Christ, in the last chapter of Luke, commands "that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name" (24:27). The Gospel convicts all people that they are under sin, that they are subject to eternal wrath and death. It offers, for Christ's sake, forgiveness of sin and justification, which is received through faith. The preaching of repentance (which accuses us) terrifies consciences with true and grave terrors. In these matters, hearts ought to receive consolation again. This happens if they believe Christ's promise, that for His sake we have forgiveness of sins. This faith, encouraging and consoling in these fears, receives forgiveness of sins, justifies, and gives life. For this consolation is a new birth and spiritual life. These things are plain and clear and can be understood by the pious. They also have testimonies of the Church. The adversaries cannot say how the Holy Spirit is given. They imagine that the Sacraments give the Holy Spirit by the outward act (ex opere operato), without a good emotion in the one receiving them, as though, indeed, the gift of the Holy Spirit were a useless manner.
We speak of the kind of faith that is not an idle thought, but that liberates from death and produces a new life in hearts. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. This does not coexist with mortal sin. As long as faith is present, it produces good fruits, as we will explain later. About the conversion of the wicked, or about the way of regeneration, what can be said that is simpler or clearer? Let the Scholastics, from so great a host of writers, produce a single commentary upon the Sentences that speaks about the way of regeneration. When they speak of the habit of love, they imagine that people merit it through works. They do not teach that it is received through the Word. They teach just like the Anabaptists teach at this time. But God cannot be interacted with, God cannot be grasped, except through the Word. So justification happens through the Word, just as Paul says in Romans 1:16. "[The Gospel] is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." Likewise, he says in 10:17, "Faith comes from hearing." Proof can be derived even from this: faith justifies because, if justification happens only through the Word, and the Word is understood only by faith, it follows that faith justifies.
~BOC, AP, IV (II), 61-68
