"Because the scribes were confident in their own righteousness they were incapable of perceiving the call to repentance," (Lane), and the salvation that came with it. "For not knowing about God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end (goal) of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes," Romans 10:3-4. As long as these scribes and Pharisees believed in salvation by human merit, human worth, and human conformity to Law, with a sense of self-trust, self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-righteousness, they would be hardened to any call to repentance, and therefore could not be "healed" by this Physician. "Jesus had not come to call for the Kingdom of God men like the scribes who considered themselves to be righteous, but outcasts who knew they needed to be made whole." - Lane