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Hope
Unlimited
Chapter
2: God Justifies The Ungodly
THIS
MESSAGE is for you. You will find the text in the Epistle to the
Romans, in the fourth chapter and the fifth verse:
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Justifies
= God declares before all the universe that you are perfectly
righteous and that you always have been perfectly righteous -
despite the fact that you are "ungodly." |
"To him who does not work
[in an attempt to be saved] but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for
righteousness." (Romans 4:5)
I
call your attention to those words, "Him who justifies the
ungodly." They seem to me to be very wonderful words.
Are
you not surprised that there should be such an expression as that in
the Bible, "who justifies the ungodly?" I have heard
that men that hate the doctrines of the cross bring it as a charge
against God, that He saves wicked men and receives to Himself the
vilest of the vile. See how this Scripture accepts the charge, and
plainly states it! By the mouth of His servant Paul, by the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost, He takes to Himself the title of
"He who justifies the ungodly."
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He makes those just who
are unjust,
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forgives those who deserve to be punished, and
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favors
those who deserve no favor.
You thought, did you not, that salvation
was for the good? that God's grace was for the pure and holy, who
are free from sin? It has fallen into your mind that, if you were
excellent, then God would reward you; and you have thought that
because you are not worthy, therefore there could be no way of your
enjoying His favor. You must be somewhat surprised to read a text
like this: "He who justifies the ungodly." I do not
wonder that you are surprised; for with all my familiarity with the
great grace of God, I never cease to wonder at it. It does sound
surprising, does it not, that it should be possible for a holy God
to justify an unholy man? We, according to the natural legality of
our hearts, are always talking about our own goodness and our own
worthiness, and we stubbornly hold to it that there must be
something
in us in order to win the notice of God. Now, God, who sees through
all deceptions, knows that there is no goodness whatever in us. He
says that "there is none righteous, no not one". He knows
that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," and,
therefore the Lord Jesus did not come into the world to look after
goodness and righteousness with him, and to bestow them upon persons
who have none of them. He comes, not because we are just, but to
make us so: he justifies the ungodly. (Romans 3:10; Isaiah 64:6)
When
a counselor comes into court, if he is an honest man, he desires to
plead the case of an innocent person and justify him before the
court from the things which are falsely laid to his charge. It
should be the lawyer's object to justify the innocent person, and he
should not attempt to screen the guilty party. It lies not in man's
right nor in man's power truly to justify the guilty. This is a
miracle reserved for the Lord alone. God, the infinitely just
Sovereign, knows that there is not a just man upon earth that does
good and does not sin, and therefore, in the infinite sovereignty of
His divine nature, and in the splendor of His ineffable love, He
undertakes the task, not so much of justifying the just as of
justifying the ungodly. God has devised ways and means of making the
ungodly man to stand justly accepted before Him: He has set up a
system by which with perfect justice He can treat the guilty as if
he had been all his life free from offence, yea, can treat him as if
he were wholly free from sin. He justifies the ungodly.
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. It is a very surprising
thing - a thing to be marveled at most of all by those who enjoy it.
I know that it is to me even to this day the greatest wonder that I
ever heard of, that God should ever justify me. I feel myself to be
a lump of unworthiness, a mass of corruption, and a heap of sin,
apart from His almighty love. I know by a full assurance that I am
justified by faith which is in Jesus, and treated as if I had
been perfectly just, and made an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus; and yet by nature I must take my place among the most
sinful. I, who am altogether undeserving, am treated as if I had
been deserving. I am loved with as much love as if I had always been
godly, whereas aforetime I was ungodly. Who can help being
astonished at this? Gratitude for such favor stands dressed in robes
of wonder.
Now,
while this is very surprising, I want you to notice how available it
makes the gospel to you and to me. If God justifies the ungodly,
then, dear friend, He can justify you. Is not that the very kind of
person that you are? If you are unconverted at this moment, it is a
very proper description of you; you have lived without God, you have
been the reverse of godly; in one word, you have been and are
ungodly. Perhaps you have not even attended a place of worship in
your life, but have lived in disregard of God's house, and Word -
this proves you to have been ungodly. Sadder still, it may be
you have even tried to doubt God's existence, and have gone the
length of saying that you did so. You have lived on this fair earth,
which is full of the tokens of God's presence, and all the while you
have shut your eyes to the clear evidences of His power and Godhead.
You have lived as if there were no God. Indeed, you would have been
very pleased if you could have demonstrated to yourself to a
certainty that there was no God whatever. Possibly you have lived a
great many years in this way, so that you are now pretty well
settled in your ways, and yet God is not in any of them. If you were
labeled UNGODLY it would as well a description of you as if the sea were to
be labeled salt water. Would it not?
Possibly
you are a person of another sort; you have regularly attended to all
the outward forms of religion, and yet you have had no heart in them
at all, but have been really ungodly. Though meeting with the people
of God, you have never met with God for yourself; you have been in
the choir, and yet have not praised the Lord with your heart. You
have lived without any love to God in your heart, or regard to his
commands in your life. Well, you are just the kind of man to whom
this gospel is sent - this gospel which says that God justifies the
ungodly. It is very wonderful, but it is happily available for you.
It just suits you. Does it not? How I wish that you would accept it!
If you are a sensible man, you will see the remarkable grace of God
in providing for such as you are, and you will say to yourself,
"Justify the ungodly! Why, then, should not I be justified, and
justified at once?"
Now,
observe further, that it must be so - that the salvation of God is
for those who do not deserve it, and have no preparation for it. It
is reasonable that the statement should be put in the Bible; for,
dear friend, no others need justifying but those who have no
justification of their own. If any of my readers are perfectly
righteous, they want no justifying. You feel that you are doing your
duty well, and almost putting heaven under an obligation to you.
What do you want with a Saviour, or with mercy? What do you want
with justification? You will be tired of my book by this time, for
it will have no interest to you.
If
any of you are giving yourselves such proud airs, listen to me for a
little while. You will be lost, as sure as you are alive. You
righteous men, whose righteousness is all of your own working, are
either deceivers or deceived; for the Scripture cannot lie, and it
says plainly, "There is none righteous, no, not one." In
any case I have no gospel to preach to the self-righteous, no, not a
word of it. Jesus himself came not to call the righteous, and
I am not going to do what He did not do. If I called you, you would
not come, and, therefore, I will not call you, under that character.
No, I bid you rather look at that righteousness of yours till you
see what a delusion it is. It is not half so substantial as a
cobweb. Be done with it! Flee from it! Oh believe that the only
persons that can need justification are those who are not in
themselves just! They need that something should be done for them to
make them just before the judgment seat of God. Depend upon it, the
Lord only does that which is needful. Infinite wisdom never attempts
that which is unnecessary. Jesus never undertakes that which is
superfluous. To make him just who is just is no work for God - that
were a labor for a fool; but to make him just who is unjust - that is
work for infinite love and mercy. To justify the ungodly - this is a
miracle worthy of a loving God. And for certain it is so.
Now,
look. If there be anywhere in the world a physician who has
discovered sure and precious remedies, to whom is that physician
sent? To those who are perfectly healthy? I think not. Put him down
in a district where there are no sick persons, and he feels that he
is not in his place. There is nothing for him to do. "They that
are whole
have no need of a physician, but they that are sick." Is it not
equally clear that the great remedies of grace and redemption are
for the sick in soul? They cannot be for the whole, for they cannot
be of use to such. If you, dear friend, feel that you are
spiritually sick, the Physician has come into the world for you. If
you are altogether undone by reason of your sin, you are the very
person aimed at in the plan of salvation. I say that the Lord of
love had just such as you in His eye when He arranged the system
of grace. Suppose a man of generous spirit were to resolve to
forgive all those who were indebted to him; it is clear that this
can only apply to those really in his debt. One person owes him a
thousand pounds; another owes him fifty pounds; each one has but to
have his bill receipted, and the liability is wiped out. But the
most generous person cannot forgive the debts of those who do not
owe him anything. It is out of the power of Omnipotence to forgive
where there is no sin. Pardon, therefore, cannot be for you who have
no sin. Pardon must be for the guilty. Forgiveness must be for the
sinful. It is absurd to talk of forgiving those who do not need
forgiveness - pardoning those who have never offended.
Do
you think that you must be lost because you are a sinner? This is
the reason why you can be saved. Because you know yourself to be a
sinner I would encourage you to believe that grace is ordained for
such as you are. One of our hymn-writers even dared to say:
A
sinner is a sacred thing;
The Holy Ghost hath made him so.
It
is truly so, that Jesus seeks and saves that which is lost. He died
and made a real atonement for real sinners. When men are not playing
with words, or calling themselves "miserable sinners," out
of mere compliment, I feel overjoyed to meet with them. I would be
glad to talk all night to bona fide sinners. The inn of mercy never
closes its doors upon such, neither weekdays nor Sabbath. Our Lord
Jesus did not die for imaginary sins, but His heart's blood was
spilt to wash out deep crimson stains, which nothing else can
remove.
He
that is a black sinner - he is the kind of man that Jesus came to make white. A gospel preacher on one occasion preached a
sermon from, "Now also the axe is laid to the root of the
trees," and he delivered such a sermon that one of his hearers
said to him, "One would have thought that you had been
preaching to criminals. Your sermon ought to have been delivered in
the county jail." "Oh, no," said the preacher,
"if I were preaching in the county jail, I should not preach
from that text, there I should preach "This is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners." Just so. The law is for the self-righteous,
to humble their pride: the gospel is for the lost, to remove their
despair.
If
you are not lost, what do you want with a Saviour? Should the
shepherd go after those who never went astray? Why should the woman
sweep her house for the bits of money that were never out of her
purse? No, the medicine is for the diseased; the quickening is for
the dead; the pardon is for the guilty; liberation is for those who
are bound: the opening of eyes is for those who are blind. How can
the Saviour, and His death upon the cross, and the gospel of pardon,
be accounted for, unless it be upon the supposition that men are
guilty and worthy of condemnation? The sinner is the gospel's reason
for existence. You, my friend, to whom this word now comes, if you
are undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving, you are the sort of
man for whom the gospel is ordained, and arranged, and proclaimed.
God justifies the ungodly.
I
would like to make this very plain. I hope that I have done so
already; but still, plain as it is, it is only the Lord that can
make a man see it. It does at first seem most amazing to an awakened
man that salvation should really be for him as a lost and guilty
one. He thinks that it must be for him as a penitent man, forgetting
that his penitence is a part of his salvation. "Oh," says
he, "but I must be this and that,"--all of which is true,
for he shall be this and that as the result of salvation; but
salvation comes to him before he has any of the results of
salvation. It comes to him, in fact, while he deserves only this
bare, beggarly, base, abominable description, "ungodly."
That is all he is when God's gospel comes to justify him.
May
I, therefore, urge upon any who have no good thing about them - who
fear that they have not even a good feeling, or anything whatever
that can recommend them to God - that they will firmly believe that
our gracious God is able and willing to take them without anything
to recommend them, and to forgive them spontaneously, not because
they are good, but because He is good. Does He not make His sun to
shine on the evil as well as on the good? Does He not give fruitful
seasons, and send the rain and the sunshine in their time upon the
most ungodly nations? Ay, even Sodom had its sun, and Gomorrah had
its dew. Oh friend, the great grace of God surpasses my conception
and your conception, and I would have you think worthily of it! As
high as the heavens are above the earth; so high are God's thoughts
above our thoughts. He can abundantly pardon. Jesus came into
the world to save sinners: forgiveness is for the guilty.
Do
not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself something other
than you really are; but come as you are to Him who justifies the
ungodly. A great artist some short time ago had painted a part of
the corporation of the city in which he lived, and he wanted, for
historic purposes, to include in his picture certain characters well
known in the town. A crossing-sweeper, unkempt, ragged, filthy, was
known to everybody, and there was a suitable place for him in the
picture. The artist said to this ragged and rugged individual,
"I will pay you well if you will come down to my studio and let
me take your likeness." He came round in the morning, but he
was soon sent about his business; for he had washed his face, and
combed his hair, and donned a respectable suit of clothes. He was
needed as a beggar, and was not invited in any other capacity. Even
so, the gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a
sinner, not otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at once
for salvation. God justifies the ungodly, and that takes you up
where you now are: it meets you in your worst estate.
Come
in your dishabille. I mean, come to your heavenly Father in all your
sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you are, leprous, filthy,
naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come, you that are the
very sweepings of creation; come, though you hardly dare to hope for
anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over you,
pressing upon your bosom like a horrible nightmare. Come and ask the
Lord to justify another ungodly one. Why should He not? Come for
this great mercy of God is meant for such as you are. I put it in
the language of the text, and I cannot put it more strongly: the
Lord God Himself takes to Himself this gracious title, "Him who
justifies the ungodly." He makes just, and causes to be
treated as just, those who by nature are ungodly. Is not that a
wonderful word for you? Reader, do not delay till you have well
considered this matter. Come just as you are . . .
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