Lecture XIII · Working out our own Salvation

THE profoundly interesting and important doctrinal passage just examined has been introduced by the apostle, as we have seen, for the purpose of enforcing some advices which he had given regarding religious feeling and conduct. In the verses now before us he resumes his strain of practical counsel,—which all his candid readers are prepared, through the impressiveness of the great truths he has so eloquently recalled to their minds, to receive with peculiar readiness of spirit.

Yet, however ready they be, the work of persistent effort after holiness is a hard one, and most repulsive to the old nature, which still, even in believers, has lamentable strength. Observe, then, how affectionately and winningly the apostle leads his dear Philippians to the view of their duty. He calls them ‘ my deloved,) a name which must have carried to their hearts a strong argument for thoughtfulness and diligent attention to his counsel. He stimulates them, too, by a kindly mention of the fact that, in past days, they had ‘ a/ways obeyed’ him, or rather Christ speaking through him. In the designation ‘ beloved,’ and in this pleasant reminder of former fulfilment of duty, their hearts could not but recognise a powerful appeal to this effect,—‘ Bethink you of your spiritual father’s

long, warm, unchanging interest in you, and of his unwearied and self-sacrificing exertions for your welfare. Remember the _ Stripes, and the inner prison, and the stocks. ‘Think of the affection which now, in the midst of his own anxieties and sufferings as a prisoner in Rome, has led him to write to you, that you may be quickened and comforted. Let his love appeal to you with power, on behalf of a continuance of that spiritual diligence, your habitual exhibition of which, hitherto, in obedience to his precepts, has been so pleasing to him.’

Such a sketch as the apostle has given of the humiliation and the glory of the Lord Jesus, supplies an argument of intense and manifold cogency in support of any appeal to the believing heart to follow Him. It was immediately to illustrate self-sacrifice for the sake of others that the apostle spoke of the great ‘mystery of godliness ;’ and even had such not been the connection, no Christian could ever read how ‘ He who was in the form of God made Himself of no reputation, and, being found in fashion as a man, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,’ without having this thought prominent in his mind,—‘and all this was in self-sacrifice for me.” The glad tidings of the Saviour’s glory, too,—of the ‘name which is above every name,—have this thought for the essence of their gladdening power,—‘ This also is for me; _ because He liveth I shall live, rejoicing in His glory, and, through His measureless grace, taken to sit with Him in His _ throne.’ The remembrance of His love sweetly constrains us to long to do His will; and the thought of Him as our Forerunner, who has passed through the struggles of earth to triumph and blessedness, and from the scene of His glory cares tenderly for us, gives the richest encouragement in effort to do His will. No ‘ wherefore, then, could be more natural— none to a thoughtful follower of Christ could be so effective,— as that with which the apostle here introduces his practical counsel. The form of the precept, too, accords in a singularly

complete way with the nature of the argument. A very broad surface is so exposed, that the ‘ wherefore’ presses upon it with full power at every point. The Son of God, by His incarnation and sufferings and death, meritoriously wrought out salvation for you ; and now, seated on the mediatorial throne, He looks down on you with brotherly affection, and is willing to do everything which is needful to bring you into the full enjoyment of salvation. Surely, then, if He has thus cared, and still thus cares, for you, it is most reasonable that you should care for yourselves,—most reasonable that, alike from grateful love to Him, and from regard to your own highest interests, you should, in the appointed way of persistent faith and prayer and struggle with temptation, ‘work out your own salvation.’

The injunction, ‘ Work out your own salvation, does not mean, ‘Elaborate for yourselves a righteousness such as shall deserve heaven,—by expiation, by obedience, earn for yourselves salvation as your wages.’ This is impossible work,— altogether hopeless. Blessed be God, it is work which there is no need to attempt. ‘ By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.’ ‘The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Yet, with the most abundant evidence present that a ‘sure foundation’ has been laid, and that ‘ other foundation can no man lay,’ in how many ways does the proud heart of man, averse to accepting ‘ the righteousness of God which is by faith,’ endeavour to ‘work out. salvation’ in this sense—‘to lay another foundation’—to ~ make eternal life wages instead of a gift. All down the ages, brethren—with system and against system—amid Pharisaic and Roman Catholic avowals and amid Protestant denials— how abundantly formalism has been accepted as a basis for the hope of heaven! By tithing mint and anise and cummin, and frequently washing the hands,—by pattering over some Latin words, and wearing a shirt of coarse hair,—by sitting in. a pew on a Sabbath, and at certain seasons going through the

outward rites of what, to the true believer in Christ, is the communion,—vast multitudes have ever been persuading themselves that by means like these they are purchasing the favour of God. The creed of their lips may speak of salvation through τ grace, but the creed of their hearts acknowledges only salvation through works. Of all such foolish ones, the Lord Jesus has exhibited a representative in the man who prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are.’ You know the issue. He went down to his house unjustified. ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.’ The prayer acceptable in His sight is, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ ‘ For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’

In order to see what Paul does mean by the precept under consideration, it is needful to have clearly before us the Bible idea of salvation. By nature, through the belief of what is false regarding the matters on which it is of supreme importance that he should know and believe what is true, man’s affections are alienated from God and holiness, and with his alienated affections his life accords. This is spiritual death ; and the Ὶ legitimate end of it is ‘the second death.’ Now the salvation ἢ offered to us in Christ Jesus is deliverance from all this,—from 4 ignorance, from depravity, from the wrath to come. Salvation, then, you observe, whilst in its fulness a future blessing, is in its beginnings a blessing of the present ; and no one who has not these beginnings here, in ‘a clean heart’ and a life of obedience through the constraint of the love of Christ, has any ground to look for the full salvation by and by. It is of altogether inestimable importance, Christian brethren, that we have clear views on this subject. Salvation does not mean merely the enjoyment of heaven after death; nor, looked at as a present blessing, merely the comfort which springs from the expectation of heaven after death. Unspeakably precious as these are, yet the sublimest element in Christ’s salvation, the grandest boon which even God can bestow upon His , eee SS ss δε

creatures, is conformity of spirit to His will—likeness of character to Him. This belongs, essentially and prominently, to the scriptural idea of salvation. Yet how seldom, comparatively, do we look at this aspect! If asked what was the object of our Lord’s sufferings and.death, would the answer that occurred first to us, as if springing from a heart which cherished the thought as its most precious treasure, be that it was to make us holy, ‘to redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works’? I fear that with many this would come in, if at all, only in a secondary way. We know, indeed, that Christ Jesus was manifested to destroy a// the works of the devil; but often the chords of our souls vibrate far more sensitively to the touch of the thought of peace, than to that of the thought of holiness. Our moral perceptions have been so dimmed by the fall, that even when divine grace has given us the heavenly eye-salve, we are slow in coming to see clearly how awful, how utterly monstrous, a thing sin is. But the light does grow brighter for all true believers. The repulsiveness of sin is more distinctly seen. The longing for holiness increases in intensity. Blessing God not less ardently than at the outset of his Christian life, for the assurance that Christ ‘hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,’ the believer learns to feel also with growing intelligence and intensity the sweetness of the assurance that ‘His name is called Jesus, because He saves His people from their sins. Among all the hopes respecting the future life, this becomes more definitely and steadily the supremely influential, that, ‘when Christ shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.’ ‘And every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth Himself, even as He is pure.’

It is of the highest moment, however, to bear in mind that whilst the measure in which the two grand spiritual elements of salvation are enjoyed and rightly appreciated by Christians is far from uniform, yet in every Christian, from the moment of his experiencing the new birth, both are present ; and the only tru stworthy evidence of a man’s being in Christ, and therefore having a real basis for feace, is his being, in character, /ike Christ. The same faith which justifies, sanctifies. ‘The faith which introduces to eternal life is itself vital, and reveals its life by works : ‘Wherefore, work out your own salvation.’

In the injunction before us, the apostle assumes that his readers have in truth, according to their profession, accepted Jesus as their Saviour. ‘The whole Epistle is addressed to ‘ the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi.’ To unconverted Jews the Lord Himself on one occasion, you remember, employed the word ‘work’ in connection with the attainment of salvation, but in this way : ‘ This is the work of God,’—regarding which they had put a question to Him,—‘that ye delieve id on Him whom He hath sent’ That 15 the first lesson in the school of spiritual wisdom. In the passage before us, as I have said, Paul assumes that the first lesson has been learned, and that his readers are ‘in Christ’ through faith. His teaching here—the second lesson—relates to the needfulness of bearing in mind the inexpressible importance of the moral element in salvation, and strenuously exerting ourselves, through prayerful, resolute, persevering effort in resistance to temptation, and in the prosecution of God’s service, 40 carry forward to completeness the likeness of character to God which has begun to be formed in us. ‘These last words, I think, exhibit in a para- _ phrase the apostle’s meaning in ‘ Work out your own salvation,’ if I rightly apprehend it.

Analyzed, the injunction calls upon us to study the will of God, that, by thoughtfulness and inquiry regarding Christian duty, we may see ever more clearly the grandeur of our vocation, and keep its sublime aims steadily before us. It calls on us to ‘fight the good fight of faith’ valiantly,—to prove, in action, our understanding of this paradox, that by none is the spirit of the gospel of peace truly apprehended, in whom its energy is not revealed as a gospel of war, war without compromise or cessation, against all seducing and perverting influences,—to put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.’ It calls on us, too, 20 carry the war into the enemy’s domain,—to be diligent in effort to extend the kingdom of Christ, by striving, as far as our powers and opportunities permit, to strengthen Christian brethren, to instruct the ignorant, and warn the unwary, to leave the world holier and happier than we found it.

While thus enjoining here, in the widest way, the cultivation of holiness, the apostle had also, I think, a special Christian duty before his mind. It was, you remember, whilst setting forth the importance of active and self-sacrificing affection among Christians, that he was led, by way of enforcement, to remind his readers of the great example of such love, in the life and death of our Saviour. In the 14th verse, which immediately follows the passage at present before us, we have the same subject referred to,—‘ Do all things without murmurings and disputings.’ Clearly, therefore, as it seems to me, he had it prominently in his thoughts in writing the present intermediate precept also, and would suggest to us here that brotherly love is a most important element of spiritual life—of ‘salvation’ on its moral side. This is gospel teaching everywhere. ‘God is love,’ and Christians prove themselves His children by bearing His image. A man destitute of love is as yet unsaved. ‘He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.’ ‘ An apt illustration of the two points on which thus far I have had occasion to speak, the impossibility of ‘ working out our own salvation’ in one sense, and the needfulness of doing this in another sense, is afforded by the history of the rescue of Israel at the Red Sea—a rescue in which the thoughtful Christian recognises distinctly a typical sketch in outline of his own spiritual deliverance. By the wilderness, and the mountains, and the sea, the people are shut in; and behind them is Pharaoh in close pursuit, with his great and well-equipped army. If we look simply at man’s valour or wisdom, resistance and escape are equally and utterly hopeless. The cry of Israel

to Moses is, ‘ Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?’ But Moses said to them, ‘ Fear ye not: stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show you to-day. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.’ At this point, you observe, they are called to be simple sfectators of ‘the salvation of the Lord,’ looking on with adoring wonder at the mighty work which only the Divine Hand could accomplish,—the opening of a pathway for them through the midst of the great waters. But afterwards, for the ‘ Stand still and see,’ comes a command to display energetic activity. ‘The Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea” So with you and me, dear brethren. The expiation of guilt, ‘the working out of our salvation’ meritoriously, could be achieved only by the God-man ; and our part is to ‘stand still,’ and ‘ behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’ But now when, by the Lord’s propitiatory sufferings and death, © a way, broad and clear, has been opened for us through the midst of the waters of avenging judgment, His command, loud and explicit, to every one of us is that, by persistent, growing faith and holiness, we ‘ go forward.’

To his precept, ‘ Work out your own salvation,’ the apostle attaches two hints in regard to the manner in which, if there is to be success, the effort to obey it must be made. In the first place, the work must be carried on Zerseveringly, under all circumstances,—‘ not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.’ We naturally read these words in our version in connection with ‘as ye have always obeyed ;’ but the more probable connection, judging both from the sense, and from the particular negative particle employed in the original, is with the precept,—thus, ‘ Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed—so, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation.’ ‘When I was with you, your respect and love for your teacher naturally

pleaded with you to follow that course of life which you knew to be pleasing to him. But, in truth, what / think of you is a very small matter. The relations of highest importance are between you and God. Iam now absent from you, but He is always with you. By faithful and earnest persistence in well-doing, then, show that not only, or mainly, regard for me is powerful in your hearts, but reverence and love for Him. And seeing that you have not now the impulse and help given by my presence and teaching, be all the more thoughtful and watchful.’ The observation of all of us, brethren, shows this hint of the apostle to his friends in Philippi to be one which, in some form, is always needed. Ah, what multitudes who, when influences around were favourable, seemed steadily enough. setting their faces Zionward, have, when placed in other circumstances, turned back to destruction! How many boys and girls, who, in their quiet Christian country homes, felt an interest in the gospel, and in the service of Christ, have, when removed to the temptations of a city, forgotten that, though the eye of their pious father or mother was no longer upon them, yet God saw them ; and have entered the paths of the destroyer, growing reckless of character, reckless of eternity! How needful for us to have ever before our hearts the remembrance that ‘he that endureth Ὁ ¢he end shall be saved,’ and he only!

But further, the apostle calls on his readers to ‘ work out their own salvation’ with anxious solicitude and self-distrust. This, judging from his use of the expression in other places, is pretty exactly what he means by ‘with fear and trembling? He would not have Christians walk in the darkness of sorrow, and dread, and all but despondency. His teaching everywhere, and specially in this Epistle, is the very reverse,—that we should be children of light, and peace, and joy. ‘The ‘ fear and trembling’ he desires to see, then, are such as are perfectly compatible with obedience to his precept elsewhere in the Epistle,—‘ Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.’

Indeed, they stand in the relation of handmaids to this joy. If a man attempt to ‘work out his salvation’ in a spirit of selfdependence—of confidence in his own strength or wisdom,— there will certainly be failure, and lack of spiritual peace. Where there is a deep sense of the greatness of the work and of personal insufficiency for it, and the vigilance and prayerfulness which such a conviction is fitted to awaken,—there we have the apostle’s ‘fear and trembling.’ A soul thus exercised ‘ rejoices alway’ in the midst of its fear,—‘the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeping the heart and mind, through Christ Jesus.’ ‘ Watch and pray,’ therefore, brethren, ‘ that ye enter not into temptation.’ ‘Seeing that ye call on a Father who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear’— ‘fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.’

By his introductory ‘Wherefore, Paul had referred to the history of the Saviour’s work of love, as exhibiting a most powerful argument in support of the precept, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.’ In the 13th verse the precept is followed up by the presentation of another argument closely allied, and not less cogent, found in the fact that God is the Author and Sustainer of all spiritual life ; ‘for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do, of His good pleasure.’ Our translators have here needlessly weakened somewhat the expression of the thought, by using different words, ‘ work’ and ‘ do, whilst in the original the same verb, one kindred to that in the previous verse rendered ‘ work out,’ is employed. The apostle’s statement is, ‘It is God which worketh in you both to will and to work,’

The teaching of Scripture everywhere is, that men are by nature destitute of spiritual energy, power to love God and to desire to do His will. We are in bondage to depravity. ‘Whosoever committeth sin,’ said the Master, ‘is the s/ave of sin.’ According to another figure, even stronger, we are by

nature ‘dead in trespasses and sins,’—as utterly incapable of holy activity as a corpse of moving its limbs and doing the work of life. But the believer in Christ Jesus loves God, desires to serve Him, does serve Him. This is ‘glorious liberty,’ ‘eternal life.’ Now this spiritual energy possessed by the man who has the faith of the gospel, is wholly from God. ‘ Faith is not of ourselves ; it is the gift of God.’ Not merely has He given us the gospel, but, by an influence graciously exerted on the soul, He sends home the conviction that the gospel is true. The Bible contains a full and clear communication of His will regarding everything which we need to know for salvation ; and the evidence that it is His word is such as will convince any mind truly candid: but by nature our souls, instead of being candid, are so beclouded by wilful prejudice, that, left to ourselves, no one of us would with seriousness and openness of heart consider the truth. We have mental faculties sufficient to apprehend the meaning of the Bible, and the force of the proof that God is its Author; but the alienated will refuses to bring these into play on the subject. But God, through His Spirit, induces men to examine and think honestly, —to see the truth and féel its force. Thus He ‘ breathes into us the breath of life.’ And the life He gives is sustained also constantly and solely by Him. Spiritually, as physically, ‘in Him we live and move and have our being.’ He ‘ worketh in us to wz//’ that which accords with As will. But even when enabled to ‘ will,’—‘ how to ferform that which is good we find not.’ The old nature impedes us, and throws up stumblingblocks at every turn. ‘ We are not sufficient of ourselves, to think anything as of ourselves.’ But our gracious Father ‘worketh in us to work.’ Knowledge and wisdom, resolution and power to resist, resolution and power to wage war against the wickedness of the world, and to do somewhat for the extension of the Redeemer’s kingdom,—these He givens ‘Our sufficiency is of God.’

He does these things ‘of His good pleasure, —‘in fulfilment

of His free sovereign purpose of grace.’ The ultimate cause of the enjoyment by Christians of spiritual life, is His spontaneous kindness. ‘There is nothing in us by nature to attract the affectionate interest of a holy Being, everything to avert it. Death is wages, fully earned ; but ‘ eternal life is the gift of God,’ the gift of free grace. ‘ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world ; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will :’ ‘ that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let Him glory in the Lord.’

The ‘for,’ by which the apostle connects this verse with the precept of the preceding, shows us the legitimate bearing on man’s conduct of the truth that, for the origination and support of spiritual life, we depend absolutely on God. Mere nature is apt to regard the doctrine that strength for holy purpose and action is only from above, from Him who ‘ worketh all things after the counsel of His own will,’ as standing in antagonism to the other doctrine that, if we are to be saved, we must ‘strive—agonize—to enter in at the strait gate,’ and press along the narrow way. In such a judgment as this, most important elements in the question, relating both to the character of God and the character of man, are left out of view. The light of the Divine Spirit reveals, not antagonism, but the most exquisite accord. His connection is: ‘ Work ; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, of His good pleasure.’ ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ Did the command and its appendix run thus,—‘ Work out your own salvation, for there is no help from above ; all dependence is entirely on yourselves,’-—every man who has real self-knowledge would feel that the case was an utterly hopeless one. Every believer knows from experience that, ‘as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide

in the vine, no more can we, except we abide in Christ; for without Him we can do nothing.’ But the assurance that God, the infinitely wise, and powerful, and holy, and loving, imparts to us spiritual wisdom and desires and energies, stimulates to vigorous effort. Hope nerves the arm, and wings the feet. The calm quiet words of the Divine Saviour, ‘ He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit,’ are as a well-spring, a brook in the way, to the weary servant of God. A draught of its living water gives him new strength — and buoyancy, so that he ‘lifts up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees.’ No thoughts with regard to the Christian life, either in retrospect or in prospect, are more healthful than those which gather round Paul’s ‘Not I, but the grace of God.’