Suppose you go to the doctors with red spots all over your body and he diagnoses measles. Imagine he then tried to cure you by covering all the spots with band aids or plasters. You’d say, ‘Hang on a minute, that’s no solution. The spots are only the symptoms – the real disease is within; it’s in the blood stream!’ So it is with our sin – it’s a heart issue and we can’t fix the problem by doing good works to try and impress God or cancel out the bad stuff!

Adapted from Christianity Explained, New Malden, Surrey: The Good Book Company, p.52