The Justification of the Ungodly

**"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."** — Romans 4:5 (KJV)

Romans 4:5 contains perhaps the most offensive sentence ever written. Not offensive to modern sensibilities — though it certainly is that — but offensive to the deepest instincts of the human heart. The heart that says, "I must earn my place." The heart that says, "God helps those who help themselves." The heart that says, "Surely I am not as bad as others, and surely my good deeds will outweigh my bad ones on the final scale."

But Paul writes something devastating: God justifies the *ungodly*. Not the sort-of-godly. Not the trying-to-be-godly. Not the godly-on-the-outside. The ungodly. The ones who have no claim. The ones who have no plea. The ones who, if they stood before a judge, would have nothing to offer but trembling hands and empty pockets.

This is the doctrine of justification by faith alone — *sola fide* — and it is the article by which the church stands or falls.

We hate this doctrine because it robs us of our favorite idol: our own righteousness. We want to believe that we are basically good people who occasionally sin, rather than sinful people who are occasionally good. We want to believe that God accepts us because we are improving, rather than that God accepts us because Christ was perfectly obedient in our place.

Martin Luther, who recovered this doctrine from the shadows of medieval Catholicism, understood the scandal of it. He wrote:

> "The sin underneath all our sins is the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and that we must take matters into our own hands."

The serpent's lie in Eden was not merely "You shall be as gods" — it was "You must be as gods, because God will not accept you as you are." And we have been repeating that lie ever since.

It is not that God sees our faith and decides to reward it with salvation. Faith is not a work that earns the verdict. Faith is the *empty hand* that receives the verdict. It is not the ground of our acceptance; it is the instrument by which we receive the ground, which is Christ's obedience alone.

It is not that God infuses righteousness into us, making us actually righteous, and then declares us righteous because we are. That confuses justification with sanctification. Justification is a legal declaration — a courtroom verdict — not a physical transformation. Sanctification is real and necessary, but it is the *fruit* of justification, not its *cause*.

It is not that God pretends we are righteous when we are not. That would be a legal fiction, and the God of truth does not deal in fictions. Rather, God imputes — counts, reckons, credits — the righteousness of Christ to our account. It becomes ours not by infusion but by imputation. We are clothed in another's righteousness.

R.C. Sproul, in his teaching on justification, used the illustration of a wedding ring. Faith is not the marriage; faith is the ring. The ring does not make the marriage; the marriage makes the ring meaningful. So faith does not create the relationship; it evidences it. And if the ring is absent, we may question whether the marriage exists. But the ring is never the ground of the marriage — only its sign.

"The faith that justifies," Luther wrote, "is never alone." It always brings works in its train, not as the price of salvation but as its fruit. The justified sinner cannot help but love, because he has been loved with an everlasting love. He cannot help but obey, because he has been adopted into the family of the obedient Son.

If you are struggling today with whether God could possibly accept you — with the weight of your past, the shame of your secret sins, the fear that you are not good enough — hear this: God justifies the ungodly. Not because they become godly first. Not because they promise to do better. But because Christ has already done perfectly in their place what they could never do for themselves.

Your job is not to justify yourself. Your job is to believe the One who justifies the ungodly. And then — only then — to live as one who has been declared righteous by the Judge of all the earth.

Lord, I confess that I still try to earn what You have given freely. I still keep ledgers. I still want to be justified by my own righteousness rather than by the righteousness of Another. Break me of this. Let me rest in the verdict that has already been spoken. And let the freedom of that verdict produce in me the fruit of love and obedience, not as wages but as gratitude. In the name of the Righteous One, Amen.

*From the Reformed tradition. Scripture quotations from the King James Version.*