Surface-level respect for Christianity isn’t enough to save anyone’s soul, yet many people never get beyond a half-hearted or a light-hearted response to a believer’s witness. What explains this? Alexander Wedderburn looked at Paul’s attempt to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with King Agrippa. In spite of the clarity and cogency of Paul’s reasoning, the response from Agrippa was only, “Almost.” He never became committed to Christ. In the following updated extract, Alexander Wedderburn generalises the reasons why so many people only come part-way to the Lord Jesus as mainly problems with sinful hearts, as well as the spirituality of the gospel.

How many different “almost-Christians” are there?

Although the Christian faith stands on the most rational grounds, yet some are only almost persuaded to be Christians, even within the church.

For example, a multitude deny many of the very foundational truths of Christianity, such as the satisfaction of Christ (Socinians), the deity of Christ (Arians), or the humanity of Christ (Nestorians). Those who have denied such fundamentals were only “almost persuaded” to be Christians.

Others, though they do not deny Christ’s satisfaction, yet they join their own works and duties together with Christ’s satisfaction as causes of justification before God. So, something is ascribed to Christ, but not all — they are Christians, but only in some part. This is the common opinion and doctrine of the Roman Catholic church, and the practise of many Protestants.

Some reject or embrace the law of Christ to the extent that it makes for or against them. They go about the lesser duties, and if God will be content with what they can spare, they are content to give it Him. But when it comes to the greater duties of the law, or things that have any difficulty attached, they can dispense with these, unless there is something in it for them when they put on a show of doing such things.

Others are only time-servers in religion. They change their faith with the slightest breeze and the most passing current trend. They are led by example and the practice of the multitude in their way, and not by any of the precepts of Christ.

Lastly, some profess Christ but are given up to the common sins and scandalous outbreakings that Christ has so strictly forbidden. “Having eyes full of adultery, their faces inflamed with wine, that declare their sin as Sodom” (2 Pet. 2:14; Isa. 3:9). Such, says the apostle, “profess they know God, but in works they deny him, being reprobate unto every good work” (Tit. 1:16).

Why are so many only “almost” Christians?

Why it is that, since the Christian faith is so rational, so many are only almost Christians?

Some things are properly called causes, i.e., they have a causal influence on it.

They don’t really believe in God

There may be an outward profession of Christ which is only superficial and misleading, where there is a great deal of atheism inwardly. The whispers of a natural conscience, and the fear of losing respectability, may cause some to take on a profession of Christ. But where there is atheism, little wonder if that person is only a Christian in some things.

For the fundamental principle that leads anyone to respect the commands of any deity is the faith of his being. If this is in question, who will regard the commandment? The one who comes to God must believe that God is. In fact, all the encouragments to duty, and all the threatenings against sin, are undervalued, where faith in the being of God is absent. If God does not exist, they are only like fables someone has dreamt up. Take away the encouragements from the promises and the warnings from sins, and you take out the engine which makes the wheels turn. No wonder then, but “almost a Christian.”

They don’t really accept the Bible

Many are only almost persuaded to be Christians because of their unbelief that the Scriptures have proceeded from God. Consequently, they think the Scriptures cannot hold true, even, sometimes, when they have made a profession of Christianity, like Gallio, who regarded the question of the resurrection as only a question of names and words. That the Scriptures are given by divine inspiration, and that they are surer than heaven and earth, are things not credited. Paul posed it as question, whether Agrippa believed the prophets. No wonder then that he was only almost a Christian.

They prefer other things

The heart of many is wedded to carnal interests. This lies as a mountain in the way of their becoming altogether Christians. You only have one soul, and you cannot leave it to two contrary things, whatever happens. The love of the world and the love of the Father are incompatible. Like fire and water, they expel one another out of the same subject. For many people, desire for the world is so great, and they are so intent on it, that when Christ calls, He is not heard, or in part only.

They rely too much on their own instincts

Most of the principles in us are contradictory to the principles set down in the gospel. Let us take a short view of some of them.

Self-love is natural to us. “When thou doest well unto thyself, all men will praise thee.” But it is one of the first lessons that Christ’s disciple learns, “If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself.”

Love of convenience. It is natural to us to love ease, but the gospel puts us to labour, to strive, to “take the kingdom of heaven by violence.”

Focus on the tangible. Nature teaches us to esteem much of things present, as more certain then things that are absent and future. But the gospel is the complete opposite. These things that are present are merely shadows compared with things that are absent.

Works. “Do, and be happy,” is a principle that nature teaches us. “What shall I do to be saved?” But what the gospel teaches is: renounce this works-principle, and trust in what someone else has done, to make us happy.

A multitude of such contradictory principles is natural to us. Now where there is such contradiction in principles, no wonder many are only almost Christians.

They are vulnerable to temptations

Temptations from Satan and from the world have a causal influence on those who are only Christians in part. “If this gospel be hidden, it is hidden to those whose eyes the god of this world hath blinded.” Though Satan himself believes, and trembles (James 2), yet he knows that it very well suits the purposes he is advancing in the world, to keep people off from coming over wholly to Christ.

Besides, humans are creatures much led by example, and given to imitation, and often, ungodly company, whatever else they do, at the very least they blunt people’s zeal and keep then back from being altogether a Christian.

The gospel is entirely supernatural

The forementioned reasons have a properly “causal” influence on many people being only almost Christians. There are also a couple of other things we might mention which occasion it in an incidental way.

For example, many of the contents of the gospel are altogether supernatural. The laws of Muhammed are well suited to man’s corrupt nature, as were those which Appolonius Lyanaeus gave to the heathen. But if we look at either the duties or the promises of the gospel, they are altogether supernatural.

The duties are supernatural, such as, “believe,” “deny thyself,” “take up thy cross,” “despise things present.”

The promises are also supernatural. If they were only of the kind, “if any man come not up to the feast of tabernacles the rain shall not fall upon his land,” how many would run to the ordinances! But they are not in the slightest moved by the promises of being in Christ, or of joy in the Holy Ghost, and such like.

The gospel requires something supernatural

Besides, as the contents of the gospel are supernatural, so they must be supernaturally discerned. As the mere faculties of sense cannot reach the objects of reason (you cannot with your eyes grasp even one argument), so those who are truly rational cannot reach what is purely spiritual without illumination from the Spirit. “The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, neither can it be subject to the law of God, for it is spiritually discerned” (Rom. 8:7).

From all these, it comes to pass that many are only almost Christians.

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