God’s eternal purpose is that we as a group of people would be regenerated, transformed, and built up together to be a Body for Christ and a house for Himself. For this, we have been created, predestinated, chosen, called, regenerated, and sanctified, but these are not ends in themselves. They are the processes and procedures by which God can attain His purpose.

Paul’s Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians reveal this eternal purpose of God, and they also speak concerning the new man. Once we see God’s eternal purpose, we can see that the new man is a corporate man, the Body of Christ. Practically, the way to put on the new man is to put off the old man. If we are going to put on the new man, the Body of Christ, the church, we must realize that the old man, our self, has been put to an end. Thus, “from the time of our baptism we must always deny, reject, and renounce the self…. On the other hand, having realized that the Triune God is living in us as our life and our everything, we must live by Him, in Him, and with Him.”