Work out your salvation? The fear and trembling of Phil 2:12b

“…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” (Phil. 2:12b-13)

This verse has always bothered me. It’s bothered me because I almost always hear it conveyed with the idea that we must “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” because it might just be that in all our “working” we may not attain it, but that somehow “fear and trembling” in our pursuit of it may just help to ensure that we attain it. It all sounds so confusing and downright contradicting to the rest of the Bible that says we are made right with God by faith apart from any good works on our behalf. So what’s the deal then?

Let’s ask ourselves why there should be "fear and trembling?” We find that the answer is right in front of us! “It is God!” God ought to be the source of our fear and trembling. Paul does not mean that our fear ought to be based on the possibility that we may fall short and not be “truly saved,” but he means that God himself ought to be the source of our fear and trembling! Yes, it is downright Biblical to fear God. I do not mean fear in the sense of having an unhealthy phobia about God, but I mean the same kind of fear that Isaiah experienced in Isaiah 6 when he said, "Woe is me! …for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" (Isaiah 6:5). We are talking about the same holy, holy, holy God that appeared to Moses through a burning bush yet when Moses drew near he was told, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground" (Ex 3:5). We are talking about the same God who in light of the Israelites' stubbornness before Him he said to Moses, “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people" (Ex 33:3). What did God mean by that? He was saying that he couldn’t even take a walk with sinners because of his holiness and divine justice. He might “consume [sinners] on the way.” The author of Hebrews too writes, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Heb 12:28).

But why do it with “reverence and awe?” Reverence and awe are simply another way of saying “fear and trembling.” Yet the question remains why “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe?” The very next verse tells us why: “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). There is something very awesome and yet dangerous about God drawing near. Just ask Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). Yet this is precisely what God has done. He dwells in us through the new birth. How much nearer can he be? When the Hebrew people were delivered from Egyptian slavery they were lead by God out into the wilderness, but they were led externally. God was "outside" of them. God was for them “the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night” (Ex 13:22). In the New Testament we are told that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness,” (Matt 4:1) but he was not led externally rather internally. God was in Him. Jesus professed “the Father is in me” (John 10:38; 14:10, 11). It is only when one takes in all of the Biblical data that one begins to grasp God’s thrice holiness and the fearful reverence it ought to produce in us because “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).The Philippians didn’t need to be reminded about God’s holiness only that God himself had rolled up his sleeves, personally came down and personally went to work in them “both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” So in effect this is what I believe Paul is saying. He means something to the effect of, “Listen! We are not becoming ‘obedient from the heart’ (Rom 6:17) neither are we being ‘conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom 8:29) by our sheer will power. We are not the source of this apparent life change and move towards holy living. There is something else at work in us that is ‘training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age’ (Titus 2:12). Do you want to know what the source of our power is if not our wills? It’s God! He has drawn near in all his holiness and “works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). Does God’s nearness not make you fear and tremble? This isn’t some impersonal force at work in you, but a divine person personally causing you to will and to work. Who need fear their wills when they resolve to change themselves, but fail to do so? What are the consequences of not obeying our “New Year’s resolutions?” Nothing! Because they were self-imposed to begin with! Oh but to yield to God IN us is an entirely different matter. Therefore work out your salvation with the appropriate reverence and awe due to God because he is not far off, but in you.