This view echoes the biblical concept of a covenant love that was granted to Israel as a whole, and never just to one individual like Abraham, Noah, or David. This is absolutely clear in the text, and to ignore it is to miss a major and crucial message. Christians as late as the 1500s still saw it that way, but I cannot imagine us adding such a statement to the creed in today’s religious landscape. We are now too preoccupied with the “salvation of individuals” to read history in a corporate way, and the results have been disastrous.
