God Justifies the Ungodly
Every child of Adam is justified through Christ (Romans 4:5). To all, both godly and ungodly, the voice of the conscience comes. It comes absolving them from the bad decisions of their fathers. It comes declaring that God has come to the womb of all men. He has set up His throne in their hearts—overshadowing them with Himself—and pronouncing them innocent.
God’s extravagant gift is timeless, coming to saint and sinner throughout history regardless of culture or knowledge of the disciplines of God. “Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don’t we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God (Romans 4:6-9 MSG)?
Indeed, “Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the ‘outs’ with God, as yet unidentified as God’s, in an ‘uncircumcised’ condition. It is precisely these people in this condition who are called ‘set right by God and with God’! (Romans 4:12 MSG)”
God’s salutation does for all men what only God can do: raise the dead to life and with a word make something out of nothing (Romans 4:17). So God speaks to each of us that mystical word of truth that each man in turn can clearly understand, painting a portrait of “that being whom He had in His thought when He began to make the child, and whom He kept in His thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea (George MacDonald).”
“A conscience is that still small voice people won’t listen to.” – Jiminy Cricket
Wm. Paul Young explains God’s all-encompassing grace this way:
“God does not wait for my choice and then save me. God has acted decisively and universally for all humankind. Now our daily choice is to either grow and participate in that reality or continue to live in the blindness of our own independence.
“Am I suggesting that everyone is saved? That I believe in universal salvation? That is exactly what I am saying! This is real good news! It has been blowing people’s minds for centuries now. …Here is the truth: every person who has ever been conceived was included in the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. When Jesus was lifted up, God “dragged” all human beings to Himself (John 12:32). Jesus is the savior of all humankind, especially believers (1 Timothy 4:10). Furthermore, every single human being is in Christ (John 1:3), and Christ is in them, and Christ is in the Father (John 14:20). When Christ—the creator in whom the cosmos was created—died, we all died. When Christ rose, we rose (2 Corinthians 5).
“We don’t judge anyone by how he or she is stuck or broken or lost, but see each person for who he or she is—the one the Holy Spirit finds and celebrates, the one Jesus leaves the ninety-nine to go find, the one the Father waits to welcome home. We don’t offer anyone what has already been given; we simply celebrate the Good News with each one: we have all been included. …The working out of our salvation, fully secured from all eternity in Jesus, is participatory. We don’t participate in the working out in order to make it true; we do so because it is true (WM. Paul Young, Lies We Believe About God).”
God’s gift is real. His eyes—true to the nature of love—only see our best and ignore our worst, regardless of our culture or spiritual aptitude. Love sees us in the context of the positive, in the context of the miracle we need next. It does not see our flaws and inadequacies for it refuses to even consider them, much less to condemn or shame us because of them.
“For He [God] causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:45
God spoke the reality of His unrestrictive, universal justification (otherwise known as conscience or enmity against sin) to Mary, “Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you…for you have found favor with God. And behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.” Because of Immanuel, God has come to the womb of all men from the foundation of the world, regardless of religion (or lack of it) or of a knowledge of the name of Jesus. Through the Spirit of Jesus, God offers all men Himself. If men and women will believe this and not refuse Him, God will be conceived within them and implanted and nurtured deep in their soul. A new birth will be the result and God’s eternal (beginningless) proposition of justification will be consummated.
