“Christ died for the ungodly” – Romans 5:6

“Christ died for the ungodly“; not for the righteous, not for the reverent and devout, but for the ungodly…”Christ died for the impious,” for those who have no reverence for God. Christ died for the godless, who, having cast off God, cast off with Him all love for that which is right…Christ did not die because men were good, or would be good, but died for them as ungodly or, in other words, “He came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Observe, then, that when the Son of God determined to die for men, He viewed them as ungodly, and far from God by wicked works…looking on them all, He whose judgment is infallible returned this verdict, “They are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Putting them down at that estimate, and nothing better, Christ died for them…Full well He knew that, left to itself, the world would grow worse and worse, and that by its very wisdom it would darken its own eyes. It was not because a golden age would come by natural progress, but just because such a thing was impossible, unless He died to procure it, that Jesus died for a race which, apart from Him, could only develop into deeper damnation. Jesus viewed us as we really were, not as our pride fancies us to be; He saw us to be without God, enemies of our own Creator, dead in trespasses and sins, corrupt, and set on mischief, and even in our occasional cry for good, searching for it with blinded judgment and prejudiced heart, so that we put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. He saw that in us was no good thing, but every possible evil, so that we were lost,-utterly, helplessly, hopelessly lost apart from Him: yet viewing us as in that graceless and Godless plight and condition, He died for us.

The gospel does not come to us as a premium for virtue, but it presents us with forgiveness for sin. It is not a reward for health, but a medicine for sickness. Therefore, to meet all cases, it puts us down at our worst, and, like the good Samaritan with the wounded traveller, it comes to us where we are. “Christ died for the impious” is a great net which takes in even the leviathan sinner; and of all the creeping sinners innumerable which swarm the sea of sin, there is not one kind which this great net does not encompass. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1191.cfm