Jesus did not come to save you. Jesus came and restored fallen humanity, of which you are a part. This doesn't mean God isn't thinking of you, nor that He hasn't thought of you before you were formed.
But it takes the emphasis off of the great em ee, away from this "personal" salvation which Christianity has become. It's about me. I am saved, I am going to heaven, look what God has done for me. Me, me, me.
To say that Jesus has restored fallen humanity, of which we are a part, places his finished work in a greater context. It is about us only as much as it is about everyone else. We, as a whole, are his body. Not just you, not just me. All of us.
Found this in Olivier Clement's The Roots of Christian Mysticism:
...for it is not the isolated individual but humanity in communion, or rather, all human beings together, who truly constitute the image of God. (p. 81)
And, quoting, Gregory of Nyssa, from his On the Creation of Man:
"It is the whole of [human] nature, extending from the beginning to the end [of history], that constitutes the image of Him who is." (p. 82)
Christ thus provided human nature, as a whole, with what Gregory of Nyssa called "the capacity for resurrection..." In other words, the 'body of Christ' is not you and me but all of us, everyone, throughout history, whether or not they have participated or not. Clement again:
"He rose from the dead in secret, and is recognized only by those who love him. In the Holy Spirit, he walks at everyone's side, but he waits for the response of loving faith, that Yes like Mary's, by which our freedom is set free." (p. 57)
The work is done. Once and for all.
The Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
I have been captivated by the Trinity. It is not thinking about the Trinity but thinking in the Trinity.
Yes. I do believe.
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