80. In order to provide evidence from the Formula of Concord for what I have just said (for more on the Formula of Concord, see §9 above), I will add the following references. My purpose is to keep you from thinking that I am hurling unfounded accusations.

The works enjoined by the second tablet of the Ten Commandments are civic in nature and form a part of our external worship that we can do on our own. It is foolish to dream, though, that they make us just before God (pages 84, 85, 102).

Good works must be completely excluded from the article on justification through faith (pages 589, 590, 591, 704–708).

Our good works play absolutely no part in our justification (pages 589, 702; appendix, pages 62, 173).

Our good works do not preserve faith or salvation in us (pages 590, 702; appendix, page 174).

Our repentance, too, plays no role in our being justified by faith (pages 165, 320; appendix, page 158).

Repentance consists in merely calling on God, confessing the gospel, giving thanks, obeying our leaders, and doing our jobs (pages 12, 198; appendix, pages 158, 159, 172, 266).

Our living a new life, too, has nothing to do with our process of being made just (pages 585, 685, 688, 689; appendix, page 170).

Our efforts to practice a new kind of obedience play no part in our faith or our being justified (pages 90, 91, 690; appendix, page 167).

Those who are reborn are not under the law; they are liberated from slavish adherence to it. They are in the law but under grace (page 722 and elsewhere).

The sins committed by the reborn are covered up by Christ’s merit (pages 641, 686, 687, 719, 720, not to mention many other similar passages).

It is important to recognize that all Protestants, including both Lutherans and Calvinists, have similar teachings regarding justification by faith alone; see §§17, 18 above.

8. Faith comes to us through hearing, when we believe that the teachings divinely revealed to us are true and when we trust in God’s promises. Faith is the beginning of human salvation, and the foundation and root of all justification. Without faith, it is impossible to please God and to come into the company of his children. Our justification takes place through faith, hope, and goodwill. Unless hope and goodwill are added to faith, it is dead rather than living and does not unite us to Christ.

We need to cooperate in this process. We have the power to move either closer to or farther away from [Christ]; if we did not, nothing could be granted to us, because we would be like a lifeless body.

Our openness to being justified renews us; this renewal takes place as Christ’s merit is applied to us, as the result of our own cooperation. Therefore we get credit for the works that we do; yet because they are done as a result of grace and through the Holy Spirit, and because Christ alone has earned merit, the rewards God gives us are his own gifts within us. Therefore none of us can attribute anything of merit to ourselves.