“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.

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     This is a profound, a deep saying.  “It is God who works in you both to will and to work.”

Listen to this, you who have struggled to convert yourselves, but have not succeeded.  You have learned that conversion is a change of heart, which you have not been able to accomplish.

     Your heart is as full of selfish, vain, begrudging, bitter, and unclean thoughts as ever.  Your desire is toward sin, even though you struggle against it.  Your desire is not toward God.  You must compel yourself to pray and read the Bible.  And when you occasionally do what you think is the will of God, you do so very unwillingly.

I     Listen to the secret which the apostle has to confide to you:  “It is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.”  This is of decisive importance in connection with the salvation and the peace of your soul.

     God does not expect you to have the power to change your heart by the power of your own will, and thus enable you to hate sin and love God.  He does not expect you to be able to press out of your own heart a desire to pray or read the Word of God, nor does He expect you to be able with a willing mind to serve Him and sacrifice and suffer for Him.

     Of you He expects only this one thing that you tell Him the truth; tell Him the truth as to the attitude of your heart and the life you are living.   Moreover, you cannot even do this of yourself.

It is God who must work also this.  He it is who must tell you this truth.  Of yourself you cannot even see the truth about yourself.  It is He who by His Spirit must convince you in such a way that you not only know the truth, but also are inwardly, personally convinced that you are as sinful as the Spirit of God says you are.

     That you desire to be converted—that, too, God has worked within you.

     The Scriptures say that God gives repentance and remission of sins (Acts 5:31).  He gives repentance by working in your will until you freely and without compulsion desire to become penitent.

     That God succeeded in making you penitent was no easy task either. When He first began to work on your will, you would not yield.  You resisted Him—perhaps for a long time.  You tried in many ways to rid yourself of the influence which the will of God had begun to exert upon you.

     But God did not give up.  He continued to work in your will until its opposition ceased.  The victory was won the moment you yourself voluntarily began to will to be converted. From that moment it was easier for God to work in you.  From then on, you were with Him; before you were against Him.

     Nevertheless, you were still in His way. God had to continue to work in you, in order to make you understand what conversion is. You thought that to be converted meant to decide by your own will power to cease your former manner of life, to remove your desire toward sin, and to compel yourself to love God by your own will.

     But now God has worked in you, and you know from your own experience that it is impossible for you to do these things.  You have been brought “under the judgment of God.”  You know now that in you, that is, in your flesh, dwells no good thing.

     God would now show you that conversion is not a decision on your part by which you can change your own will, but a decision by which you declare that you are in agreement with God when He says that your will has been completely ruined by sin and is absolutely useless in this respect.  You declare yourself in agreement with God when He says that your only hope is to have God create a new will within you, in fact, a whole new being.

     Hear the gospel of conversion:  This new thing God will work in you.  Because you cannot.  You must declare yourself in agreement with God when He says that your old will is impotent.  When you by the Spirit experience how impotent and how evil your own will is, do not despair or lose courage. Simply go to God and say, “Dear Lord, You see how useless my own will is.  Create within me a new will.  And after You have created it, continue to strengthen this new will within me.”

     Now you understand that you shouldn’t try in your own strength to change yourself when a desire toward sin manifests itself within you, you feel that you are worldly and a stranger to God, with no desire to read the Word of God and to pray, and you find but little joy in doing the will of God.  Instead you should acknowledge the facts as they are.  Then God will do what God alone can do:  He will forgive you.

     * This does not seem plausible or possible to you.  You are right.  To forgive sinners is such a serious matter with God that He Himself had to become incarnate and give His blood for us in order to forgive us our sins. But when God has forgiven you, then the new-created will which He gave to you when you were born anew is strengthened.  Then He can once more freely and unhindered work in your will in such a way that you both will and work in conformity with the will of God.

     Conversion is first and foremost a gift.

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II     Philippians 2:12 is written to believing Christians. The passage contains deep thoughts, which appear to be self-contradictory.  Let us consider them briefly.  It says, “Work out your own salvation.”

Can this be reconciled with the plain words of the Scriptures about salvation being by grace, apart from works, that is, without work?  Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 4:5; 3:20.

     The words which follow are even more remarkable:  “with fear and trembling.”

Paul himself said “You received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but you received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!”  (Romans 8:15).  Which John confirms when he says, “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

     Here we see how careful we must be when we read the Bible.  Truth has many sides.  Life is rich.  Let us be careful to take into account everything that the Scriptures contain on each particular subject.

     Now let us try to reconcile these statements.

     In the first place, the Scriptures tell us that there is a fear which the Spirit of God casts out of a sinner’s heart as soon as He has convinced him of sin and endued him with the righteousness of Christ. The spirit of bondage vanished, that spirit which always fears, because it knows and expects no other love and favor of God than what it has itself merited by its own fulfillment of the law.

     This fear is cast out when we see that God loves us, not because we love and serve Him, but because He loves us.  He loved us while we were still His enemies, and He justifies the ungodly for Christ’s sake. The spirit of bondage gives way to that childlike trust which looks confidently and with boldness up to our holy God and says, “Father!”

     At the same time the Scriptures say there is a fear which a sinner is not saved from but saved into.  This fear is called childlike fear, to distinguish it from that which we have just mentioned, which is called slavish fear. The expression childlike fear is a good one because this fear is characteristic of the children, the sons, of God.

     In Luke 12:4-5 and following verses Jesus speaks to His friends about this fear. First, He tells them of the various kinds of fear which they should overcome.  Then He mentions one fear which they should retain: “But I will warn you whom you shall fear:  Fear him, who after he has killed has power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you Fear him.”

     Here, Jesus says, is a fear of God which has a place in discipleship, in sonship.  There is a connection between this fear and the fact that God is a consuming fire (Heb.12:29) toward all sin such that He casts that sinner, who definitely refuses to let God save him from his sins, into hell with both body and soul.

     Here it appears as if childlike fear is exactly like slavish fear, because the spirit of bondage is also afraid of the punishment of God, and of hell especially. But there is a great difference between these two fears.

     Slavish fear is afraid of the punishment only.  It sees God as a harsh, strict, and despotic Lord, who would rather punish than do anything else. Childlike fear is not afraid of the punishment only, but of sin itself, of the very idea of sinning against God, of violating the will of God, of grieving His heart.

     For this reason some have wanted to define childlike fear as reverence.  Which is right enough; childlike fear includes everything that we mean by reverence, from holy respect to blind submission.

     If childlike fear is defined only as reverence, then it is incompatible with the words of Jesus and Paul quoted above, “Fear and trembling.”  Both these expressions connote more than reverence or awe.  When Jesus tells His disciples to fear the God who casts into hell, it is clear that He uses the word fear in its most direct sense, namely, a lively feeling that God is one who is dangerous.

     Right here is the fundamental difference between fear and reverence.  The feelings connoted by reverence do not suggest anything dangerous in connection with the one reverenced. But the feeling which we call fear suggests at once something dangerous.  And when Jesus says that we should fear God, He thereby says that there is something dangerous about God.

     And no man can escape feeling that there is something dangerous about God, provided he comes close enough to Him. (Fear of the Lord grows as I move closer to Him.)  But we must remember that we human being have misunderstood every aspect of God—including the dangerous aspect.

     In Israel it was seen as dangerous to see God, that is, receive a revelation of God.  God desired to impress upon His chosen people that there was something dangerous about God. Through His revelation of  Himself He taught that the dangerous aspect of God was connected with His holiness, His hatred of sin.

     That is why God is dangerous to sinners.  Not to all sinners, however.  God is not a God whom humble, repentant, and confessing sinners need fear, because they have availed themselves of the grace made possible to them by the sacrifice of the New Covenant and thus have received atonement for their sins.  He is now their merciful and loving Savior, who delivers them out of all danger.

     God is dangerous to sinners who disobey His commandments and set at naught Christ’s sacrificial atonement.  Jesus touches upon it in the passage from Luke 12 cited above.  He says that the dangerous thing about God is His holiness, which casts both body and soul into hell if the sinner despises and rejects His salvation.  Jesus would have His disciples know and feel this danger in connection with God.

     Moreover, this fear is a childlike fear and arises from a different source than slavish fear.  It is known by those who have accepted the grace of God and who know His love.  This fear proceeds from our knowledge of God whose love is so great that He cannot tolerate sin, and therefore must cast us into hell if we misuse (reject, trample underfoot the blood of the cross) His saving grace. (Hebrews 10:31)

     Jesus Himself felt this fear in His own sinless soul.  Jesus was afraid of only one thing, which He feared above all else: to misuse His Father’s love.

     Jesus gave expression to this fear in various ways.

     Thus in His sharp words to His mother, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”  (John 2:4).  No doubt He felt at the time that her prayer was a temptation to Him to act before the Father’s appointed hour.

Or His words to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23). Or when the Greeks came to see Jesus:  “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?” (John 12:27). 

     But above all, of course, we think of His anxiety of soul in Gethsemane and on the cross. The deepest element in Jesus’ fear in connection with His passion was without question His fear of the diabolical temptations which at that time were crowding in upon His lonely soul.  At that time He felt the temptation to disobedience more than at any other time.

     His fear of these temptations was undoubtedly the human expression of God’s own eternal hatred of sin.

     The childlike fear which we have resembles this.

     Because we are born of God and have been made partakers of divine nature, we have also been made partakers of God’s holy hatred and fear of sin.  And this manifests itself in a conscientious child of God, as in Jesus, in anxiety of soul lest he sin, lest he act contrary to the will of God.

     The childlike aspect of this fear is seen in the fact that it is sin which is feared, not merely the consequences of sin, sin which makes separation between us and God, casts us away from God, and, if we continue therein, casts us with body and soul into hell.

     The childlike aspect of this fear reveals itself also in the fact that it does not decrease but rather increases in the believing soul as time passes.  Never is it stronger than when a believer lives a fresh and rich life in God.  The more he lives by grace and the more he learns to know grace in all its forgiving and transforming power, the more he feels the risk connected with grace.

     ** Unquestionably this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote the words, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to work.”  The fact that God does all from first to last is what produces our deepest fears—of offending His holiness.

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III     “Work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you both to will and to do.”

These words, too, sound self-contradictory. To the believer these words are a profound and beautiful description of his most blessed experiences. He knows that it is God who works in him.  And that from first to last He can with a whole heart say with Paul, “All things are of God.” Everything is of God:  creation, redemption, baptism, the call, repentance, faith, regeneration, and sanctification.

     Everything that has taken place within him and in his will has been wrought by God. This is the blessed mystery of life in God, that God works in our will and gradually overcomes our opposition until we ourselves, freely and of our own accord, will and choose the things which are in harmony with God’s will.

     Our salvation takes place in the same way.  We are daily under the power of the creating and transforming will of God, and we lose our souls when we withdraw ourselves from this transforming influence of the will of God (Hebrews 10:38-39).

     This throws light upon the words of the apostle, “Work . . . it is God who works in you.” There is a work, then, for us to do in the matter of our souls’ salvation.

     *** And this work consists of this one thing:  not to withdraw ourselves from the transforming power of God’s will as it works in our wills.  Our work consists in seeing to it that we day by day are receptive to the influence and the workings of God in our lives.

     We are to see to it that neither carelessness nor diligence, neither earthly-mindedness nor preoccupation with our own affairs, neither pride nor discouragement, neither toil nor ease cut us off from a steady supply of divine power.  One who is to take a radium treatment also has something very definite to do, namely, to see to it that the affected part of his body is in the proper proximity to the radium, and that nothing disturbs the healing action of the radium.  It is the radium, however, which effects the cure, not the concern, the effort, the thoughts, the feelings, or the exertion of the patient.

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IV     Now, God works in us through means—especially through the means of grace, the Word, baptism, Lord’s Supper, prayer, confession, humble acts of service, and the Body.  Our work is to make constant use of these means, to give God the time and opportunity to reach us with the saving, life-giving, and sanctifying powers of His will.

     We will make use of the means of grace in an entirely different way when we look upon them in this light. The idea is not that I am to present something meritorious to God by means of my Bible reading, my attendance at the communion table, my prayers, or my participation in the communion of saints; rather it is the power of God’s grace which is to accomplish something within me, through these means.

     Using the means of grace in this way will afford us quietude of soul during our devotional exercises, which in turn will afford us seasons of rest and refreshing such as we hitherto have never known.

     **** Also when striving against our sins, it is God who works in us both to will and to do.  Our work consists in not withdrawing ourselves from the light of God, not concealing or excusing our sins.  Every time we confess our sins, Christ gains unhindered access to work in us, first forgiveness, and then deliverance.  This deliverance takes place, as we know, step by step throughout our whole earthly life.      Oftentimes we can see no progress, but nevertheless we are little by little set free from our inner sinfulness every time we make a sincere confession of defeat.  That gives Christ access to our wills again.  (Added note:  This is the crux of Luke 9:23, “Jesus said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  Taking up our cross is the admittance and confession of our sin—daily.)

     Also when it is a question of serving the Lord, it is God who works in us.  Our work is to permit ourselves to be led by the Spirit and constrained by the love of Christ (Romans 8:14; 2 Corinthians 5:14). Then we experience what the apostle meant when he wrote, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them,” (Eph. 2:10.)

     This imparts to our service in the Kingdom of God a peculiar sense of calmness and security.  It saves us from busybodiness and from love of display, and teaches us that it is not so much a question of what we do as how we do it.

     It also places upon us a sacred responsibility.  God wills to work through us.  He wills to transmit His wonder-working powers through us to those about us.  We must not permit the connection between us and God to be severed, in order that we may be channels to the world whom He loves, for the uninterrupted flow of power from above.  Paul says in 1Timothy 4:7-8:  “Exercise yourself unto godliness.”