God had so loved him, all ungodly as he was, that He sent Christ to die for the ungodly. God’s judgment had fallen on Christ, who had been forsaken by God as He paid the penalty for people’s sins there on the cross.

Twice recently I’ve had the opportunity to speak on the subject of God justifying (declaring as righteous) sinful people who trust in Jesus Christ to rescue them from their sin and the divine judgment it deserves. An incident from the ministry of William R. Newell, a popular Bible teacher in the opening decades of the twentieth century, illustrates this profound truth beautifully.

In 1895, at the age of twenty-seven, Newell was invited by Dwight Moody to become the assistant superintendent of Moody Bible Institute under R. A. Torrey. Newell was a gifted Bible teacher, and large audiences flocked to attend the weeks-long, city-wide Bible classes that he taught in Chicago, St. Louis and Toronto.

Once while holding daily noon meetings in the Century Theatre in St. Louis, Newell spoke on Romans 4:5 from the old King James Version of the Bible: “To him that worketh not, but believeth in Him who justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto him for righteousness.” After the meeting, Newell was approached by a middle-aged man who introduced himself by saying: “I am Captain G—. You are speaking to the most ungodly man in St. Louis.”

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