To the Unsaved Believer

Strange as it may sound, there can be such a thing as an unsaved believer. Not a few people have come to the preaching of the Word, heard the Gospel, and said, “I know that’s true.” They believe that Jesus is the person He claimed to be, that He died for sinners, and that He thus saves sinners. Nevertheless, they are not saved.

The fact is, according to the Bible, belief alone isn’t what saves a person (James 2:19). Assent to truth is not the same as trust. Someone can have all the information, can see the fruit of the Gospel in the people around them, can hear again and again the generous invitation of the Lord Jesus, and may nevertheless give Him the cold shoulder.

Very often, at least two significant barriers stand between such a person and Christ: misdirected religious energy and moral indignation.

Misdirected Religious Energy

In Romans 10:2, the apostle Paul praises the exemplary faith of his fellow Jews: “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” These men and women would have been prepared to jump up in an instant and champion the cause “For God and for country.” They would have been ready, in contemporary terms, to attend the prayer breakfast, vote for the moral candidate, donate to the right causes, and proclaim their faith on social media. They believed in God passionately—but in their hard-heartedness, they misunderstood what God had done and what He asks for. Their zeal was misinformed, and it was therefore misdirected.

Verse 3 tells us how: “Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” In other words, not having a grasp of God’s generous goodness, they depended on their own goodness instead—which, as Scripture makes clear, is wholly inadequate (Isa. 64:4; Rom. 3:23).

Jesus Christ died for sins to give us a righteousness that we did not and cannot have on our own. In response to that reality, we can either submit to God’s righteousness by receiving it as a free gift through faith in Jesus, or we can attempt to establish our own righteousness through good deeds and religious energy. This second route is crowded with moralistic non-Christians and professing Christians alike, because it appeals to a sense of self-reliance. 

Jesus Christ died for sins to give us a righteousness that we did not and cannot have on our own.

This effort at self-made righteousness, however, is ultimately a barrier—one behind which many a well-meaning soul stands, cut off from saving faith in Jesus Christ. The well-meaning moralist may have many of the benefits and trappings of Christianity without ever having done the most essential thing: to cry out in humility, “Lord Jesus, save me!”

Moral Indignation

Whereas misdirected religious energy involves taking false comfort in our religious identity, moral indignation involves deriving security from a false sense of superiority. Those who embrace it tend to be self-righteous: “I’m thankful that I’m not like that lot. There is no question that these people need help.”

Who are “that lot”? Who are “these people”? Perhaps they may be the sort of shamelessly immoral people Paul condemns in the second half of Romans 1: “gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil” (vv. 29–30), and so on. To be sure, such sins are worth avoiding! But the self-made righteous person doesn’t see such excoriating condemnations as opportunities to reflect in humility on their own sinfulness. Instead, we can imagine them standing up and applauding: “That’s right, Paul! You tell them!” 

Self-righteous people can convince themselves that they are all right with God, but they can’t hide from God the sin that is in their heart.

 Of course, Paul then turns the tables: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things” (2:1). In other words, he says, you can’t cover up your crimes and misdemeanors by simply pointing to the failings of others. God sees through those smoke screens and holds every one of us accountable for our own deeds. Self-righteous people can convince themselves that they are all right with God, but they can’t hide from God the sin that is in their heart. 

How moral is moral enough for us to approach a holy God? How deep must the commitment to religious orthodoxy be so as to secure the Lord’s “Well done” (Matt. 25:21, 23)? And if the standard by which God operates is absolute and total perfection, how in the world are we ever going to make the grade? Surely, as we consider these questions, we should see our need first and foremost for mercy and grace.

What a tragedy it is, then, when professing believers in Jesus are actually just believers in their own goodness, unable to face up to the fact of their condition before God! What a strange presumption it is to highlight the sins of other people while seeking to minimize one’s own! Handley Moule captures the problem well when he writes, “The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of [God’s moral glory]; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they.”¹

God’s Kindness

As Paul reminded the Romans, God is slow to punish the openly immoral as well as the self-righteous because “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (2:4). He gives us time to turn from sin. That is not the same as tolerating our sin. God never says, “This is okay.” He’s says, “This is all wrong. But I desire to make you right.”

This intermingling of kindness and wrath finds itself expressed perfectly in the cross of Christ. The Lord Jesus bore our punishment in His body (1 Peter 2:24). It is not that God lets us off with our sins, for then He would not be just. To the contrary, He is completely just, so sin must be punished. And that is why He meted out His wrath at Calvary.

Faith’s great function is to receive what grace offers.

“Yes,” someone says, “I believe all of that.” Very well—but did you ever call upon God for salvation? We may be drowning in the ocean, convinced that a life ring will save us. We may believe it wholeheartedly and shout, “Throw it in! Help!” But what good will it be if we won’t take hold of the ring? What good will all our frantic swimming do us as the current pushes us away? What good, indeed, is all the believing if we never abandon our own efforts at righteousness and cast ourselves onto Christ?

This is the good news: God’s grace turning away His wrath, God’s Son taking the sinner’s place, God having mercy on the undeserving so that there’s nothing left for us to contribute. Faith’s great function is to receive what grace offers. It is simply hands outstretched to take the gift which God has provided in Jesus. Faith is the enabling of my vocal cords to cry out, “Lord Jesus, save me!”

Have you prayed those words, or something like them, yet? If you have, then you can be assured that all the righteousness God requires is at your disposal in the person of His Son. And if not, then you should know that no amount of religious fervor or self-superiority will bring you lasting peace. Don’t let yourself live as an unsaved believer! As the psalmist writes, “If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Ps. 95:7–8). As long as you draw breath, it’s never too late to repent from a life of self-reliance and instead cast yourself on the loving mercy of God, who promises to bring His good work in you “to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

This article was adapted from the sermon “A Call to the Unsaved Believer” by Alistair Begg.