WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION

I grew up thinking that these verses taught that we were to work for our salvation. I am sure that it was partly because of my ignorance, but in recent years I have learned differently. All we need to do is read Romans, chapter five, to learn that salvation or our justification is a gift; something that we do not earn, but rather accept. So what does our text in Philippians 2:12 mean when it says, “Work out your own salvation?” Historically, there were three ways that the Greek word that is translated as “work out” was used in the writings of the time.

• One was that when a mathematician was given a stiff math problem, he continued working until he had the right answer — he had worked it out.
• The second was when – e.g., a miner was mining for gold. After he had continued to work in the mine until all the gold was gone – he had worked it out.
• The third way that this word was used was when a farmer plowed his field, fertilized, planted the seed and cared for it until he harvested his crop –he had worked it out. In much the same way, it is true in our Christian life also.

The mathematician honed and educated his God-given intellectual abilities to be able to work out the math problem. The miner used his strength and talents to mine what God had provided. Although the farmer worked with the ground and the seed, yet it was God that made it grow.

In the same way, it is God working in and through us that enables us to obtain our salvation. This is made very clear in verse 13, where Paul said, “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

The Pharisees of old thought that the keeping of laws was the way to please God and earn salvation. That same “law keeping concept” was part of my upbringing. Thank God that I have learned something better. There is no amount of law keeping that can justify us with God. The Bible makes it very plain that salvation is a gift. Justification comes by grace through faith (Romans, chapters 4-6).Ephesians 2:8-9 sums up all three things that I have just mentioned when Paul said, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (NIV).

So to “work out” our salvation is simply to do all that we can to be the person that God wants us to be, and then leave our salvation to God’s grace and His working in and through us.

Just something to think about!

Harvey