Alien Righteousness? - Timothy Ministries

and his enduring the penalty of the law in our stead and on our
behalf. 11
Or as he put it succinctly in an earlier passage of his Systematic Theology,
“By [Christ’s] obedience [believers] are justified.” 12 A current admirer of
Charles Hodge, Robert L. Reymond, concurs, saying, “Christ’s character and
conduct are the determinative ground of [the believer’s] approbation before
God.” 13 Let us understand, then, that according to this doctrine the ultimate
basis for justification is perfect obedience. Alien Righteousness proponents
teach that we must be able to present a perfect record of ethical performance
to God in order to be justified, even if that record is someone else’s. R. C.
Sproul analyzes John Calvin’s view on this matter and says, “Calvin identifies
only two possible ways God can [justify a sinner]: that person is justified
either by his own works or by Christ’s works.” 14
2. Justification by our own works is impossible.
Of course, Calvin emphasized that no sinner can be justified by his own
works. Regarding justification, he said,
… a man will be justified by faith when, excluded from the
righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of
Christ, and clothed in it appears in the sight of God not as a sinner,
but as righteous. 15
According to Calvin, then, man is excluded from attaining righteousness by
works. However, by this he meant “by his own works.” Calvin believed that
sinners are justified by the works of Christ.
3. As our federal head, Jesus was also our ethical representative.
Justification by the works of Christ is possible, according to Alien
Righteousness proponents, because Christ is our new “federal head,” our
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Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Electronic Edition, Vol. III, III vols. (Oak Harbor,
WA: Logos, 1997), p. 118.
Ibid., Vol. II, p. 551.
Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology Of The Christian Faith (Nashville, TN:
Thomas Nelson, 1998), p. 440.
R. C. Sproul, Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine Of Justification (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker, 2000), p. 101, citing Calvin’s Institutes, 2:38 (3.11.2). Calvin was a French
Reformer, 1509-1564. He does not speak of being justified by “Christ’s works,” but Sproul
has captured what Calvin means by his oft repeated phrase in the Institutes, “the
righteousness of Christ.”
John Calvin, Institutes Of Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Bellingham, WA:
Logos Research Systems, 1997), III, xi, 2.
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