There is no way that Jesus thought of himself as a savior of all those who believe that his death was sacrificial and a payment to God in behalf of the debt we all owed to to God thanks to the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Four Old Testament texts affirm this statement:

Psalms 49:7 — No one can redeem the life of another, or give to God a ransom for them.

Deuteronomy 24:16 — Parents are not to be put to death for their children’s (sin), nor children put to death for their parents’ (sin)–each will die for their own sin.

Ezekiel 18:20 — The one who sins is the wone who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.

Jeremiah 31:30 Whoever eats sour grapes their own teeth will be set on edge.

The Substitutionary Theory of the Atonement ignores these texts in declaring that the innocent death of Jesus, God’s only son, was received by God as full restitution to God for the sins of the world when believed to be such by those who embrace Jesus as their Lord and Savior. This was the Church’s proclamation of salvation through 2,226 years from Jesus’ execution on the cross to here, now. Which these four texts refute and denounce.

Leaving us with the need of a different way of interpreting the life and message of Jesus of Nazareth a prophet, along with his cousin, John the Baptist, in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets of Israel–Which will be easy enough just by understanding that “Those who know, know the same things,” and interpreting Jesus’ life and message in light of the Tao as being, as he said, “The way, the truth and the life,” which would have been proclaimed by Lao Tzu 3 to 5,000 years before Jesus was born.