all the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God who has been his counselor, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever.

That's remarkable that the glory of God forever rests not on the unique and expression of God as God directly, but God as God through flesh, through man, exactly the same principle by which he was glorified in the sun to the establishment of the church is exactly the principle by which his glory is consummated through the church.

Christ in us, the deity in man and through man is the remarkable mystery that has its consummation at the end of the age with Israel. Because if it's only just our well-meaning intention and we want to agree with God, yes, Israel should be raised and we'll speak a word that will go right to the ground with a thud.

No authority, no resurrection power, just a religious human word that is void. It has got to be as much and equal to as God's own speaking. God's own speaking, but not directly from God, but through you.

So we had better lay hold of this incarnation. And I'll tell you what, it's not going to come to us in a moment when it's called for. If we have not been consistently growing into this reality long before, we'll not find it at the last moment if we have not found it before and consistently have walked in it.

That's why these questions are so imperative, that this has got to be frequent and consistent and requires faith to believe for it. Staggering. We can believe for Jesus' expression and maybe one or two modern time spokesmen, but can we believe for ourselves through our humanity?

Son of man, can these bones live? It's like the Lord rubbing the humanity, the condition of the humanity into the prophet himself. You son of man, you sweating, palpitating thing given to indecisive apprehensions and doubts and all.

Can these bones live? This will stagger you. This is beyond even your faith to believe. And yet if it doesn't come through the son of man, it does not come. God insists that the final mystery be the fulfillment through the mystery of incarnation or it will not be fulfilled at all.

The Nations, the Kingdom, and the Gospel's Mission

The nations are opposed to God today and want to be autonomous. That's why Psalm 2 says, why do the heathen rage? What are the heathen? The goyim, the gentiles, the nations, and take thought against the Lord and against his anointed to break their bands asunder.

They don't want to obey God. They want to crucify him and remove his rule. So we're yet waiting for that consummation. And of course, if they're going to be submitted to the rule of God at the end of the age, millennially and eternally, they'll have to bow and acknowledge the people whom he has raised up, who are the locus of that rule, namely Zion.

And of course, what is more alien to the gentile heart than that they should bow and acknowledge Shem, that they should come into that tent and be required to come to that Zion in the feast of tabernacles.

And yet God says, if you'll not come, you'll suffer a curse. I'll deny rain. And why does he even have to make the threat? Because the inveterate hostility of the nations to God and to his chosen people remains even after his coming.

In fact, a thousand years later, when Satan is unchained, what does he do overnight? He raises up a rebellion against God and against his people and comes against Israel to destroy it, showing that there's yet a latent disposition among men in the nations.

Even after a thousand years of godly rule to be quickly stirred into a revolution, a rebellion against God through Satan, who is loose for a moment. And then God brings his final devastation and judgment on the mountains of Israel.

So this is a remarkable climax of the ages when he said all kingdoms will be submitted unto him. And then he will turn over to the father, all of the kingdoms of the world that are now submitted and disposed to the most high that God might be all in all.

This is a great saga. This is the cosmic overview of the whole thing in which the church has its life, its purpose, and its meaning. If we don't see this, why bother about incarnation? The incarnation is the great mystery of supply that we would fulfill our destiny in this great cosmic design of God.

In fact, that he will not come until this gospel of the kingdom is proclaimed to all nations. And until the fullness of the Gentiles become in, the deliverer will not come out of Zion. There's a function for us that has to do with the consummation that waits upon us, like Psalm 102, the set time to favor Zion, when?

When my servants have compassion on their stones and pity upon her dust. The church is the critical factor in the fulfillment of God's whole great redemptive design for creation and for the nations. But a church of what kind?