They mistakenly assume that their good works can save them. Just make sure that you are born again. Because if you are not, your good works are worthless.

Paul makes it clear enough that it takes more than an Abrahamic pedigree to be a child of God. To be a child of God requires faith in Christ.

fanatics. Every teacher of work-righteousness is a trouble-maker.

Thus the sum and substance of all doctrine is this, that we are not justified by any works, but that faith in Christ saves.

Either Christ must live and the Law perish, or the Law remains and Christ must perish; Christ and the Law cannot dwell side by side in the conscience. It is either grace or law. To muddle the two is to eliminate the Gospel of Christ entirely.

It seems we must choose between Christ and the Pope. Let the Pope perish.

They say: 'You were baptized when you were still a child and did not believe. Therefore, your Baptism was nothing.' etc. This is really the same as saying: 'If you do not believe, God's Word and Sacrament are nothing. But if you believe, they are something. Therefore, only those who have faith receive true Baptism, whereas those who do not believe receive nothing but water and are not truly baptized.

There is nothing so good and nothing so evil but that it shall work together for good to me, if only I believe. Yes, since faith alone suffices for salvation, I need nothing except faith exercising the power and dominion of its own liberty.

Therefore, when some say good works are forbidden when we preach faith alone, it is as if I said to a sick man: "If you had health, you would have the use of your limbs; but without health the works of your limbs are nothing"' and he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of all his limbs.

faith alone makes all other works good, acceptable and worthy

It is faith—without good works and prior to good works—that takes us to heaven. We come to God through faith alone.

God's approval isn't based on what a person does. Rather, he accepts what a person does because he already approves of the person. The person hasn't earned God's approval through the good that he or she does. Because