None but the ungodly

But this is the third thing which was to be considered, namely, who they are that are justified. And the apostle tells us expressly: the ungodly. He, that is, God, justifies the ungodly, the ungodly of every kind and degree, and none but the ungodly.

As they that are righteous need no repentance, so they need no forgiveness. It is only sinners that have any occasion for pardon. It is sin alone which admits of being forgiven. Forgiveness, therefore, has an immediate reference to sin, and in this respect to nothing else. It is our unrighteousness to which the pardoning God is merciful. It is our iniquity which he remembers no more.

This seems not to be considered at all by those who so vehemently contend that a man must be sanctified, that is, holy, before he can be justified, especially by such of them as affirm that universal holiness or obedience must precede justification. Unless they mean the justification at the last day, which is wholly out of the present question, the truth is so far from it that the very supposition is flatly impossible. For where there is no love of God, there is no holiness, and there is no love of God but from a sense of his loving us. The supposition is also grossly, intrinsically absurd, contradictory to itself.

For it is not a saint but a sinner that is forgiven, and under the notion of a sinner. God justifies not the godly, but the ungodly, not those who are holy already, but the unholy. Upon what condition he does this will be considered shortly. But whatever it is, it cannot be holiness. To assert this is to say that the Lamb of God takes away only those sins which were taken away before.

Does, then, the good Shepherd seek and save only those that are found already? No. He seeks and saves that which is lost. He pardons those who need his pardoning mercy. He saves from the guilt of sin, and at the same time from the power, sinners of every kind and of every degree. They are men who until then were altogether ungodly, in whom the love of the Father was not, and consequently in whom dwelt no good thing, no good or truly Christian temper, but all such as were evil and abominable: pride, anger, love of the world, the genuine fruits of that carnal mind which is enmity against God.

These who are sick, the burden of whose sins is intolerable, are the ones who need a physician. These who are guilty, who groan under the wrath of God, are the ones who need a pardon.

These who are condemned already, not only by God but also by their own conscience, as by 1,000 witnesses, of all their ungodliness, both in thought and word and work, cry aloud for him who justifies the ungodly through the redemption that is in Jesus, the ungodly and him who does not work. He does not, before he is justified, work anything that is good, anything truly virtuous or holy, but only evil continually. For his heart is necessarily and essentially evil until the love of God is shed abroad in it. And while the tree is corrupt, so are the fruits, for an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit.