Good News for the Ungodly

“And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” — Romans 4:5 (ESV)

Spurgeon builds this chapter on four words from Romans: God “justifies the ungodly.” He admits they shocked him and kept on shocking him. People who hated the Christian message used to throw it at God as an accusation — he takes in the worst people! — and Spurgeon points out that the Bible doesn’t deny it. It owns it. God gives himself the title. Most of us assume salvation is for good people, and that if we were better God would reward us. But God, who sees through everything, knows there is “none righteous, no, not one.” So Jesus didn’t come looking for goodness to reward. “He comes, not because we are just, but to make us so.”

Think about how strange that is. A good lawyer defends innocent people; he isn’t supposed to get the guilty off. Making a guilty person truly right before a court is beyond any human. “To justify the ungodly — this is a miracle worthy of a God.” And Spurgeon says it has to be this way. A doctor with a sure cure isn’t sent to a town where nobody is sick. A generous man who decides to cancel debts can only cancel them for people who actually owe him. Forgiveness is only for the guilty. So if you think you must be lost because you are a sinner, he turns it around: that’s the very reason you can be saved. “The sinner is the gospel’s reason for existence.”

He describes two kinds of ungodly people. One has lived as if there were no God at all. The other has gone to every service, maybe even sung in the choir, and never once met God for himself. Both, he says, are exactly who this message is for. The only people it can’t help are those who think they don’t need it — whose own goodness, he warns, is “not half so substantial as a cobweb.” Then a story. An artist painting a scene of his city wanted a well-known ragged street-sweeper in the picture and offered to pay him to come to the studio. The man arrived next morning washed, combed and in a borrowed suit — and was sent away. He was wanted as he was. “Wait not for reformation, but come at once for salvation.”

He adds one more story. A preacher once gave such a fierce sermon on judgment that a listener told him it belonged in the county jail, preached to criminals. “Oh, no,” the preacher said — in the jail he would have preached a different text: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Spurgeon’s comment sums up the whole chapter: “The law is for the self-righteous, to humble their pride: the gospel is for the lost, to remove their despair.”

Now — what is this actually about? God’s grace starts where you actually are, not where you think you should be. Most of us have a quiet rule running in the background: get yourself sorted, then approach God. Stop the thing you’re ashamed of, get your head straight, become the kind of person who belongs — and then maybe. Spurgeon says that rule is upside down. The gospel isn’t a prize for people who’ve cleaned up. It’s a rescue for people who can’t.

That’s hard on your pride and wonderful for your despair. Hard on your pride because being “a good kid” or “a decent person” doesn’t earn you anything here. Wonderful for your despair because the worst thing you know about yourself doesn’t disqualify you; it’s the very category God says he works with. God forgives, Spurgeon says, “not because they are good, but because He is good.”

One thing to do this week: notice the moment you want to “wash your face” before you pray — to wait until you feel less guilty, less messy, more spiritual. Don’t wait. Pray once this week exactly as you are, in plain words, with nothing touched up: “God, I’m ungodly. You say you justify the ungodly. I’m asking you to do that for me.”