A few years ago a string of words in Philippians 2 (the passage below) had a deep impact on me.
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13).
I had often heard people quote the phrase “work out your salvation.” But I had never heard the words that follow it ever mentioned. And then one day, it hit me like a freight train. The ground clause that “it is God who works in you to will and to work” changed everything as I realized “working out my salvation” didn’t mean what I thought it meant. What I once read as a warning (like those found in the book of Hebrews about falling away) I now understood as encouragement not only to boast in my weakness, but to revel in the might and kindness of God.
Let me explain.
Theologians often make the distinction between INDICATIVES (what God has DONE) and IMPERATIVES (what we must DO). Paul grounds the imperative (“work out your salvation”) firmly in the indicative of God’s sovereign grace (“for God works in you”). When He works WITHIN, we are able to work it OUT. Or, to say it another way, we can only work OUT what God has worked WITHIN. This apostolic logic of Paul’s must be grasped to properly understand the appeal.
Note the word “for” that joins the two propositions together. God’s willing and working is the ground clause (or ‘reason’) for our subsequent willing and working. Yes, we work. Yes, we will. We sweat. We bleed. We cry. We strive. We labor. But our willing and our working is not first or decisive. God’s is. In other words, as followers of Jesus, divine grace is the decisive “first cause” of all our willing and working. He moves, and then we move. He wills, and then we will. He works, and then we work.
Another important component of this commonly misunderstood command is the definition of the word “work” that Paul uses twice in vs. 12-13. The word “works” in the phrase “…God who works in you…” literally means “to exert overwhelming force” or “to act effectively.” Thus, elsewhere Paul could say:
“I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
We must trace our willing and working back to God’s willing and working. He wills IN US that we might will as we ought. He works IN US that we might work as we ought. This must be the theological foundation upon which we stand as we labor to work out our salvation.
“Turn [grk: "shub"] us unto Thee O Lord and we shall be turned [grk: shub]…” (Lamentation 5:21)
