The ultimate is shown to be the supreme Lordship and Headship of Christ expressed and manifested in the whole cosmic realm in and by a body of Christians in whom the Divine meaning of the Cross is an experimental reality.
– T.Austin Sparks
It is God’s longing, therefore – His need, if you will – to acquire a vessel through which He can express His whole character, love, wisdom, authority, mercy, and indeed His whole existence. He needs a vessel suitable to receive and accommodate Him, through which He can manifest Himself to the whole universe, in every age, throughout eternity. Through such a vessel He manifests the depths of His wisdom, love and mercy, and also every fruit of His power and energy.
– Manfred Haller
Christ is all, and in all.
– Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus
God’s eternal purpose is that the fullness of his Son, Jesus Christ, would be displayed and expressed visibly through a vessel that would be a family/house for the Father, a body/bride for the Son and a temple for the Holy Spirit.
– Milt Rodriguez.
God conceived an eternal plan even before the foundation of the world. His plan, as we have said, serves the dual purpose of: (1) having all things to manifest Christ, and (2) making man to be like Christ – which is to say, for man to have the life and the glory of Christ.
– Watchman Nee
We may say that the aim of God’s eternal purpose is to have the church, but this is too general. If we study Ephesians with a spirit of revelation, we will realize that the aim of God’s plan is to have an expression of Himself in Christ the Son by the Spirit through a Body composed and built up with many regenerated and transformed people by the mingling of Himself with humanity.
– Witness Lee
The Father obtains a bride for His Son by the Spirit. He then builds a house in which He, the Son, and the bride dwell together in the Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the bride live in that house as an extended household and they have offspring by the Spirit. The offspring constitutes a family, a new humanity called “the body of Christ.”
– Frank Viola
The eternal purpose is Christ, Head of His Body fully manifesting and expressing Himself as one complete man via all the individual members of His Body denying their own lives and learning to live from His Life and who having been knit together into His corporate body on earth for the sole express purpose of giving Christ full visible self expression as Lord of Heaven and Earth with the intent to shame all of Gods enemies.
– db
The eternal purpose, with all of its facets, is simply summed up in Christ-the All in all.