Unless the Coast Guard guys came and carried you onto their ship then ultimately yes, you have saved yourself by taking that step under your own power.
That is the Biblical model. People must agree to be saved. And people can, by their refusal to accept the freely offered salvation, damn themselves.
No, the Biblical model is that you were DEAD in trespasses and sin. D-E-A-D dead.
Outside of a George Romero film how many dead people do you see DOING anything . . . other than rotting?
Have you conceded that by DOING the right thing you've made God your debtor?
“...then ultimately yes, you have saved yourself by taking that step under your own power.”
The person claiming to have “saved themselves”, (i.e. entirely responsible for their own rescue), under such conditions would be an arrogant blow hard and would be entirely wrong.
But there is an appropriate use of the term as Peter used here:
“And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.”
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“No, the Biblical model is that you were DEAD in trespasses and sin. D-E-A-D dead.”
DEAD as in dead to God, i.e. relationally cut off.
Dead as in, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”
Was the Prodigal Son incapable of any actions?
He was “dead”.
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Furthermore, the Biblical model is ALSO that we are sick.
“But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”