Therefore, my beloved, as you have always
obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, 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.[1]
Since
God is working in us who are the church in order that we would both “will” and “work” according to his good pleasure, there is a way that the church
responds to his activity by working out our salvation. While there is clearly
an attitude of “fear and trembling”
which accompanies our work with God, there are a number of other characteristics
that help us enter into what he is doing.
1. The Church’s work is in fellowship with God’s work. Paul does
not espouse the extreme views of legalism on one side, or cheap grace on the
other. There is no legalistic working that acts as if all the work depends on
us, and that we need to work hard to win God over. There is no cheap grace that
believes God is doing all the work so we just need to enjoy our sarky, sinful
little lives while we wait for him to make us all perfect for heaven.
This is
clear in what Paul had already written. He said, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring
it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”[2]
When Paul later speaks about us working because “it is God who works in you,”[3]
it is in connection with this partnership we have in the church that is based
on God continuing his work until he brings “it
to completion” at the return of Jesus Christ. God “began a good work in you,” and still “works in you,” with a view to bringing this work to completion
when Jesus returns and “we shall be like
him, because we shall see him as he is.”[4]Everything
we do now is in fellowship with the work the Triune God is doing.
2. Our work is always in fellowship with God’s work, but as children
joining their Father in whatever he is already doing. The reason we work, and
the way we work, are conditioned by the fact that God is already working. We “work out” because, or “for,” it is God who “works in.” No matter how earnestly Paul
exhorts the church to work, and no matter what earnestness he calls us to have
in our work, everything we do is an expression of what God is already doing.
Jesus described
his work as, “My Father is working until now,
and I am working.”[5]
Jesus puts the Father’s work first, followed by his working. The Father “is” working until now, meaning that he
did not stop working at the end of day six of creation, and he did not stop
working when Malachi wrote the last of the prophetic warnings and invitations
of God.
Neither
did the Father start a work that he handed over to Jesus to finish. When we
read that “God so loved the world, that
he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life,”[6]
we do not understand this as God the Father starting a work by sending his Son
into the world, and then the Son working on his own to complete what the Father
sent him to do.
Rather,
the Father “is” working, and Jesus
can say, “I am working,” meaning they
are both working in the present. They were working in the present at the time
Jesus spoke those words, and the apostolic writers made it clear that God was
still working in the present as the church grew and flourished. They leave the
church with the message that God will continue working in the present day and
age of every generation of the church, so that all God’s children see our work
in fellowship with their work.
After
telling us that the Father “is”
working, and Jesus is working with him, he added, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord,
but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the
Son does likewise.”[7]
Here Jesus indicates that there is only one way to look at his work. The “only” work Jesus ever does is “what he sees the Father doing.” That
means that the Father’s work comes first, Jesus sees that work, and then Jesus’
work is in partnership with the Father’s work.
When
Paul writes that we are to “work out”
our salvation, because “it is God who
works in you,” we must understand this as God the Father continuing his
work, and the Son continuing to do everything the Father is doing. We are added
to this picture, not replacing it. We join their work the way Jesus joins the
Father’s work. We are his body, joining him in him joining his Father.
3.
The church’s devotion to “working
out” what God is “working in,” is
not dependent on who is watching us. Paul’s expectation of the church’s working
out of their salvation was that they would behave the same, “not only as in my presence but much more in
my absence.”
If we are real in what we are doing, we
will do it whether or not people are watching us. After all, we are dealing
with salvation, so it is about us and God, not us and people. The people part
is that we are all together responding to God, fellowshipping with God in our
work, so we will keep doing what we are doing with God no matter which people are
with us.
Paul’s reference to being the same in his
absence as his presence is not about accepting another principle, or another
rule, or another description of the right thing to do. It is not about a standard
that drives good behavior. It is not a goal, or aim, or prize, that we could
say that we are such good people that we act the same way in private as we do
in public.
Instead,
Paul is talking to his “beloved,”
people in whom God has already started a good work, and calling them to be
themselves when he is away from them in jail even as they were themselves when
he was with them. Even though he was not personally present to encourage them
in their “sincere and pure devotion to
Christ,”[8] he wrote this letter to be his encouragement to them. He wanted
them to know that, because God was working in them, they could work out his
will and work even without the apostle’s immediate help. Paul’s letter was a
gift from God to encourage them then, and it continues to encourage the church
today.
4.
Which brings us to this delightful expression of, “my beloved.” Even in Paul’s reference
to the church, he identifies that we are already the “beloved.” He is writing in fellowship with the Father who calls us
his beloved.[9] As God has made so clear that we were loved before the foundation
of the world, and that the whole gospel, and all the humiliating work of
Christ, were an expression of God’s love for his beloved, so Paul makes clear
that he is writing to those who are his beloved, desiring that they would have
the same intimate love relationship with the Father where we are always doing
what he is always doing.
Earlier in this letter Paul wrote, “It is right for me to feel this way about
you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of
grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the
gospel.”[10] I can still remember that time in my life when I recognized that
Paul’s expression of feelings came as a shock. While Paul exposed his feelings
to the church, obviously not a surprise to this congregation, it was such an
unexpected expression because of my church culture and experience downplaying
feelings to such a minimal, inferior place in our lives.
Now I can enjoy the sense of what Paul was
saying, and enjoy the God-honoring expression of feelings, that Paul did have
feelings “about all of you.” If I was
in that church, I would have found an elder who had feelings for me as part of
the church family he cared about.
It is still a wonderful delight to me to
consider that Paul had certain feelings for the church “because I hold you in my heart.” When Paul explains why he feels
the way he does, and why he holds these beloved children of God in his heart,
he states, “for you are all partakers
with me of grace.”[11] Paul does not have affection for these people because they are so
good, and well-behaved, and playing by his rules. It is because all of them
share in the same God-initiating good favor that unites them in Christ.
This is why Paul would so strongly exclaim,
“For God is my witness, how I yearn for
you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.”[12] On one side, this raises Paul’s affection to the level of Christ’s
affection. On the other side, it shows another way that Paul was expressing
what he had first received. He was giving the people what he received from
Christ, not what he had in himself.
So, this is neither about Paul loving
people out of himself, or loving them because of their good behavior. His
affection was that “of Christ Jesus,”
so it was not the limits of his own selfish love, or rewarding people for good behavior.
He had an experience of “the affection of
Christ Jesus,” and that was what he felt for the people. He held them in
his heart as Jesus did, and so he felt about them the way Jesus did. It was all
based on Jesus. They all stood in grace the same way, by the initiation of God
making dead people alive in his Son. In this reality, the affection of Jesus
Christ filled hearts and relationships, and so there was love to go around in
everything.
All of this has been a huge ministry to me
this week as I consider what a gift it is to join God in the work he is working
in us. As he works in us to will what he wills, and to work what he works, we
will respond by working out our salvation in an attitude of fear and trembling.
Knowing that God is still at his work to this very day, and that apart from him
we can do nothing,[13]causes us to be extremely careful to discern that whatever we are
trying to “work out” is in intimate,
childlike, responsive fellowship to whatever God is already “working in”.
©
2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless
otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy
Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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