Therefore, my loved ones, just as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence—work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For the One working in you is God—both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you might be blameless and innocent, children of God in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. Among them you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that I may boast in the day of Messiah that I did not run or labor in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and the service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. The same way, you also—rejoice and share your joy with me!
Phil 2:12-18
I gave you some key verses in the last Gem to help you avoid falling into the trap that many Christians fall into on the strength of the end of verse 12.
‘. . . work out your salvation with fear and trembling’.
Phil 2:12
Over the years I can’t count the number of times well-meaning people who have been Christians for a long time have taken on board the idea that we work out our own salvation on the basis of this verse. Can you see that to do that after Jesus went to the lengths He did to save us from ourselves would be to negate His incarnation, His Suffering for our sin , His substitutionary death on our behalf, His Resurrection from the dead and the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself? After all Paul laid out for us in Phil 2:5-11, to then think that we are to work out our own salvation is sheer craziness. But many do it. I once took the approach of arguing from the other side of a major issue. The issue was the Prosperity Doctrine and the Gem was Bible Gem 869 [888] Prosperity (Luke 8:8, Matt 13:8, Mark 4:8) The response to that Gem was interesting. I spend half the Gem arguing or talking as though I had bought into the Prosperity Doctrine in order to demonstrate the error of thinking like that. I had a number of Gem followers write back to me declaring they almost stopped halfway – after I had warned people not to that – concluding that Ian had switched sides and lost the plot.
I must admit that thought crossed my mind to do that in this case but I thought better of it. There will be no quirky creativity on this passage. The issue is too important and the likelihood too great of me leading you into error given our natural human tendencies to want to do it ourselves. I won’t play with this topic in the same way I did with the Prosperity Doctrine. I want to help you avoid the error of concluding that Paul is saying here, “Well just work out your own salvation for yourself then.” Before we dig into what Paul is saying here let’s just look at some other key things to help our understanding.
Notice the “Therefore” that begins this segment of Philippians we are looking at. This passage is connected to what went before it. All we did in seeking to understand more deeply That Majestic Passage” is relevant here. If Paul is meaning for us to take at face value his comment “work out your own salvation in fear and trembling” then there was no point in Christ emptying Himself and humbling Himself to the point of the incarnation – the degrading step for Christ as God to take on human flesh. Paul must have been meaning something else with those words.
- To think like that in this day and age when facts are no longer facts and you can have your view of truth and I can have mine. . .
- To think all religious views have some truth and will ultimately lead to God. . .
- To think you can work out your salvation and I’ll work out mine and we’ll see each other up there in heaven. . .
- To think we humans are all born blameless and without sin so we don’t need saving . . .
. . . only intensifies the nature of the trap.
We human beings certainly need saving from ourselves! The naked truth is we can’t save ourselves. We need help. God tells us our righteousness, our ability to make ourselves right with Him by our own efforts is as filthy rags in His sight. (Isaiah 64:6) If we think we can make ourselves right with God by keeping the Law we will fail. Jesus said He came to make the Law complete, to spell out God’s standard. (Matt 5:17)
Moses’ standard was don’t murder | Jesus standard is don’t harbour anger |
Moses standard was don’t commit adultery | Jesus standard is don’t look with lust |
Paul told us if you want to keep the Law | You must keep all of it |
If we think we will take care of our own salvation, we inevitably turn to keep the rules. But we know we can’t do that, certainly on the level a Holy God might expect. So we water the standard down to keeping most of the rules. In other words that bottom line thinking of most human beings is “as long as my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds I will be alright when the roll is called up yonder.” But God’s word on the matter is you need help; you need a Saviour. The One God promised for centuries. We think we can get there by our righteousness. God tells us our righteousness ain’t going to cut it. We need His Righteousness which is only available in Christ. Look at Romans 3:21 contrast in tandem with Romans 1:18. The wrath of God is being made known [Rom 1:18] now in this day and age and in every age since Paul wrote those words. Contrasted with that, the righteousness of God has been made known at a particular point in time in Christ. That is what Paul described in vivid detail in the majestic passage before this one. Oh just take in the grandeur of it.
After all that, do you really think you can continue to work out your salvation yourself by keeping the law?
I will develop the idea of this Do It Yourself trap as we continue to ponder this passage. (Philippians 2:12-18)
I won’t lead you astray by playing the devil’s advocate as I did in Gem 869. Especially as many of you Gems followers now are following intermittently: ‘The pressures of life Ian in these Covid times. Besides your Gems are often long, like running a marathon.” Yes, that’s right i like to really dig into things and cover all the angles. I guess it comes down to your attitude to death; not your attitude to life. I have seen that in the number of funerals I have attended live or online lately. We can put off the big questions under the excuse of busyness, but death and dying brings those questions to life again. With every funeral we have a brief moment to ponder the deep questions of life, only to brush them aside and carry on with life. But we can only do that until it catches up with us. You know what I mean. I don’t need to spell it out.
I attended a funeral yesterday that was one of the most amazing Christian funerals I have been to. The sense of celebrating Grace Jasmine Adams’ life, a life-well-lived was refreshing to say the least. But it’s only possible when we have sorted out life’s big questions for ourselves. You will have a chance to participate in Grace’s funeral if you wish. Her funeral will be the focus of the first episode of the 5th Series of the TV programme “The Casketeers” when the series returns. But who would want to do that?
“I don’t know her Ian. There is no point me participating in watching her funeral in that up-coming TV episode .”
“I guess if you have the matters of life and death squared away or if you think that there is no Afterlife then it is not something that bears thinking about.”
But if you’re wrong and there is everlasting life after you die, then it does become important. Especially if the Afterlife is Zoe Life, the Life of the Age to Come, when God will restore LIFE as He intended it when He first created it. Can you imagine, more clearly now that we have looked at That Majestic Passage, the feelings you may have when you bow the knee to the God you rejected and have to say to yourself, “Oh My God [OMG} YOU ARE REAL AFTER ALL! EVERYTHING IN THE BIBLE WAS TRUE LIKE THEY SAID.”
Do you really want to take that chance?
THERE ARE THOSE WHO SAY: All religions lead to God in the end. It doesn’t matter which you follow.
THERE ARE THOSE WHO SAY: There is no Afterlife. We just return to dust or ashes and are merged with the ecosphere again.
Can you imagine, more clearly now that we have looked at That Majestic Passage, the feelings you may have when you bow the knee to the God you rejected and have to say, “Oh My God [OMG} YOU ARE REAL AFTER ALL! EVERYTHING IN THE BIBLE WAS TRUE LIKE THEY SAID.”
Ian Vail