Mar 11
4
“Your Own Salvation” Philippians 2:12
No description of salvation can be found that is sweeter, more delightful, comforting, or more satisfying to our souls than that which is found in Philippians 2:12. Here the Spirit of God declares to believing sinners that God’s eternal, great, everlasting salvation is “Your Own Salvation”.
I like that! If you are saved, the salvation you have is “your own salvation”. God devised it for you. Christ purchased it for you. The Holy Spirit brought it to you and wrought it in you. It is yours forever! If you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, all that is included in that word “salvation” is your personal property and possession forever! It belongs to you by the gift of the grace of God!
Here is an admonition. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” That does not mean, “Work that you might be saved”. It means, “Work outwardly what God has worked inwardly” (Phil. 2:1-5; Matt. 5:16; Tit. 3:8, 14). Here is an assurance. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will (to desire) and to do of his good pleasure!” “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
If you are saved, the salvation God has wrought in you is “your own salvation”. Look at what the Holy Spirit reveals to you, if you are a believer, about “your own salvation” in Ephesians 1:12-14. Here we read that it is the purpose of God…
“That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”
There are five things clearly taught in these three verses about your salvation and mine. Believer, child of God, your salvation is…
1. A Salvation Designed For Divine Praise – “That we should be to the praise of his glory.”
2. A Salvation Based Upon A Divine Trust – That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.”
3. A Salvation Obtained And Enjoyed By A Divine Gift – “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.”
4. A Salvation Secured By A Divine Seal – “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.”
5. A Salvation Assured By A Divine Pledge – “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” Don Fortner
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“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” –Philippians 2:12
None but God’s people under the teachings of the Spirit know what it is to “work out their own salvation.” And all who work out their own salvation will work it out “with fear and trembling.” For when a man is taught by God to know what he is; when he feels what a deceitful heart he carries in his bosom; when the various snares, temptations, and corruptions by which he is daily encompassed are opened up to him; when he knows and feels what a ruined wretch he is in self, then he begins to fear and tremble lest he should be damned at the last. He cannot go recklessly and carelessly on without “making straight paths for his feet,” without “examining himself whether he be in the faith.”
And whenever a man’s dreadfully deceitful heart is opened up to him; whenever the hollowness of an empty profession is unmasked; whenever he feels how strait is the path, how narrow the way, and how few there are that find it; whenever he is brought to see how easily a man is deceived, and how certainly he must be deceived unless God teaches him in a special manner–whenever a man is brought to this point, to see what a rare thing, what a sacred thing, and what a spiritual thing religion is, that God himself is the author and finisher of it in the conscience, and that a man has no more religion than God is pleased to give him, and cannot work a single grain of it into his own soul; when he stands on this solemn ground, and begins to work out that which God works in, it will always be “with fear and trembling;” with some “fear” lest he be deceived, until God assures him by his own blessed lips that he is not deluded; and “with trembling,” as knowing that he stands in the immediate presence of God, and under his heart-searching eye. J.C. Philpot.
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But Paul had also his FEAR. What fear was this? Certainly not “the fear of a man that brings a snare”– such a carnal fear we cannot find a trace of in the man or his ministry. His fear was of another kind, and arose from quite other causes. It arose, then, partly from a solemn apprehension of the Majesty of God– a reverence and holy awe of that great and glorious Lord with whom he had to do. Blended with this, there was a godly fear lest he might in any way by a misplaced word, or by any unwary action, put a stumbling block in the way of any seeker after or lover of truth, or that he might not commend himself as a servant of God to the people’s conscience with such authority, power, and evidence as he would wish.
Let us not forget that as a man he had all these infirmities. They cleaved to him as they cleaved to us. What he wrote to the Churches he wrote by divine inspiration, and of his ministry generally, as an apostle of the Lord, he could say, “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (1 Cor. 2:13.) But that he had his fears is evident from his own words– “Without were fightings, within were fears.” (2 Cor. 7:5.) And that these fears did not arise from cowardice, unwillingness to suffer persecution for Christ’s sake, dread of death or even martyrdom, is equally evident from his boldness under the most trying circumstances, as when he would, but for the disciples preventing him, have entered in unto the people at Ephesus, when they were like wild beasts ready to tear him to pieces in the very theater. (Acts 19:29-31.) It was not then that he feared the cross, as to his own share of suffering, but lest the preaching of the cross should not meet with the longed-for reception. United with this, was a sense of the powerlessness of man, both in himself to give, and in them to receive any blessing from the preaching of the cross, and lest his testimony should in any way fall to the ground.
C. A sense of all these things, combined with others into which we cannot penetrate, for who can but partially read the heart of an apostle? so deeply affected him as to make him tremble, and that in no small degree. “I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much TREMBLING.” Not that he trembled through any carnal apprehension of his hearers, but under a sense of the greatness of the work, his own inability rightly to perform it, the message he had to carry, and the powers of earth and hell arrayed against it. He had felt the power of God’s word upon his heart, and this made him tremble. This is an especial mark of the Lord’s saints and servants. “To this man will I look, even to him that is of a poor and contrite spirit, and trembles at my word.” (Isa. 66:2.)
“Do you not fear me, says the Lord? Will you not tremble at my presence?” (Jer. 5:22.)
Even a sense of God’s goodness makes the soul tremble as with holy awe. It was so with Daniel, for though the Lord said, “O Daniel, a man greatly beloved,” yet we read, “When he had spoken this word, I stood trembling.” (Dan. 10:11.) And this made Jeremiah say, “They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness, and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.” (Jer. 33:9.) Thus Paul stood, as every servant of God will in a measure stand, and just in proportion to his knowledge of divine realities for himself, before these few poor Corinthians, “in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling.”
What a noble, what an honorable confession! What humility, sincerity, and honesty! What a pattern and example for every servant of God. But I may well add, what a solemn rebuke to the levity manifested in too many a pulpit in the present day. What a keen and cutting reproof, too, of that arrogance, pride, self-conceit, vain confidence, and daring presumption in which so many men stand who profess to preach the gospel of the grace of God. What? that Paul, compared with whom they are but pygmies in the presence of a giant; that Paul, who had more grace in his little finger, than they in all their body; that this man of such deep experience, unrivaled eloquence, and powerful gifts should be in weakness, fear, and much trembling; and that they should stand up in such arrogant pretension as if they were warranted to be strong where an apostle was weak, they to presume where a man of God feared, and they to be bold where he who had been in the third heaven trembled!
I hope I can say for myself, that I stand up before you this morning, for the first time of my visit this year, in a little of the same spirit of which the apostle speaks. In weakness of body you all know and can probably see; but in weakness too of soul, which is better felt by preacher and hearer than seen. In fear too, as feeling my own inability to preach the word of life as I would desire to preach it, and my dependence on the Lord for every gracious thought and word. The apostle could say, “in much trembling.” I must omit the word “much,” for I have not his experience or grace; yet would I wish to tremble at God’s word. And if I do not actually tremble before you, it is not from levity, arrogance, or presumption, as I sensibly feel my inability to handle the things of God with that light, life, and liberty which I desire, and feeling in some measure the solemn matters which I have to dispense, and the opposition raised up against them by the power of unbelief in my own heart, and the power of unbelief in yours. Extract from
Extract from – The Wisdom of Men and the Power of God
Preached at Gower Street Chapel, London,
on June 24, 1866, by J. C. Philpot
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If it be asked, in what sense I accept this Scripture I humbly answer; I accept it simply as the whole
passage stands altogether, one complete whole. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is GOD which worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure. If it be GOD, which worketh in me to will; so that I cannot will a good thought, or intention,without the LORD willeth it in me, neither when the LORD hath worked in me that will; I cannot do that good purpose, without he that first moved it, gives energy to the performance of it, well doth it become me to be always alive and active in the important work, which this Almighty mover is, working in me, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The work I am thus working out, is not the work of labor, or of merit, or of justification, or of recommendation to GOD, but simply an employment, in a constant attendance upon it, and that of such earnestness and anxiety, as men of the world, when engaged in an arduous concern, are fearful and trembling in, lest they should fail of success. Not a bondage fear, but an holy, child-like fear. Not a fear of the loss of divine love for the adoption of children prevents such apprehensions, and the faithful Covenant promises of GOD in CHRIST, render it impossible. But the fear of an holy weariness in the path of grace, as those who rejoice in full assurance of faith, but rejoice with trembling. Beholding the wreck of our fallen nature, in the instance of the floating carcases all around, we bless the GOD of our salvation, that he hath brought us by his grace safe on shore, while we tremble to look back and see the tremendous storm from whence we have escaped. If this be the meaning of the passage it is truly blessed, and in exact conformity to the whole tenor of Scripture. I find, through grace, the LORD working in me, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. He worketh in me, to show me my total helplessness in myself, and my complete all-sufficiency in CHRIST. Conscious of the infinite importance of salvation, I feel the LORD’S grace, prompting me to an unceasing desire after the LORD, so that I am working from life, not for life; from grace, not for grace. And thus I am going humbly and softly all my days, as one, who hath an object of such infinite moment before him, that while rejoicing in CHRIST, I am trembling in myself. These are my views of the scripture, and which I now leave with the Reader to his own judgment, under the LORD’S blessing.
Robert Hawker
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One That Feared God Acts 10: 1, 2 . The apostle Paul declares that with all men born of Adam, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom 3: 18.) Luke says of Cornelius that he was “one that feared God with all his house.” The Holy Spirit declares to us by this statement that Cornelius was a believer. Cornelius did not yet know that the Messiah had come, but he worshipped Jehovah by faith in that Messiah to come, as did all who truly worshipped God before Christ came. He reverenced God as so absolutely holy, so absolutely in control of all things, and so absolutely powerful to save according to his promise that his only concern in this world was bowing to the LORD. His preeminent concern for everyone in his household over whom he had any influence was that they know the true and living God. Because Cornelius stood in awe of God, the High and Lofty One, Cornelius was not concerned with the favor or disfavor of men. He was not afraid of telling men “no” when they interfered with him worshipping his God. He was not afraid of insisting that those in his household come with him to the place they worshipped. A God-wrought fear results in trusting God without compromise in the face of even our most intimate loved ones who oppose the free and sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus. Where you find compromise in these areas it is due to an inordinate reverence and fear of man rather than a fear of God. Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! (Ps 31: 19.)
Clay Curtis
Isaiah 33:5,6 The LORD is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.
“The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him; and He will show them His covenant.”
There are heights and depths of truth in the everlasting covenant which unaided man can neither reach nor fathom. The Gospel-scheme is a wondrous volume. No eye without God’s light can rightly read its pages. But to all who tremble at the Word, the enlightening Spirit comes. He opens out the hidden mysteries. He draws aside the veil and shows the secret transactions in the courts of heaven; and all the wondrous achievements of Christ’s life and death. The enraptured soul sees truths which angels ponder with amazement. Who can describe the ecstasies of this knowledge? But all the pupils in this school of light have one mark; they fear the Lord.