We must teach the Gospel response that the Bible requires. We must emphasize it where people are ignoring it—just as Paul emphasized faith when some tried to earn salvation, and just as James emphasized works when some were inactive. But a focus on response runs the risk of people focusing on themselves instead of Christ. Human response may fill up the frame and appear to be the whole picture. Some people forget their own unworthiness before God and take a twisted view of their activity. They see it—not Him, the sacrificed Savior—as making them special to God. Such people make the mistake of the Pharisees “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). This happens today in various ways.
Some look back to their conversion, when they felt such sorrow for sin and such joy in salvation. Since that time, they have lost their relationship with the Lord. But that hardly seems to matter; their great conversion saves them! Others focus on their baptism. They needed a fire insurance policy (against hell), so they were baptized. They pay regular premiums by visits to church. Yet they live the same godless lives as others. But who cares? After all, they were baptized, and that saves them. In both cases, people see their ‘savior’ as something they once experienced. They depend on some part of a plan, but they neglect the Person to whom the plan points.