In other words, religious authorities could just about see anything they wanted to see in the Ten Commandments. Well, maybe there were different reasons for them afterwards. We now return to Martin Luther. The reason why works would not solve his problems is because he was expecting personalized morality to do it all, and it is inadequate without socialized morality. Let me dig out the moral philosophy and explain why.
Sin stems from a psychologically conditioned force in subconscious minds.
The force develops from the desire to prevail against other persons. So it creates an improper relationship to other persons. And overcoming it requires proper relationships to other persons. Accomplishing this requires social activity, not personal activity. In other words, a person cannot focus upon himself and overcome sin.