A little more succinct than this post but still
quite compelling:
Ephesians 2:8 (New International Version)
8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
Amen. The astounding fact that faith is an unmerited gift of God’s grace is the foundation of the Reformation. We are justified by Christ’s righteousness alone, and not our own. The farther we stray from that fact through our own boasting, the closer we return to Rome’s works-based salvation.