Written by Rev. Nicholas Davelaar
Published in the Courier of Russellville, Arkansas

Everyone should know about alien righteousness. It’s at the heart of the gospel message.

That might sound bizarre, but only because when we see the word “alien,” what first comes to mind is either a person from another country or a little green creature from outer space.

That noted, the word “alien” can also be used as an adjective. The word “alien” can indicate that a certain person, place, or thing is strange or foreign. Put differently, something alien is not familiar or native.

To give an example, people sometimes refer to kudzu as an alien plant. This infamous vine originally came from Asia. Now it infests the American South. In fact, kudzu is sometimes called “the vine that ate the South.” For better or worse, this alien plant has made itself at home here.

In much the same way that an alien plant is a plant that is not native to a region, an alien righteousness is a righteousness that is not native to a people. Alien righteousness is a right standing before the holy God of heaven and earth that is foreign to you and me in the wake of Adam’s rebellion.

We are sinners; on our own, none of us is righteous according to Romans 3:9-10. You and I will not and cannot make ourselves right with God, nor even escape the wrath of God we deserve on account of our sin. We need a righteousness that is foreign to us, a righteousness we haven’t had since Adam rebelled against God.

How then can we be right with God?

Years ago one of the Protestant Reformers asked that very question: “How are you right with God?” He then went right on to give this answer as a summary of what the Bible teaches:

“Only by true faith in Jesus Christ.

“Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.

“All I need to do is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart.”

Is that your hope? Is your hope, your confidence in an alien righteousness, namely Christ’s righteousness? Or are you resting in your own, either completely or in part?

Think about that.

​For further study, read 1 Corinthians 1:30–31.

Written by Rev. Nicholas Davelaar
Published in the Courier of Russellville, Arkansas

Do you still sin?

A friend of mine once told me about a Christian co-worker who claimed not to have sinned for the past seven years or so. Not once. Needless to say, as they talked, it became clear to my friend that his co-worker had a very narrow definition of sin. Nothing like, for instance, Jesus’ rigorous understanding displayed in Matthew 5-7.

Do you still sin?

As one pastor has observed, there are two kinds of people in the world, but those two kinds are different from what he had long supposed. He came to understand that the two kinds of people in the world were not good people and bad people, but rather bad people who know it and bad people who don’t know it.

In the same vein, the Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wished it was possible to divide the world into good people and bad people. In his famous Gulag Archipelago, he lamented, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Think about that. “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” That’s not Scripture, but it’s closer to Scripture than a lot of what passes for Christianity.

Do you still sin?

Yes?

Allow me then to share with you an old Latin phrase. Latin can be scary, but this phrase is absolutely beautiful because it summarizes what the Bible says about a person who trusts in Jesus Christ for forgiveness.

As Martin Luther (1483-1546) famously declared, each person who trusts in Jesus Christ for forgiveness is simul iustus et peccator. Translated, that means “at the same time righteous and a sinner.”

That conclusion arose especially out of Luther’s study of the book of Romans. Romans doesn’t avoid acknowledging the reality and depth of our sinful nature. In fact, it bluntly tells us who we are. Yet, again and again it also tells us how and why we are reconciled to God. It tells us how and why we, though sinful, may stand declared righteous before God.

Simply put, the way of reconciliation is not by cleaning up our act in one way or another, but instead by trusting in Jesus Christ, whom God the Father graciously sent to die on the cross and rise from the dead to reconcile condemned sinners to himself. Indeed, Romans 8:1 marvelously declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

To borrow the dying words of John Newton, the famous writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” the long and short of the gospel is that we are great sinners, but Christ is a great Savior. In him, on account of his death and resurrection, each one of us who trusts in him stands declared righteous before God, though still a sinner.

Does that mean we need not strive against sin? Not at all. But the unmistakable call of the gospel is to receive and rest in Jesus Christ, as opposed to putting our confidence in our striving (or being crestfallen by our lack thereof).

Think about that.

For further study, read Romans 3:21-26.