by their own efforts are trying to please God with sins. They mock God, and
provoke His anger. The first step on the way to salvation is to repent.

The second part is this. God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that
we may live through His merit. He was crucified and killed for us. By
sacrificing His Son for us God revealed Himself to us as a merciful Father
who donates remission of sins, righteousness, and life everlasting for
Christ's sake. God hands out His gifts freely unto all men. That is the praise
and glory of His mercy.

The scholastics explain the way of salvation in this manner. When a person
happens to perform a good deed, God accepts it and as a reward for the good
deed God pours charity into that person. They call it "charity infused." This
charity is supposed to remain in the heart. They get wild when they are told
that this quality of the heart cannot justify a person.

They also claim that we are able to love God by our own natural strength, to
love God above all things, at least to the extent that we deserve grace. And,
say the scholastics, because God is not satisfied with a literal performance
of the Law, but expects us to fulfill the Law according to the mind of the
Lawgiver, therefore we must obtain from above a quality above nature, a
quality which they call "formal righteousness."

We say, faith apprehends Jesus Christ. Christian faith is not an inactive
quality in the heart. If it is true faith it will surely take Christ for its
object. Christ, apprehended by faith and dwelling in the heart, constitutes
Christian righteousness, for which God gives eternal life.

In contrast to the doting dreams of the scholastics, we teach this: First a
person must learn to know himself from the Law. With the prophet he will