All persons who are self-righteous must surely be ignorant of God’s righteousness in another sense, namely, they are ignorant that God has prepared a better Righteousness for them. The Lord God has prepared for sinful man a Perfect and Divine Righteousness through His Son's sinless life and bloody death, by which He justifies the ungodly! God has sent His own Son into the world, pure in heart and pure in life, to work out that Righteousness! The Lord Jesus was whiter than snow in His heart every day He lived here on Earth. This is the Righteousness that saves, not your dead works.
God's Son has kept the Law in every point, and He has honored the Law by His atoning death. God now says to you, “Sinner, I can make you righteous through Christ—completely righteous by imputation (My Son must pay your debt). I will impute to you what Jesus did for you. I will accept you on account of what He is and of what He did. He shall be your Righteousness! He shall be made of God unto you, your Righteousness or you will perish.”
Now surely, if you say, “No, but I will have a righteousness of my own through the my religion,” why, you must be ignorant of God’s righteousness! Would God have taken the trouble to make another Righteousness through His dear Son if you could have made one of your own? Is not Calvary's cross, with all its griefs, sufferings and sorrows, complete foolishness, if you could be saved without it! The death of Christ upon the tree was a needless act—if you could be saved without it! And if any man can be saved without Christ—saved by his own works and saved by the principle of the Law—then for him Christ died in vain! There was no need, in the first place, that Christ should have died for such a man—and to such a man Christ has died for nothing.
If you are righteous, you have nothing to do with Christ, for He is the Savior of sinners. If you have a righteousness of your own, you are an enemy of Christ! You are holding up your two-bit garment of rags and saying, “This is as good as the Divine robe of Christ’s Righteousness.” You are trying to stitch together your poor fig leaves and you are saying, “This garment is good enough for me. I do not need to wear the robe of God, the garment of Christ.” But those leaves will wither before the sun goes down and leave you, to your shame, naked in the sight of a holy God! Your self-righteousness is in direct opposition to Christ, you have the spirit of antichrist- you are an enemy of the cross of Christ—and your sin in setting up such a righteousness is perhaps greater than if you had lived in open sin, see!
Be Honest. If you are a true religionist, you are worried about dying and facing God, because you have no real assurance of salvation. Good works and baptism can't give an immortal soul assurance. When you get tired of playing church and being religious, you need to seek the Living Savior who created you and died for you. Do you know where you would go if died in a car wreck today? Every red light, curve, and hill could be when you enter Eternity? Are you ready? What are you trusting? Are you a self-saver?
God demands "absolute sinless perfection" to enter Heaven. The only way to be Perfect in the sight of God is to receive a Perfect Righteousness by Faith (absolute trust). Don't be deceived by a religion, trust in the Living Savior. A church and it's teachings cannot save: only a living, personal Savior can bring a lost sinner to Heaven. I have the seen storm that is coming in the Bible (the wrath of God on sin), and I have fled for Mercy and Shelter in the Rock of Ages - the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. My hope is built on "nothing less" than Jesus' Blood and Righteousness. In Christ the solid rock I hide, and only those sinners found in Him will safely abide.
Hopefully, your conscience will begin to cry out to you: "Your religion will not do, you need a sure hope.” One day it will come time for you to die and your eyes will be opened and you will say: "I cannot die with so poor a hope as this religion of mine! Your little boat of my self-righteous religion will never carry you across the river of death and God’s wrath. Your religious boat leaks very terribly, and will never make it through the billows of death. What will you do? Just like during Noah's day, many probably tried to build their own raft or boat after the rain started, but they utterly perished. One day it will be too late for you. Flee to the Mighty Refuge – the Cross of Christ.
