Him Who Justifies the Ungodly

Second Sunday in Lent (Reminiscere) — March 1, 2026 (Year A)

Primary Reading: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 (Epistle) Supporting Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a | Psalm 121 | John 3:1-17 Theme: God does not help the godly become more godly — he justifies the ungodly. This is the scandal on which the Church stands or falls. Working Title: “Him Who Justifies the Ungodly”

Enhancement Elements

• Word study anchor: λογίζομαι (logizomai) — “reckon/credit” — a bookkeeping term. God enters righteousness into our ledger. The value is Christ’s; the account is ours.
• Word study anchor (secondary): ἀσεβής (asebes) — “ungodly” — not the partially godly, not the sincerely trying, but the ungodly. Luther called Romans 4:5 “the most delightful text of all.”
• Luther quote: “If He justifies only the ungodly, then no one who is godly in himself is justified.” Also: Heidelberg Disputation Thesis 28 — “The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it.”
• Confessional reference: Augsburg Confession IV (Justification) — explicitly cites Romans 3 and 4. Apology IV.86: “Abraham was justified by faith, not by works.”
• Church father: Chrysostom on Romans 4:5 — “To believe that God is able to justify the ungodly — this requires a great and noble soul.”
• Hymn echo: LSB 555 — “Salvation unto Us Has Come” (Speratus) — the Reformation hymn on justification
• Common error: Abraham as moral hero (“Be brave like Abraham!”) — moralism that turns the text into Law. Also: the “wages” mentality — believing God owes you for good behavior.
• Means of grace: Baptism as the moment God credited righteousness to your account — the forensic declaration delivered in water and Word.

A. OPENING — “The Economy of Wages” (150-200 words)

Hook: Start with something everyone in Climax understands — getting paid. You work, you earn, you get what’s owed to you. Harvest follows planting. The paycheck follows the shift. Nobody tips the farmer for growing his own crop. This is how the world works. This is how we assume God works too. Be faithful, and God pays up. Skip church, and God docks your pay. It makes perfect sense. And it is completely wrong.

Bridge: This Sunday — the second of Lent — Paul takes us to the strangest courtroom you’ve ever seen. The defendant is guilty. The evidence is clear. And the Judge declares him righteous. Not because the case was weak. Because the Judge paid the fine himself.

Thesis: God does not justify the godly. He justifies the ungodly. And until you hear this as good news — until you hear it as the only news that can save you — you haven’t heard the gospel.

Transition to Problem: But we resist this. Every fiber in us resists this. Because we have built our lives on the economy of wages.

B. THE PROBLEM — “Keeping Score” (300-400 words)

Surface problem: We are all scorekeepers. We keep track of who showed up and who didn’t. Who put in the work and who coasted. Who deserves a break and who had it coming. And we assume God keeps the same ledger.

Scripture anchor — Romans 4:4: Quote: “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due” (Romans 4:4). Paul names the system we all operate in. He calls it the economy of wages — ὀφείλημα (opheilema), a debt owed. Under this system, God is your employer. You put in your hours of faithfulness, and he owes you. You show up to church, read your Bible, keep your nose clean — and God had better deliver. That is not faith. That is a contract.

Deeper diagnosis: And the problem with the contract is not that God fails to keep his end. The problem is that your account is overdrawn. Paul has spent three chapters proving this (Romans 1-3): every mouth is stopped. All have sinned. No one is righteous. If God deals in wages, we are bankrupt.

Key teaching moment — Abraham’s resume: Quote Joshua 24:2: “Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates… and they served other gods.” Abraham was an idolater. His family worshiped the moon god in Ur. He did not earn God’s call. He did not build an impressive spiritual resume. God broke into a pagan household and said Lech-lecha — “Go.” Sheer initiative. No audition. No application.

The Nicodemus parallel: And then there’s Nicodemus (John 3:1-2). A ruler of the Jews. A Pharisee. Israel’s teacher. He comes to Jesus at night with his credentials in hand — and Jesus tells him he must be born again. From above. From God’s side. All that learning, all that moral seriousness, all that religious devotion — and it cannot produce the new birth. “That which is born of flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). Flesh cannot transcend itself.

Small-town specifics: In Climax, we know what scorekeeping sounds like. I’ve been going to church my whole life. I raised my kids right. I never missed a Sunday. And then comes the quiet thought: So why isn’t God holding up his end? That’s the economy of wages. And it always ends in either pride or despair. Pride if you think your account is in the black. Despair if you know it isn’t.

Transition to Turn: So if the godly can’t earn it and the ungodly don’t deserve it — where does that leave us?

C. THE TURN — “The Most Delightful Text of All” (200-300 words)

The pivot verse — Romans 4:5: Quote the verse in full and let it hang: “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Read it again. Slowly. “The one who does not work.” “Him who justifies the ungodly.” Luther called this “the most delightful text of all.” And it is — once you stop fighting it.

The word study — λογίζομαι: Here is where the Greek does its work. The word λογίζομαι (logizomai) is a bookkeeping term. It means to credit an account, to enter into the ledger, to reckon as belonging to someone. Paul uses it eleven times in Romans 4 — the repetition is deliberate. God is keeping books. But the entry he makes is not the one we earned. He credits righteousness to the account of those who believe. The value on the ledger is Christ’s. The account is ours.

The scandal — ἀσεβής: Now look at the object of God’s justifying work. Not the “partially godly.” Not the “sincerely trying.” The ἀσεβής — the ungodly. Every religious system in the world assumes God rewards the good and punishes the bad. Paul says the opposite. God justifies the ungodly. This is not the fine print. This is the headline.

The Heidelberg thesis: Luther at Heidelberg in 1518, Thesis 28: “The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it.” Human love goes looking for something lovable. God’s love makes the unlovable lovely. Justification is not God recognizing your hidden goodness. It is God creating righteousness where there was none — ex nihilo, out of nothing. The same God who called creation out of darkness calls sinners righteous.

Transition to Gospel: But how? How can a righteous God declare the unrighteous righteous? Where does the righteousness come from?

D. THE GOSPEL — “Alien Righteousness” (400-500 words)

The answer — Christ’s righteousness credited: This is the heart of the post. The righteousness God credits is not our own. It is alien righteousness — iustitia aliena — righteousness from outside us, from Christ. When God the Father looks at a baptized Christian, he does not see your moral resume. He sees the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. Christ’s perfect obedience — his keeping of every commandment, his resistance of every temptation, his faithful death on the cross — is entered into your ledger. Your account reads: paid in full.

Scripture anchor — Romans 4:17: Quote: “…the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” This is not an abstract theological principle. This is what God does. He gives life to the dead. He calls things into existence out of nothing. Justification IS resurrection — the spiritually dead declared alive. Justification IS creation — righteousness spoken into being where there was none. This is the God Abraham trusted: not a God who helps the strong get stronger, but a God who raises the dead.

The Genesis 12 connection: And now Genesis 12 comes alive. God calls Abraham — an idolater from a pagan city — and promises to make him a blessing to all families of the earth. Not because Abraham is worthy. Because God is faithful. The five blessings of Genesis 12:2-3 cascade down: I will bless, I will make great, you will be a blessing, I will bless those who bless you, in you all families shall be blessed. Against the curses piling up since Eden — serpent cursed, ground cursed, Cain cursed — God answers with an avalanche of blessing. Grace flows downhill.

Chrysostom’s observation: Chrysostom, preaching in fourth-century Antioch: “See how great a thing faith is! When the patriarch was not yet circumcised, nor had he offered Isaac, nor done anything great, he was justified by his faith alone.” And on the scandal of Romans 4:5: “To believe that God is able to justify the ungodly — this requires a great and noble soul.” Not because faith is our contribution. Because faith is the surrender of every contribution.

Means of Grace — Baptism as the credited moment: But this is not ancient history. Where does this alien righteousness reach you? In your Baptism. The font is where God opened a ledger with your name on it and wrote righteousness in Christ’s hand. You do not need to wonder whether you are justified. You can point to the water. The Large Catechism: “The power, effect, benefit, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is that it saves.” And Paul in Romans 4:16: “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed.” Guaranteed — βεβαίαν — because it rests on grace, not on your performance.

The Lord’s Supper: And at the Table, the God who justifies the ungodly feeds you with the body and blood of the One whose righteousness is yours. You come with empty hands — the beggar’s hands of faith — and you receive what you could never earn.

Transition to Application: So what does it look like to live as someone whose account has been settled?

E. LIVING IN THE LIGHT — “The Beggar’s Hand” (250-350 words)

Grounding in the indicative: Because you have been declared righteous — not so that you might become righteous — you are free. Free from the scorekeeping. Free from the anxious calculus of whether you’ve done enough. Free to look at your neighbor without keeping track.

The Psalm 121 connection: And now Psalm 121 sings. The pilgrim lifts his eyes — not to his own resources, not to his moral resume, but to the LORD. “My help is from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” The God who justified Abraham, who credits righteousness to the ungodly, who gives life to the dead — this God keeps you. Six times in eight verses: he keeps. He does not slumber. He does not sleep. Your standing before God does not depend on your vigilance. It depends on his.

Concrete for Climax:

• The church member who hasn’t been to communion in months, who feels too far gone to come back — God justifies the ungodly. Not the cleaned-up. Not the ready. The ungodly. Come as you are, because you will never be ready enough.
• The parent carrying guilt for how the kids turned out — your worth before God is not measured by your children’s choices. It was settled at the font.
• The neighbor you can’t forgive, the grudge you’ve nursed for years — you are living proof that God forgives the undeserving. Can you hold a debt that God has cancelled?

Confessional anchor — AC IV: “People are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake.” Freely. For Christ’s sake. Through faith. Not through performance. Not through track record. Through trusting the God who justifies the ungodly.

Avoid moralism: This is not “stop keeping score.” That’s just another scorekeeping system. This is: the score has been settled. By someone else. For you.

Transition to Conclusion: Luther knew this. And he said it better than anyone.

F. CONCLUSION — “The Most Delightful Text” (150-200 words)

Circle back to opening: You came in thinking God runs on the economy of wages. Work hard, get paid. Be good, get blessed. But Paul — and Abraham, and Nicodemus, and the pilgrim on the road to Jerusalem — testify to something else entirely. A God who does not find the lovable but creates the lovely. A God who does not reward the righteous but declares the unrighteous righteous. A God who does not help the living but raises the dead.

Luther’s voice — Preface to Romans: “Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.” Faith is not your contribution to the transaction. Faith is the open hand that receives. The beggar’s hand. Empty — and therefore full.

Hymn anchor: “Salvation unto Us Has Come” — “It is a work God does alone / The faith that lays hold thereupon / He also freely giveth.”

Final line: You do not need a better resume. You need a better righteousness. And you already have it. It was credited to your account before you could lift a finger — by the God who justifies the ungodly.

Practical Notes

Estimated Word Counts

Key Verses to Quote in Full

1. Romans 4:4 — “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due”
2. Romans 4:5 — “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness”
3. Romans 4:17 — “…the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist”
4. Genesis 12:1-3 — The call and fivefold blessing
5. John 3:6 — “That which is born of flesh is flesh”
6. Romans 4:16 — “…in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed”

Scripture Flow Through Post

• Opening: Romans 4:4 (the economy of wages)
• Problem: Romans 4:4, Joshua 24:2, John 3:1-6 (scorekeeping and its dead end)
• Turn: Romans 4:5 + Greek word studies (the scandal)
• Gospel: Romans 4:17 + Genesis 12:1-4a + Baptism (alien righteousness delivered)
• Application: Psalm 121 + AC IV (the kept pilgrim)
• Conclusion: Luther’s Preface to Romans, LSB 555

Rhetorical Questions (Forward Motion)

• “So why isn’t God holding up his end?”
• “Where does that leave us?”
• “How can a righteous God declare the unrighteous righteous?”
• “Where does this alien righteousness reach you?”
• “Can you hold a debt that God has cancelled?”

Illustration Seeds (Rural/Small Town)

• The economy of wages — paycheck, harvest, getting what you’re owed
• The overdrawn account — bankruptcy, the ledger that doesn’t balance
• The courtroom — guilty defendant declared righteous because the Judge paid the fine
• The beggar’s empty hand — adds nothing to the gift, simply receives
• The church member who feels too far gone to come back