4. “God Justifies the Ungodly”
The Scriptures state that God justifies the ungodly.
“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom 4:5).
God justifies an elect at His appointed and approved time when he is still in a state of ungodliness. An elect in a state of ungodliness is still in his native state of sin, condemnation and death, and is incapable of faith. He is spiritually dead. God by His free grace effectually called him to life.
But when God justifies him in his state of ungodliness at effectual calling, he is also regenerated and adopted and the graces of repentance and faith, along with all other saving graces, worked in him by the indwelling Holy Spirit. This enables him to believe at the gospel call. In believing, his ‘faith is accounted to him for righteousness’. This describes the subjective and personal experience of his justified state of being righteous before God. It is the accounting of the believer’s faith to him in order that he may experience the blessedness of having been justified and declared righteous.
The believer’s faith accounted to him for righteousness is not the same as Christ’s righteousness accounted to the believer for his justification. Please don’t confuse the two. It is not a description of justification, i.e., the act of God’s free grace in which He pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. It is not a description of justification applied – legal and objective. It is a description of justification evidenced – experiential and subjective.
This becomes very obvious when you consider this plain fact concerning Abraham. Romans 4:1-8 refers to a momentous historical incident recorded in Gen 15:1-6. This historical event happened some 20 plus years after the event recorded in Gen 12:1ff. It is an undisputed fact that Abraham was already a justified and believing man in Gen 12-14. This is Scriptures’ own infallible witness. “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went” Heb 11:8. Those who hold to the ‘standard Reformed position’ would have to insist, if they are to remain consistent, that Abraham was not a justified man until Gen 15 since they insist that it was at that point that God justified him, i.e., Abraham secured his justification, i.e., secured his right standing before God. This view, to be consistent, must deny Abraham’s right standing with God in Gen 12-14! An unjustified man is a man still in his native state of sin and condemnation of death!!!
To believe that Abram was NOT a justified man – i.e., still a condemned man in the sight of God before the event recorded in Gen 15:1-6 is a basic theological blunder with serious implications. The ‘standard reformed view’ of the doctrine of justification is built upon this blunder. Please read carefully those chapters and observe what kind of a man you see in Abram. Do you see a justified man or an unjustified man? We see a man of faith. By faith Abram obeyed God – ‘so Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him.’ By faith Abram built altars to the Lord in the various places he sojourned. He was a man who called on the name of the Lord, and a man to whom the Lord appeared again and again. By faith he said, “I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth” Gen 14:22. Is this the picture of a man not justified, a man still under the condemnation of God? Abram was a justified man who needed to be brought to faith in the promised seed, which is what happened in Gen 15:1-6.
If Abram was already a justified man, then how are we to understand Gen 15:1-6 and Romans 4:1-8? Is justification repeated in Gen 15:1-6? Is justification repeatable in the ‘standard reformed’ system? Is Romans 4:1-8 dealing with justification, i.e., the act of God’s free grace in which He pardons all of Abraham sins, and accepts him as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to him? If not, what is the passage speaking about? Does the passage speak about justification anyway? Does it speak of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness – which is so commonly assumed? What is imputed, and for what? Is there a slightest evidence of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness for justification?
