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God's greater Purpose • Jan 01st 1969

God’s Eternal Purpose: The Corporate New Man and Dominion – UCLA 1969

Eternal Purpose New Testament Old Testament

In this powerful 1969 message delivered at UCLA, Gene Edwards unfolds one of the most sweeping themes in Scripture: God’s eternal purpose .

Beginning in Genesis 1, Edwards highlights a startling phrase: “Let them have dominion.” God did not merely create an individual man; He envisioned a corporate man—a people bearing His image and exercising dominion over the earth. This purpose existed before the fall, before redemption, and even before the cross. Salvation, he suggests, was not the ultimate goal—it was a detour to restore something far greater.

Turning to Ephesians 3:11, Edwards points to the phrase “the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God’s intention was always to have a man on earth who would:

  • Bear the image of Christ
  • Subdue the enemy
  • Exercise dominion over the earth

But Adam, the “old man,” failed. He did not eat of the tree of life. Instead, he chose the tree of knowledge—introducing division, human systems, and religious structures built by fallen life.

The story of Scripture, Edwards explains, becomes a battle over “real estate”—a conflict not between God and Satan, but between man and Satan. From Eden to Babel, Egypt, Babylon, and finally Revelation 18, the struggle centers on whether God will have a corporate people who live by divine life instead of human systems.

Jesus Christ came as the Son of Man, exercising dominion over the enemy. Yet He did not remain alone. After His death and resurrection, He placed His life into many believers. In Ephesians, Jew and Gentile are made into “one new man.” This is not an individual—it is the corporate Body of Christ.

The church, as this new man, shares Christ’s authority. Whatever dominion Christ obtained, He gave to the church. The eternal purpose of God is therefore fulfilled in a people—not organized by human hierarchy—but built together in life, led by the Spirit, bearing Christ’s image, and subduing the enemy.

Edwards contrasts the “old man” (human life building religious systems) with the “new man” (a corporate people living by Christ Himself). Babylon represents man’s religious effort; God’s call in Revelation remains: “Come out of her.”

The message concludes with a stirring vision: a church built not on doctrine, hierarchy, or human structure—but on the living Christ as life. A corporate new man, joined together in love, reflecting Christ’s image, and exercising dominion on earth.

This is God’s eternal purpose.

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Genesis 1:1. We might as well start where it started. I’ll tell you what, I’m going to quote the first four or five words. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. We’ll start there.

And now, move to Genesis 1:26. And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion.’ Now that said “them”, class. I’m a schoolteacher, and if I call you ‘Hun’ and ‘Dear’ in class, you’ll have to forgive me. I make my living mending tents.

And I’m, if there is such a thing as a layman, and there isn’t, but anyway, it might come out a little different than you’ve ever heard it. It said, let them, let them, let them. It didn’t say let Adam. It said, “Let them.”

God had in mind, from the very beginning, a corporate man. Okay. He said, “Let them have dominion.” Now I want you to just take a pencil and mark on the word dominion. The fish, over the fish. The fowls of the air. Dominion over the cattle. Now, dominion over the earth, when you get to that word, would you circle it? And then when you get to the next one, there’s creeping things, and you’d better circle that too. So, God created man in his own image. And maybe we’d better circle the word image. And in the image of God created He them, male and female he created them. Now I don’t know if this is the same man that gets created in Genesis 2. I don’t know how much you know about Genesis 1 and 2, but in Genesis, there’s a record of the creation of a man named Adam. I’m not sure. It could be that this is even something more than that. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.

Alright, verse 28. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. All right. Now then, would you look again at the word earth? And maybe you’d better circle the word earth again. And then take the word subdue and circle it. And have dominion over the fish, the sea, the fowls of the air, and upon every living thing that moves upon the earth.

Now then, come back over here with me to Ephesians, and we’ll read one verse together. No, maybe we’d better read a few more. 3:11. According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, the words that you want to underline here are eternal purpose. Eternal purpose. God has a purpose that reaches farther back than Genesis 3 when man fails, and farther forward than Revelation 19 when the devil is destroyed.

Okay. Now then, maybe we’d better read just a little bit more. Just a little bit. 2:15 says, Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the commandment, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself the two into one a new man. Did we back in Genesis circle the word man? No. We’ll go back and circle it and circle this one too. Okay. By the way, just a little bit in a different place, the devil gets in here in Ephesians 2. Ephesians kind of hooks onto Genesis.

For above the principalities and powers and dominions and dominions and every name that is named, not only in this world and there is the earth again, but in that which is to come. Hey, I’m reading from 2, beginning at 21, and I’m in 22. And I’ve put all things under His feet, and that His is Jesus Christ, and gave him to be head over all things to the church. Now, whatever he has dominion over, he gave it to the church. Now, you just remember that. Whatever dominion Christ has in heaven or earth, He gave it to the church when he got through getting the dominion.

Okay, now then, one more verse, and we’ll quit. Ephesians 4:24. And that you put on the new man. Alright, this is the new man, circle him again, which, after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Now, first, a word, and the word is eternal purpose.

We’ve all been hung up on the fact that man sinned, and Jesus Christ came on the earth to die for his sins. Now, girls and boys, brothers and sisters, do you not know, or do you know, that if man never failed, God still had a purpose for him? God had something to do for man and with man when he put him on this earth, that has absolutely nothing to do with salvation. Salvation was a detour, and we all got sidetracked on salvation. God started out in Genesis 1 and 2 to do something, but He didn’t get it done by the end of Genesis, either, because His man didn’t go along with Him. But if his man had gone along with him, God would have had something altogether different from redemption to do. Now, what is it? Because it’s his eternal purpose. It’s a purpose that was before redemption, greater than redemption, greater than salvation. I would even say greater than the cross of Christ if you look at it from the redemptive viewpoint. Now, I believe the cross of Christ had to come to earth with or without the fall.

But anyway, God had an eternal purpose for you and for me, and I’m getting in it. What about you? An eternal purpose. By the way, Ephesians defines that, but we’ll have to wait until some other day to talk about it.

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