God’s
greatest gift to the world is summarized in the words, “the gospel.” The term “gospel”
refers to good news, specifically the good news that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”[1] For those who believe in Jesus in response to this gospel, we find
that the gospel does more than just get us started in relationship with God. It
actually guides our relationship with God from beginning to end.
As
I continue meditating on how to apply Philippians 2:12-13 to myself and our
home church, today I considered this in light of what Paul wrote in Philippians
1:27-28. This earlier passage contains some instructions from the apostle Paul
that help us understand how to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Here
are the two passages side by side, followed by some thoughts of how they come
together to give us better insight into the bigger picture of God’s will.
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Philippians
2:12-13
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Philippians
1:27-28
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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.
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Only
let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I
come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm
in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the
gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.
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After
Paul gave testimony of how he was doing in prison, and how it didn’t really
matter whether he died or survived since living was Christ and dying was gain,[2] and after expressing his hope and confidence that he would be freed
from that present experience of prison to continue his ministry to them,[3] he turns to what he wants them to do no matter what happens to him.
In
the exhortation, “Only let your manner of
life be worthy of the gospel of Christ,”[4]Paul connects three things. First, from God’s side there is “the gospel of Christ,” which is
obviously central to everything about living as the Church. Second, there is “your manner of life” which is the
response of the church to the gospel God has given. And, third, there is the
distinctive quality that connects the “manner
of life” of the church to “the gospel
of Christ” God has given, and that is the over-riding quality of “be worthy.”
The
starting place, then, is that everything revolves around “the gospel of Christ.” Paul declared, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”[5]If this is all we remember, that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,” we will
understand that our continuation in this gospel will revolve around the power
of God that works to save us, and our experience of this gospel by faith. We
can expect that everything God works into us to will and to work will be a
furtherance of his purposes in saving us, and everything we do to work out our
salvation with fear and trembling will be a faith-response to God’s working in
us, just as at the moment of our conversion.
When
Paul calls us to keep the gospel of Christ central to all that we do, he is declaring
the unifying pattern of God’s work in our lives. It is “he who began a good work in you” that “will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”[6]From beginning to end, God begins, brings, and completes his “good work.” Our call to work out our
salvation with fear and trembling is because God continues to “work in” us the things he began. Our
salvation came to us with God working in us to make us alive in Jesus Christ,[7]and us responding to him making us alive by experiencing a faith in
him that continues throughout our whole lives. Everything is about us
responding to him. The gospel brought us into the work God was already doing,
it brings us into the work he is doing now, and it will bring us into our
eternal rest that is the gift of all his work.
The
over-riding quality that should characterize our life in relation to “the gospel of Christ,” is “be worthy.” “Only let your manner of life
be worthy of the gospel of Christ.”[8]This is not only a central characteristic of the Christian life,
what Paul wants to happen no matter whether he lives or dies in his present
imprisonment, but it is a much repeated theme throughout his letters to the
churches.
To
the Ephesian Christians, Paul wrote, “I
therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the
calling to which you have been called.”[9] He wrote the Colossians about his desire that they would “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully
pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the
knowledge of God.”[10]In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian Christians he wrote, “we exhorted each one of you and encouraged
you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his
own kingdom and glory.”[11]
When
Paul was warning the Galatians about the way they were in danger of turning to “a different gospel,”[12]he presented a negative example to emphasize the danger, and to
exhort them to remain true to the Lord Jesus Christ.[13] He told them about the way Peter had fallen prey to the “circumcision party,” people who were
teaching that the law must be added to the gospel for people to truly be right
with God. Peter had stopped having fellowship with the Gentile believers
because he was afraid of these false teachers.
Peter’s
actions as an apostle caused the other Jewish believers to join his hypocrisy,
and “even Barnabas was led astray,”
by Peter’s behavior.[14] When Paul saw Peter, he publicly confronted him in order to let
everyone know that what Peter was doing was wrong, that those of the “circumcision party” were false
teachers, and that Peter’s conduct “was
not in step with the truth of the gospel.”[15]
The
point of Paul’s public rebuke of Peter, and penning the story in the inspired
pages of Scripture, is to give an example of how serious it is to live in a way
that is “not in step with the truth of
the gospel,” or, not “worthy of the
gospel of Christ.” As is often the case, God gives us negative examples to
encourage positive behavior. This is one more way that Peter’s wrong behavior
encourages our worthy behavior.
The
third part of Paul’s declaration, “Only
let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ,” identifies that
the way we live worthy of the gospel of Christ must be with our “manner of life.” By the time we come to
the exhortation to “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,”[16]we must be thinking “manner of
life,” not selective behavior. We cannot think that God will only work on
the area of our lives we want him to address. We cannot imagine that God is
looking to us for direction as to where he should work, and what he should
leave alone for now because we’re not ready to deal with it.
Instead,
we must think that God is working in us that we would “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may
discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”[17] That is another way of saying that working out our salvation with
fear and trembling will transform our whole “manner
of life,” because of the “renewal of
your mind,” that has taken place through the gospel, and continues to take
place as God works in us to will and to work for his good pleasure.
While
the apostolic letters to the churches give us many details of what it means to
live worthy of the gospel, we can agree with God’s word that “be worthy” must condition everything we
think about working out our salvation with fear and trembling. We must
constantly look at what God is working in us to will that is worthy of our
calling in Christ Jesus. We must seek to discern what God is working in us to
work that would be a worthy expression of our life in Jesus Christ through the
gospel.
Since
God is clearly working in our lives without intermission, we can expect that he
will always have the perfect ideas for what we should do in any given situation
for his good pleasure, and our good. If we start with that acknowledgement, we
will see things he is working in us to will and to work that are not
specifically spelled-out in Scripture, but are definitely “what accords with sound doctrine;”[18]sound doctrine that always guides us to live worthy of our calling
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
© 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.)
[1]
John 3:16
[2]
Philippians 1:17-21
[3]
Philippians 1:22-26
[4]
Philippians 1:27
[5]
Romans 1:16
[6]
Philippians 1:6
[7]
Ephesians 2:4-7
[8]
Philippians 1:27
[9]
Ephesians 4:1
[10]
Colossians 1:9-10
[11]
I Thessalonians 2:12
[12]
Galatians 1:6-9
[13]
Galatians 2:11-14
[14]
Galatians 2:13
[15]
Galatians 2:14
[16]
Philippians 2:12-13
[17]
Romans 12:1-2
[18]
Titus 2:1
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