What does it mean to work out salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12)?

Words of exhortation come after this blessed paragraph in which the Lord Jesus is put before us as our pattern. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure." These words are misunderstood by many Christians. It is being taught that Christians should work for their own salvation. This is the grossest perversion of this exhortation. Every true believer has salvation which is given to Him by grace. It is his own salvation; he does not need to work for it. Others say that one who is really saved by grace must work in order to stay saved, and work with fear and trembling. They tell us, if a believer does not keep on working, if he fails and sins, he will fall from grace and is in danger to be unsaved and lost again. This also is Unscriptural; the Word of God teaches the eternal security of all who have received eternal life, the gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The exhortation does not mean that we must work to keep ourselves saved, but it means that our own salvation which we have in Christ is to be worked out into result. Salvation is to be practically manifested in the life and walk by glorifying Christ. We are to work it out after the blessed pattern of Christ with fear and trembling, not the fear of being lost, but the fear of failure in not walking in lowliness of mind, in true humility and in obedience. This will ever be the chiefest concern of the believer who walks in the Spirit. "It is this, therefore, which is to induce the fear and trembling; not in selfish dread, but the sense of our responsibility to Him to whom we owe our all and whose our life is. Plenty there is to make us serious in such work as this, but nothing to dishearten us. if God has taken in hand to work in us after this fashion, that is ample security for our success. The fact that the apostle was now absent from them, he whose presence had been so great a comfort and blessing to their souls, was only to make them more completely realize this divine power which was carrying them on to the full blessing beyond" (Numerical Bible).

What, then, thou mayest still ask, is the real meaning of these words, "Work out your own salvation with fear trembling"? Carefully look for a moment, my soul, at what goes before, and what follows after these words; then thou wilt find the key to the passage. Paul has left the saints at Philippi; God is with them. Not that God was absent when Paul was present; that is not the question. God never leaves nor forsakes His people. But when a father is present, and doing everything for his children, they are disposed to lean on him; when he is away from them, they must think and work for themselves. Thus it was, so far, with the Philippians. "Wherefore," he says, "my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." The apostle who had laboured among them was now far away, a prisoner at Rome. He was no longer present to help them with his counsel and spiritual energy. They were now cast more immediately on God Himself. Hence he says, "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Therefore, they ought to work all the more earnestly, even with "fear and trembling," seeing that God was working in them. He exhorts them to "fear and tremble, not lest they should fall and be lost, but lest they should dishonour God by any want of zeal, diligence, earnestness, or faithfulness, in the day of trial.

And then notice what he tells us about the strawberries. The more valuable the crop the more careful we are about cultivating it. Can you not just hear the father say to his son, Go work today in my strawberry patch: and be very careful for fear you damage the roots, or cut the young shoots, or harm the tendrils, or spoil the fruit. Does not that help us to understand how it is we are to cultivate our own salvation with fear and trembling? It is no light matter we have in hand; and the more deeply we know our own selves, the more we will fear as we take up such a task. It is not the fear that we will be lost. It is not the fear that the Lord will forsake us. But it is the sense of our need of being more prayerful, and more circumspect than ever: feeling that it is a bitter, painful thing to compromise God in any way by want of jealous self-judgment in our walk — fear and trembling because of the seriousness of the conflict.

(1) The apostle immediately encourages us, in fact, with the assurance that if we are to work out our own salvation, yet it is God who worketh in us both the willing and the doing. We have already seen what this working out of salvation means, that it applies to the difficulties in the way, a salvation from all that would hinder the glorifying of Christ in our life here. It is this, therefore, which is to induce the fear and trembling; not in selfish dread, but the sense of our responsibility to Him to whom we owe our all and whose our life is. Plenty there is to make us serious in such work as this, but nothing to dishearten us. If God has taken in hand to work in us after this fashion, that is ample security for our success. The fact that the apostle was now absent from them, whose presence had been so great a comfort and blessing to their souls, was only to make them more completely realize this divine power which was carrying them on to the full blessing beyond.

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest" — there was no difficulty to discern them — "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like." Thus you have human corruption and human violence. You have idolatry and witchcraft brought in, and on the other hand, seditions and heresies, which refer to the party-spirit that might be at work even under a christian profession. A child of God might slip into any of these evil things for a time; but there is a solemn sentence pronounced upon them — "Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." He warns them now, as he had while he was with them, "that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Whatever the difficulty may be, let us never doubt, but most firmly receive it as from God, that Christ is the power of God to every one that believes. He is the power of God not merely to justification, but to salvation; and salvation, while it includes justification, goes far beyond it, because it takes in all the course of a christian man till he is actually in the resurrection state along with Christ. This is the meaning of the verse, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" — not your own forgiveness, but your own salvation. It is said to those who were already forgiven. Thus, salvation, in the sense spoken of there, implies the whole conflict with the power of evil we are passing through. We know that we have to do with the common enemy; but God is at work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. We know the deep concern and regard which God feels for us, as committed to this conflict. We are fighting under His orders — doing His will in that thing as well as in others. So far is God from leaving us in any way, that He assures our soul He is pledged to see us through to the end; but He will have a solemn sense of the war with Satan in which we are engaged.

Turning, however, to the context we find that the Apostle's subject in Philippians 1 and 2 is the practical walk of the believer. Adversaries were abounding (Phil. 1:28). Difficulties were thickening in the bosom of the Church (Phil. 2:2-4). Paul himself, the watchful pastor, was removed far from them (Phil. 2:12). In effect, he says, "Christ Jesus is your great Example. With fear and trembling, because conscious of your weakness with the flesh within, work out your own salvation from the various forms of evil which threaten you." And lest they should think of their own abilities for one moment he adds, "for it is God which works in you." By His Spirit He works in and we work out.

The apostle passes on to present a beautiful picture of the Christian life formed after the pattern. He says as it were, "I have exhorted you to have the lowly mind, and I have set before you the perfect pattern of the lowly mind in Christ, now I look for an answer to the pattern I want you to obey." Obedience to the truth the apostle has been setting before us will have a two-fold result: first, it will lead to salvation from all the enemies and snares by which the believer is surrounded in his journey through the wilderness: second, it will lead to the expression of the Christian life formed after the pattern.

As regards the salvation of which the apostle speaks. When he was present with them he exposed and resisted the different attacks of the enemy. Now he was absent they would have to work out their own salvation. This would call for fear and trembling; "fear" because of the power of the enemy, "trembling" because of their own weakness. In this warfare self-confidence and fleshly energy would only lead to defeat. However, if the devil was against them, God was for them and working in them. Paul was absent from them, the devil was against them, but God was with them, to work in them both the willing and the doing of His good pleasure.

In verse 12 the Apostle leaves this delightful theme and returns to his exhortation, which began with Phil. 1:27. He longed that their manner of life might be in everything in keeping with the Gospel, that they might be marked by earnest labour for the Gospel with oneness of mind, and courage in the presence of opposition. In the past, when Paul had been in and out amongst them, they had been marked by obedience to what was enjoined. Now, let them be, if possible, even more obedient to his word since they were bereft of his personal help. Dangers threatened them from without, and there was this subtle danger threatening from dissension within, let them then with redoubled energy seek to have and manifest the mind that was in Christ Jesus. Thus would they be working out their own salvation from all that threatened. Let them do it with fear and trembling, remembering their own weakness. Once Peter thought he could work out his own salvation without fear or trembling, and we know what came of that.

This evidently is the simple meaning of this much used, and abused, verse. Can we not each apply it to ourselves? We certainly can if we will. So may God make us willing to do so. We need not shrink from doing so in view of verse 13. We are to work out our own salvation, but it is God who works in us, to the willing and doing of His good pleasure. Let us note that. God works the willing as well as the doing, and the willing comes first. Thus God's work and our work are considered as moving harmoniously together. God's work must ever take precedence of ours both as to time and importance. Yet the thing is not presented in a way that would turn us into fatalists. Rather our working is mentioned first, and the responsibility as to it is pressed upon us. The fact that God works is brought in as an encouragement and incentive.

But without going through all similar statements in other epistles, let me refer to the first epistle of Peter. It appears to me that, with the exception of a single phrase in 1 Peter 1:9, salvation is always regarded as a thing not yet accomplished, and only indeed accomplished in the redemption of the body. That one phrase is: "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of [your] souls." Now soul salvation will not be more complete for believers after Christ comes than now when they believe and are being carried through the wilderness; it is an already enjoyed blessing as regards the resting place of faith. But, with that exception, salvation in Peter applies to the deliverance that crowns the close of all the difficulties we may encounter in the passage through the desert-world, as well as to the present guardian care of our God who brings us safely through. It is a salvation only completed at the appearing of Jesus. (See 1 Peter 1:5; 1 Peter 2:2, "grow unto salvation" in the critical text; and 1 Peter 4:18.)

This too I believe to be the meaning of "salvation" in the epistle to the Philippians; and that it is so will appear still more clearly when we come to Philippians 3, where our Lord is spoken of as a "Saviour," even when He comes to transform the body. "Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change," etc. The real meaning is, We look for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, who will change our body of humiliation, that it should be conformed to His body of glory. There is the character of the salvation; it is a question not of the soul merely, but of our bodies. If we accept this thought as a true one and as the real scope of salvation throughout the context, interpreting the language here by the general object that the Holy Ghost has in view, the meaning of our verse 12 becomes plain: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." It is as if the Apostle said, I am no longer with you to warn, exhort, and stir you up when your courage is flagging — you are now thrown entirely upon God. You have got the ordinary helps of bishops and deacons, but there is no present apostolic care to look to.

No doubt the Apostle's absence was an immense loss. But God is able to turn any loss into gain, and this was the gain for them, that they were more consciously in dependence on the resources of God Himself. When the Apostle was there, they could go to him with whatever question arose; they might seek counsel direct from him. Now his departure leads them to wait upon God Himself for guidance. The effect on the spiritual would be to make them feel the need of being more prayerful and more circumspect than ever. "As ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. I am not there to watch over you and to give you my counsel and help in difficulties, and emergencies, and dangers. You have to do with a mighty, subtle, active foe. Hence you have not to look to the hills, but to God, and to 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."

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." It seems to me to confuse the true meaning of this exhortation to say that "we have this salvation, and now we have to work it out." The point here is not the salvation of the soul. If the whole passage be read, I think this will be clear to anyone. Nor does it cast any doubt on the fact of the salvation of the soul, which is the effect of faith, and is dependent on no works of ours. But at the time of writing this epistle the apostle was in prison, and he gladly remembered the obedience of these Philippian saints. They had manifested it when he was among them. Through taking heed to his words, they had saved themselves from the attacks of Satan, and from his wiles. And now that he was in prison, was it safe for them to be less obedient? No; if possible they were to be yet more earnestly careful and watchful than they had been in his presence, and this would manifest itself in obedience to his words. Therefore he says, "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure."