Baptism was then developed to wash symbolically from the newborn human life the stain of Adam’s original sin. If an unbaptized child died “in the sin of Adam,” that child was said to be bound for hell. The Eucharist then became the foretaste of the heavenly banquet, the sign of our salvation. The deepest human yearning was now couched in terms of rescue from this inescapable original sin, avoidance of the punishment due us. So it was that Jesus came to be understood as the savior, the rescuer, and the redeemer. This theology trod roughshod over the idea of Jesus “who came that they might have
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