The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:17
The Law has only one single function: to lead people to the knowledge of their sins. It has no power to renew [people]. That power is vested solely in the Gospel. Only faith is active through love. We, however, do not become spiritually active through "love" [when that means] through sorrow over our sins.
On the contrary, as long as we are still uninformed concerning the fact that God has become our reconciled God and Father through Christ, we hate Him. An unconverted person who claims to love God is stating falsehood and is guilty of miserable hypocrisy—even though he may not be aware of it. That person is making a false claim because only faith in the Gospel regenerates a person. Accordingly, a person cannot love God as long as he is still without faith. To demand of a poor sinner that he must be alarmed because of his sins and that he must feel sorry for them—out of a love for God—that is a terrible way of turning Law and Gospel completely backwards.
No, this is what the Bible's teaching really states: Sinners should come to Jesus just as they are, even if they have to acknowledge: "I have only hatred for God in my heart. O God, what should I do? What can I do to be saved?"
C.F.W. Walther, Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible,
(trans. Christian C. Tiews; St Louis: Concordia, 2010), 260
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