Why is Repentance, Prayer and Charity Insufficient for Salvation

[Sam Jer]

"But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity mitigate the severity of the Decree" (Unetanneh Tokef, a Jewish Piyyut)

This line out of a Piyyut sung by rabbinical Jews on the Jewish new year, which begins the Ten Days of Repentance before the Day of Attonement, summarises the main premise of Rabbinical soteriology - the one that needs to be dismissed to prove the necessity of the attonement - rather well.
The purpose of this thread is to brainstorm rebuttals out of the old testament.
I'll go first:

Prayer is Insufficient
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. (Isaiah 1:15)

Repentance is insufficient
Pharoe said, "and bless me also" (ex. 12:32), but he and his hosts sank as lead in the mighty waters.
Israel mourned greatly and said: "Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised: for we have sinned" (num. 14:40), but Moses said, "it shall not prosper. Go not up, for the Lord is not among you" (v. 41-42), and they were smitten and discomfitted unto Horma.
Psalm 145, sung in the Jewish daily morning liturgy, says: "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth." (v. 18). In other words, one can call upon Him in untruth, and it won't suffice.

Charity
The Hebrew word here is tsedaqa (צדקה), and can mean both almsgiving and rightousness (but not love, unlike English), usually meaning the latter in scripture but coming to mean the former more and more often in later texts. In this Piyyut it means almsgiving.

God cannot be bribed, I think this is obvious.
Psalm 49 helps us if we thought otherwise:
"None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
(For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever)" (v. 7-8)

But let's challenge ourselves by steelmanning their position and bringing up the money that had to be paid when counting the people, as laid out in Exodus 30:12-16, because I don't know how I'd answer that counterexample.


Possitively, for the necessity of the attonement
The sacrificial system of Leviticus, the laying of hands on each sacrifice, Isaiah 53.

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I feel like these rebuttals could use some streangthening, and there are probably ones that are obvious to others here, but which I did not think about. So please, help me out here.

 

[chuckd]

Objection 8
Lastly, the Papists make three works of satisfaction, prayer, fasting, and alms deeds.

Answer
For the first, it is mere foolishness to think, that man by prayer can satisfy for his sins. It is all one as if they had said, that a beggar by asking of alms should deserve his alms: or, that a debtor by requesting his creditor to pardon his debt, should thereby pay his debt.

Secondly, fasting is a thing indifferent, of the same nature with eating and drinking, and of it self confers nothing to the obtainment of the kingdom of heaven, no more than eating and drinking does.

Thirdly and lastly alms deeds cannot be works of satisfaction for sins. For when we give them as we ought, we do but our duty, whereunto we are bound. And we may as well say, that a man by paying one debt, may discharge another: as to say that by doing his duty he may satisfy God's justice for the punishment of his sins.

These we confess be fruits of faith, but yet are they no works of satisfaction: but the only and all-sufficient satisfaction made to God's justice for our sins, is to be found in the person of Christ, being procured by the merit of his death, and his obedience.

-William Perkins, A Reformed Catholic, Of Satisfaction

For the third point on duty, see Luke 17:7-10

 

[Sam Jer]

Objection 8
Lastly, the Papists make three works of satisfaction, prayer, fasting, and alms deeds.

Answer
For the first, it is mere foolishness to think, that man by prayer can satisfy for his sins. It is all one as if they had said, that a beggar by asking of alms should deserve his alms: or, that a debtor by requesting his creditor to pardon his debt, should thereby pay his debt.

Secondly, fasting is a thing indifferent, of the same nature with eating and drinking, and of it self confers nothing to the obtainment of the kingdom of heaven, no more than eating and drinking does.

Thirdly and lastly alms deeds cannot be works of satisfaction for sins. For when we give them as we ought, we do but our duty, whereunto we are bound. And we may as well say, that a man by paying one debt, may discharge another: as to say that by doing his duty he may satisfy God's justice for the punishment of his sins.

These we confess be fruits of faith, but yet are they no works of satisfaction: but the only and all-sufficient satisfaction made to God's justice for our sins, is to be found in the person of Christ, being procured by the merit of his death, and his obedience.

-William Perkins, A Reformed Catholic, Of Satisfaction

For the third point on duty, see Luke 17:7-10

I didn't know the papists say the same. These things are more similar than they look on outward appearance.
Do you kniw if anyone answered that argument by way of exegesis too? I assume there are more Reformed rebuttals to Popery out there than there are of Rabbinicalism.