"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:1,2).
"To him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:5).
This is the only way that anybody can ever become righteous: first admit that he is ungodly; then believe that God justifies, counts righteous, the ungodly, and he is righteous with the very righteousness of God.
Everyone in the world is ungodly. "Ungodly" means "unlike God." And it is written, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory [the goodness, the character] of God" (Rom. 3:23). Anyone therefore who will admit that he comes short of being like God in anything, in that confesses that he is ungodly.
But the truth is that everybody, in everything, has come short of being like God. For "they have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:9-18).
Then, as there is no one who is not ungodly, and as God justifies the ungodly, this on God's part makes justification--righteousness, salvation--full, free, and sure to every soul on earth.
And all that anyone needs to do to make it all sure to himself is to believe that God does justify, personally and individually, him who is ungodly.
Thus, strange as it may sound to many, the only qualification and the only preparation for justification is for a person to acknowledge that he is ungodly. Then, having such qualification, having made such preparation, all that is required of him to obtain justification, full, free, and sure, is to believe that God justifies him, the ungodly one. [1]
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