Why “Fear and Trembling”?

Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil. 2:12b-13)

I never understood these verses, never liked these verses, and ignored these verses. So of course God told me to teach them at my Bible study! Having been  forced to study them, I figured it out and feel much better now. ;>

At first glance these statements seem contradictory!

1. In v. 12, “work out your salvation” sure sounds like it’s up to us. Even worse, we’re supposed to do it with fear and trembling!
2. Yet in v. 13, “for it is God who works in you.” So which is it? And if God is working in us, why the fear and trembling part?

Let’s break these verses down and then put them back together again.

v. 12
The people of God have always had a duty to respond to God. All of the statements about salvation through Christ are conditional: He offers salvation and we must accept it. He wants everyone to be saved but not everyone will accept salvation. So we “work out our own salvation” because if we don’t, no one else will!

1. God won’t because He honors our free will. If we turn away from Him repeatedly, one day it will simply be too late.
2. Other people won’t because they can’t, they have no power to save our souls.
3. Only we can decide to respond to God by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and then by living out His will in our lives the best we can.

And life is like that anyway. There is little return for little effort. The farmer plants his field. The mother actively raises her children. The business person works to make money. Why should everything change with faith? We get out what we put in, this is the law of sowing and reaping.

However, we still get confused about “working out our own salvation” because it makes it sound like its completely up to us. And the verse isn’t helping with its “fear and trembling” part. So let’s look at what this verse does NOT mean.

• It does NOT mean that we can become perfect on our own and therefore earn salvation on our own efforts. We are too full of sin and living in a sinful world, and that will never happen. We will never be perfect in this world, only in the next.
• It does NOT mean that we can atone for past sins. That ship has sailed, and only Jesus’ great sacrifice forgives us of our past sins.

It DOES mean that:

• We need to accept Christ so we can be saved. This is the heart of the gospel: to believe on Christ, and Him crucified. This is why a person who has run from God all their lives really can be saved on their deathbeds.
• We need to be sorry for our sins and apologize to God. The word for repentance is metanoia, which means “turning.” Confessing our sins is turning back to Him.
• We need to trust God.  In hard times this can be tough, but it is absolutely necessary. God Himself makes it possible for us to trust Him. Remember the “peace of Christ which is beyond all understanding”?
• We need to put ourselves and our things under God’s will. This is a lifelong process of trusting, giving and letting go.
• We are to break away from evil people, thoughts and activities. Jesus didn’t live in a crystal palace and either do we. He went to parties with the dregs of society and they loved Him for it and many were saved. But there is a difference between sinners who need salvation and people and activities that are based in darkness and evil. Stay away!
• Resist temptation. We are more likely to be tempted by the mundane and everyday than we are pure evil. Resist every activity that comes between us and God. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with T.V. for example but when it comes between us and God’s will for our lives than it becomes a temptation.

So what about the “fear and trembling” part? God never meant us to be scaredy cats. Look at His command to Joshua! “Be strong and courageous!” that strength and courage is what characterized the entire early church. So if God doesn’t mean us to be fluttering chickens, then what does He mean by this?

He means taking our salvation with deadly seriousness. There is nothing, NOTHING more important in this world than that we should be saved. Because we sure as heck can’t save other people. God will often use us to influence someone through our life or our direct witness. We’re called to lead our children to Christ and we’re called to “pray without ceasing.” But we can’t save anyone else. We can’t really save ourselves either, that’s Christ’s job. But we have to accept salvation for ourselves and take care that we never lose it! We all know people who used to believe in Christ and don’t anymore. That’s scary, believe me. You don’t want that.

Stay on the straight path and enter the gates of life.

v. 13
Now we come to the second part. We do our part by responding to Christ by believing that He is our Savior and by living as best we can in His will. Obviously God has already taken part in this because Christ allowed Himself to be crucified for our sins. Now He keeps right on going by acting in the lives of His people.

We work out our salvation because there is nothing more important in the world. Why? Because it is God Himself who wants to come in and do the work. “Behold,” Jesus said, “I am standing at  the door knocking. If anyone answers the door then I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” If God is knocking at the door then we had jolly well better answer it and let Him in!

God has chosen to work with us. He does not trespass on free will. Sometimes I wish He would when I’m struggling with sin, but He won’t. He gives us the power to make the right choices but we still have to decide if we’ll do it or not. We are actually partnering with the God of the universe in our own salvation. This is kind of a big deal.

The word that Paul uses for “working” is energōn — “energy!” – that means actively producing a certain effect. We choose to open our hearts to God by “working out our own salvation.” When we choose to open ourselves in this way God gets to work! And how does He work with us? By empowering us to want and to do His great will in our lives!  He does not force us. Instead He takes our softened hearts – our hearts that have turned towards Him – and gives us the wisdom and power to do His perfect, beautiful will – His “good pleasure.”

Sometimes we wonder if we really want God’s will though!  Because sometimes He has us go through really hard things. But the Greek word for “good pleasure” is eudokia, which means all sorts of great things starting with “delight, good-will, and favor.” This is great stuff.
Ultimately He made the great sacrifice that will save us. We reach out to accept the sacrifice as our forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We live in such a way that we will not lose our salvation. He works with our good choices to give us the power to will and act to bring about His loving and wonderful will in our lives and the world.

It’s like planting apple trees! God creates apple seeds, we plant the seeds and God does the growing. And look at the result. Amen and amen.