Salvation: Past, Present And Future - Part 2

This is a contiuation of the post from yesterday concerning Salvation: Past, Present And Future.

Phil. 2:12-13. Work Out Your Salvation?

Phil. 2:12-13 is difficult only when we do not hear it within the context of everything else Paul says about God's work of redemption and our involvement in that work. Certainly since the Reformation, when the essence of Paul's gospel was captured in the joyful proclamation sola gratia sola fide ("by grace alone, by faith alone"), anything which even hints at "works righteousness" or "salvation by works" is suspect. And that is the concern which often emerges when believers read these verses.

A careful look at Paul's teaching on all aspects of God's redemptive work in Christ reveals that salvation is not based on the accumulated merits of our piety and good deeds. No, salvation is God's business from beginning to end. It is inaugurated, maintained and completed by him. Yet we human beings, the objects of that divine activity, are not robots manipulated by the divine button-pusher. We are creatures created in God's image (Genesis 1:26-27), called to respond in faith and love to the Creator and to give ourselves in active participation to God's purposes. It is this dual perspective of divine action and human response and participation which is in view in this text.

The center of Paul's proclamation, repeated in numerous ways throughout his writings, is most concisely and eloquently stated in Ephes. 2:8-9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." The meaning is without ambiguity; there are no conditions imposed (such as "if . . . then"). God's reaching toward us in unconditional love (Romans 5:8) is all grace. We neither deserve it nor earn it, and therefore we cannot take credit for it ("so that no one can boast"). The verb "you have been saved" is in the perfect tense and the passive voice, which means that the action comes from outside ourselves and that it is something which is both an accomplished act and a reality which continues in its effectiveness through the present and into the future.

Now this strong affirmation is immediately followed in Ephes. 2:10 by the words "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works." Here, as throughout his letters, Paul is very clear about the fact that restored relationship with God is the condition within which our lives are being transformed in such a way that God's purposes for our lives are brought about. A few examples will make this abundantly clear.

In Romans 6 believers are defined as those who have been baptized into Christ, buried with him and raised with him so that we "might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4 RSV). Here the transaction of being saved is pictured as accomplished fact; the "walking in newness of life" as a possibility yet to be realized. Then Paul goes on to say that our sinful self has been "crucified with" Christ, that we are no longer "slaves to sin" (Romans 6:5-11).

The affirmation of this accomplished fact is then immediately followed by the imperative: "Therefore do not let sin reign. . . . Do not offer [yourselves] to sin as instruments of wickedness . . . but rather to God . . . as instruments of righteousness" (Romans 6:12-13).

In Galatians, where salvation by faith in Christ is particularly stressed (for example, in Galatians 2:16, "a man is not justified by observing the law but by faith in Jesus Christ"), Paul can also stress that "in Christ," that is, in our relationship to God in Christ, what really matters is "faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6). Therefore, "serve one another in love" (Galatians 5:13).

The seeming tension between affirmations of accomplished salvation and a life in which a new reality is expressed and put to work is partially due to the fact that Paul's use of particular words or expressions is somewhat flexible. In this Philippians text, salvation is a reality still in process and yet to be accomplished. In Romans 1:16 and Ephes. 1:13 the term salvation is used in a general, comprehensive sense and as a synonym for gospel (that is, the good news of, and power for, salvation). In 2 Cor. 7:10, repentance is said to lead to salvation. There are other texts in which salvation is depicted as the final stage or event in the redemptive activity of God. The Thessalonians are told that they were chosen "to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit" (2 Thes. 2:13) and that one piece of the Christian's armor against the darkness was "the hope of salvation" (1 Thes. 5:8). The clearest example of the futuristic use of the term is in Romans 13:11, where we hear that "salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."

When we take all these aspects together, we see that Paul thought of salvation as the totality of God's redemptive work; yet he freely used the term also to denote various parts of the whole. The best illustration of Paul's understanding of salvation in its totality, described in terms of its various stages, is found in Romans 5. We "have been justified through faith" (Romans 5:1). To be justified—Paul's most usual term for what happens to us when we respond in faith to God's love in Christ—is to be brought into right relationship with God, a condition he describes as "peace with God" (Romans 5:1). The culmination of that which has thus begun is sharing "the glory of God" (Romans 5:2). Between these two poles, Christian life is characterized by joy in the midst of adversity, hope in the midst of suffering (Romans 5:3-5), because, having been justified by Christ's sacrificial death (Romans 5:9), the continuing work of the resurrected Lord in the life of the believer will lead to final salvation (Romans 5:10).

The larger context for this saying, as worked out above, consists of three elements: (1) the duality of "already" and "not yet"; (2) the actuality of restored relation with God and the necessity of living in newness of life; (3) the understanding of salvation as the comprehensive work of God in which we participate through faith, hope and love. Within this context, Phil. 2:12-13 is best understood.

Paul calls his readers to unity in their common life, to be achieved through humble other-directedness (Phil. 2:1-4), motivated by the example of Christ's humiliation and utter self-giving (Phil. 2:5-11). It is this work of Christ which for Paul is the basis ("therefore") of the imperative "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12). The salvation which comes to us through Christ's "obedience to death" (Phil. 2:8) is to be "incarnated," implemented and worked out, within the context of our relationships with each other. The motivation for this "outworking" is "fear and trembling," not in the sense of "being afraid of," but rather in the sense of "awe," namely, the "awe" which comes when we contemplate God's work of "amazing grace" in Christ.

But this "outworking of salvation" in our human contexts—in Philippi toward unity within the congregation—is not "human achievement" on the basis of which we can "boast." No, for this outworking of salvation is empowered by the continuing operation of God's grace, for God is at work "in you" (or "among you").

Salvation is not something we possess. It is rather a relationship in which we stand. And within that relationship, we become partakers of God's Spirit. Thus Christian action is never "our work"; it is always the outgrowth of a dynamic relationship, whose author and completer is God.

See also comment on Romans 6:2, 7; 2 Cor. 5:17; James 2:24; 1 Peter 1:9.
— Hard Sayings of the Bible