a friend responded to this Facebook post by asking: “Please explain what this means”: “Christ came to ‘save’ sinners for Himself.”
It’s a bit complicated, but I will try and make it palatable: Theologically speaking, before God created the world, the Godhead, i.e. the trinity had a meeting of sorts. A pact was made. It was decided by the Father that the Son would come to Earth, in light of God’s omniscience, knowing that Adam and Eve would fall in the garden, rendering all mankind fallen for their act of disobedience, to suffer for the sins of mankind. The Son of course, agreeing. In return, the Father promised a chosen race of peoples for the son as a love gift. Additionally, the Father would make Christ as the prophet, priest and King of these peoples, ultimately to rule and reign over them, in grace, mercy and tenderness.
So, when I say that Christ came to save sinners for ‘Himself’, it is not discounting that men that are saved are saved from condemnation, hell etc, they are. But the main reason is what I have stated. He came to acquire that which the Father promised to Him as a gift. The by product is that we who deserve no mercy for the fact that we fall short of God’s glory and fail to love Him as we ought-that we continually sin by not loving hHim with all our hearts, mind, soul and strength, deserving of hell, He ushers grace to those whom the Father has given Him.
The above is called the Covenant of Redemption.
John 17:6-12 6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. 7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. 8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. 9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
John 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.