«　WEEK 3　DAY 2　»

　　Phil. 2:12-13 So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.

　　To work out our own salvation is to carry it out, to bring it to the ultimate conclusion. We have received God's salvation, which has as its climax to be exalted by God in glory as the Lord Jesus was (Phil. 2:9). We need to carry out this salvation, to bring it to its ultimate conclusion, by our constant and absolute obedience with fear and trembling. We have received this salvation by faith. Now we must carry it out by obedience. This includes the genuine oneness in our soul (v. 2). To receive salvation by faith is once for all; to carry it out is lifelong. (Life-study of Philippians, p. 100)

　　In Philippians 2:12 Paul charges us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Fear is the inward motive; trembling is the outward attitude. In verse 13 Paul goes on to say, “For it is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.” The word for at the beginning of this verse gives the reason we need to obey always. It is because God operates in us. In God's economy we have the Lord Jesus as our pattern (vv. 6-11), as the standard of our salvation (v. 12), and we also have God operating in us both the willing and the working to carry out our salvation, to bring it to its ultimate conclusion. It is not that we by ourselves carry it out, but that God operates in us to do it. The only thing we need to do is to obey the inner operating of God. The willing Paul speaks of here is inward, whereas the working is outward.

　　To work out salvation is not to accomplish salvation. Rather, it is to carry out through continual obedience the salvation we have received. Paul's word about obedience in verse 12 answers to what he has previously said about Christ becoming obedient (v. 8). A very striking aspect of Christ as our pattern is His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. As God, Christ first took the major step of emptying Himself, of laying aside the expression of His deity. Then, having emptied Himself and having taken the form of a man, He humbled Himself. This self-humbling is particularly related to obedience. The Bible underscores the importance of obedience. For example, in 1 Samuel 15:22 we are told that to obey is better than sacrifice. We who have received Christ as the pattern of our salvation must learn to always obey with fear and trembling. Within we should have fear as the motive, and without we should have trembling as our attitude, an indication that we have no confidence in ourselves.

　　According to Philippians 2:13, God is operating in us. Our salvation is not merely an action; it is a living Person, the Triune God Himself, operating in us. The God Paul speaks of in verse 13 is the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

　　In order to prove that God in 2:13 is the Triune God, we need to consider the context of the whole book of Philippians. The last verse of the book, 4:23, says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.” Certainly the Lord as the One whose grace is with our spirit is not separate from the God who operates in us. The very Christ who is with our spirit is the God who operates in us. Furthermore, 1:19 speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. There can be no doubt that the Spirit who supplies us is the Spirit who indwells us. But this Spirit cannot be separate from the God who operates in us. If we put all these verses together and consider the context of the book as a whole, we shall see that the God who operates in us is the Triune God. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. He is the very God who is Christ in us (2 Cor. 13:3a, 5) and the Spirit dwelling in us (Rom. 8:11). (Life-study of Philippians, pp. 100, 103-104)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Philippians, msg. 12