Isaiah 64:6 Titus 3:5
Jeremiah 2:13
ESV - 13 For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
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The natural man goes about to establish his own righteousness while he needs to be made the righteousness of God (Ro 10:3; 2 Co 5:21; Is 64:6). He makes an effort to do penance, while he needs to be regenerated by the Hold Spirit (Titus 3:5). He endeavors to turn over a new leaf, while he needs a new life (John 10:10). He seeks justification by the Law when he needs justification by faith in Jesus Christ (Ga 2:16). Before I was saved, I promised God "the world" (Ecclesiastes 5:2, 4-6); Pr 27:1) when He wanted me to believe His promise about the Savior of the world (1 Jn 4:14; 2 Pe 3:9). I tried to clean up the old man when I needed to be made a new man (Eph 4:24). I did the utmost to be saved by good works when I needed salvation by the grace of God (Eph. 2:8-9). In conclusion, the unique remedy for man's ruin is the Son of God, being made sin for us in his crucifixion. And the only method to receive this remedy is by faith in Him as personal Savior (John 20:30-31).
I would say that the natural man (if even believing at all in an existence beyond this life) seeks salvation through personal conduct according to whatever behavioral standard the individual has been exposed to (either through culture or through individual thought or learning), and judges success in doing so through a subjective, relative comparison with other people, rather than by comparison against an unchanging, objective, absolute standard of perfection.
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