That no one is or can be godly under the Law terrifies consciences, but the consolation of the Gospel is the promise of Christ...

The New Testament keeps and urges this office of the Law, as St. Paul does when he says, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Romans 1:18). Also, "the whole world may be accountable to God ... No human being will be justified in His sight" (Romans 3:19-20).  And, Christ says, the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.

This is God's thunderbolt.  By the Law He strikes down both obvious sinners and false saints.  He declares no one to be in the right, but drives them all together to terror and despair.  This is the hammer.  As Jeremiah says,  "Is not My word like ... a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" (23:29).  This is not active contrition or manufactured repentance.  It is passive contrition, true sorrow of heart, suffering, and the sensation of death.

This is what true repentance means.  Here a person needs to hear something like this, "You are all of no account, whether you are obvious sinners or saints (in your own opinions).  You have to become different from what you are now.  You have to act differently than you are now acting, whether you are as great, wise, powerful, and holy as you can be.  Here no one is godly."

But to this office of the Law, the New Testament immediately adds the consoling promise of grace through the Gospel.  This must be believed.  As Christ declares, "Repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15).  That is become different, act differently, and believe My promise.  John the Baptist (preceding Christ) is called a preacher of repentance, but this is for the forgiveness of sins.  That is, John was to accuse all and convict them of being sinners.  This is so they can know what they are before God and acknowledge that they are lost.  So they can be prepared for the Lord to receive grace and to expect and accept from Him the forgiveness of sins.  This is what Christ Himself says, "Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in [My] name to all nations" (Luke 24:47).
~BOC, SA, III, III, 1-6

The Holy Spirit carries out both offices together: He slays and makes alive...

The Law indeed says it is God's will and command that we should walk in a new life.  But it does not give the power and ability to begin and to do it.  The Holy Spirit renews the heart.  He is given and received, not through the Law, but through the preaching of the Gospel.  Thereafter, the Holy Spirit uses the Law in order to teach the regenerate from it and to point out and show them in the Ten Commandments what is the "will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2) in what "good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk" (Ephesians 2:10).  He encourages them  to this.  When they are idle, negligent and rebellious in this mater because of the flesh, He rebukes them through the Law.  So the Spirit carries out both offices together: He slays and makes alive.  He leads into hell and brings up again.  For His office is not only to comfort, but also to rebuke.  For it is written, "when [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will convict the world [which includes also the old Adam] concerning sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8).  Sin is everything that is contrary to God's Law.  St. Paul says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof" (2 Timothy 3:16), and to rebuke is the Law's special office.  Therefore, as often as believers stumble, they are rebuked by the Holy Spirit from the Law.  By the same Spirit they are raised up and comforted again with the preaching of the Holy Gospel.
~BOC, FSD, VI, 11-14

The Gospel is not a preaching of repentance or rebuke...

The doctrines of the Law and the Gospel may not be mixed and confused with each other.  What belongs to the one may not be applied to the other.  When that happens Christ's merit and benefits are easily hidden and the Gospel is again turned into a doctrine of the Law, as happened in the papacy.  For then Christians are deprived of the true comfort they have in the Gospel against the Law's terrors, and the door is again opened in God's Church to the papacy. Therefore, the true and proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel must be taught and preserved with all diligence.  Whatever causes confusion between the Law and Gospel should be diligently prevented (i.e., by which the two doctrines, Law and Gospel, may be confused and mixed into one doctrine).  It is, therefore, dangerous and wrong to convert the Gospel (properly so called, as distinguished from the Law) into a preaching of repentance or rebuke.  Otherwise, if understood in a general sense of the entire doctrine, the Apology says also several times that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  Meanwhile, the Apology also shows that the Gospel is properly the promise of the forgiveness of sins and of justification through Christ, and the Law is a doctrine that reproves sins and condemns.
~BOC, FSD, V, 27

Reason can produce civil works, but not spiritual works...

The Ten Commandments require outward civil works, which reason can in some way produce.  But they also require other things placed far above reason: truly to fear God, truly to love God, truly to call upon God, truly to be convinced that God hears us, and to expect God's aid in death and in all afflictions. Finally it requires obedience to God, in death and all afflictions, so that we may not run from these commandments or refuse them when God lays them upon us.
~BOC, AP, IV (II), 8

The Law without Christ makes either proud people or those in utter despair...

Merely preaching the Law, without Christ, either makes proud people, who imagine that they can fulfill the Law by outward works, or forces them utterly to despair.  Therefore, Christ takes the Law into His hands and explains it spiritually.  He reveals His wrath from heaven on all sinners and show how great it is. In this teaching sinners are directed to the Law, and from it they first learn to know their sins correctly--a confession that Moses could never wrestle out of them.  For as the apostle testified, even though Moses is read, the veil he put over his face is never lifted.  So they cannot understand the Law spiritually, and what great things it requires of us, and how severely it curses and condemns us because we cannot keep or fulfill it.  "But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed." (2 Corinthians 3:16).
~BOC, FSD, V, 10

The Law is not kept without Christ...

Therefore, in all our praising of works and in the preaching of the Law, let us keep this rule: The Law is not kept without Christ.  As He Himself has said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).  Likewise, "Without faith it is impossible to please [God]" (Hebrews 11:6).  For it is very certain that the doctrine of the Law is not intended to remove the Gospel and to remove Christ as the Atoning Sacrifice.  Let the Pharisees, our adversaries, be cursed.  They interpret the Law to assign Christ's glory to works.  (In other words, they say works are an atoning sacrifice, that they merit the forgiveness of sins.)  Works are always rightly praised in this way: they are pleasing because of faith.  For works do not please without Christ as the Atoning Sacrifice. "Through Him we have also obtained access [to God]" (Romans 5:2), not by works without Christ as Mediator.  Therefore, when it is said in Matthew 19:17, "If you would enter life, keep the commandments," we must believe that without Christ the commandments are not kept and cannot please.
~BOC, AP, V(III), 148-149

God's chief works among people...

God's two chief works among people are these:  to terrify; to justify and make alive those who have been terrified.  Into these two works all Scripture has been distributed.  The one part is the Law, which shows, reproves, and condemns sins.  The other part is the Gospel, that is, the promise of grace bestowed in Christ.  This promise is constantly repeated in the whole of Scripture, first having been delivered to Adam, afterward, to the patriarchs. Then, it was still more clearly proclaimed by the prophets.  Lastly, it was preached and set forth among the Jewish people by Christ and then spread out over the entire world by the apostles.  All the saints were justified through faith in this promise, and not by their own attrition or contrition.
~BOC, AP, XII (V), 53-54

Law brings despair, but the Gospel brings consolation and forgiveness...

Whenever the Law alone exercises its office...there is nothing but death and hell, and one must despair, as Saul and Judas did. St. Paul says, through sin the Law kills. (See Romans 7:10.) On the other hand, the Gospel brings consolation and forgiveness. It does so not just in one way, but through the Word and Sacraments and the like, as we will discuss later. As Psalm 130:7 says against the dreadful captivity of sin, "with the Lord is plentiful redemption."
~BOC, SA, III, III, 7-8

We overcome the terrors of sin and death not through love, but through faith...

From these statements we hope that it is clear both what faith is and that we are justified, reconciled, and regenerated through faith.  We are compelled to hold on to these teachings because we want to teach the righteousness of the Gospel, not the righteousness of the Law.  For those who teach that we are justified by love teach the righteousness of the Law. They do not teach us in justification to trust in Christ as Mediator.  These things are also clear.  We overcome the terrors of sin and death not through love, but through faith.  For we cannot set up our love and fulfilling of the Law against God's wrath, because Paul says, "Through [Christ] we have also obtained access [to God] by faith" (Romans 5:2).  We emphasize this sentence so that we are understood.  The sentence shows most clearly our whole argument and, when carefully considered, can teach abundantly about the whole matter.  It can console good minds.  So, it is helpful to have it against the doctrine of our adversaries.  They teach that we come to God not through faith, but through love and merits, without Christ as Mediator.  This sentence also helps us when we fear, so that we may cheer ourselves and exercise faith.  This is also clear.  We cannot keep the Law without Christ's aid.  He Himself says, "Apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5).  So, before we keep the Law, our hearts must be born again through faith.
~BOC, AP, V (III), 192-194

The Gospel is God's grace and favor for Christ's sake...

In this matter a disagreement has occurred among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession. One side asserted that the Gospel is properly not only a preaching of grace, but is, at the same time, also a preaching of repentance, which rebukes the greatest sin: unbelief. The other side held and argued that the Gospel is not properly a preaching of repentance or rebuke. That properly belongs to God's Law, which reproves all sins, including unbelief. The Gospel is properly a preaching of God's grace and favor for Christ's sake. Through the Gospel the unbelief of the converted, which previously dwelt in them, and which God's Law reproved, is pardoned and forgiven.
~BOC, FSD, V, 2

God's Word is our rule and norm...

The true rule is this: God's Word shall establish the articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel can do so.
~BOC, SA, II, 15

The distinction between Law and Gospel is a brilliant light...

The distinction between the Law and the Gospel is a particularly brilliant light. It serves the purpose of rightly dividing God's Word and properly explaining and understanding the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles. We must guard this distinction with special care, so that these two doctrines may not be mixed with each other, or a law be made out of the Gospel. When that happens, Christ's merit is hidden and troubled consciences are robbed of comfort, which they otherwise have in the Holy Gospel when it is preached genuinely and purely. For by the Gospel they can support themselves in their most difficult trials against the Law's terror.
~BOC, FSD, V, 1