Salvation with Fear and Trembling

Salvation is a free gift received by a heart that recognizes sin, takes responsibility for it through confession and repentance, and then places one’s faith in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, that He is Lord and the only One capable of sacrificing His life to pay the debt of sin, forgiving transgressions so that all who place their faith in Him might experience eternal life with Him. 

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​Meditation
Philippians 2:12,13--So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose.
 
In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, he did not write work for your salvation. He wrote work out your salvation. The prepositional difference is significant. We cannot earn salvation. If that were the case, the fear and trembling Paul writes of would be cruel. We would never know if we had done too little or enough to warrant God’s favor. Our fallen nature can never self-produce what is needed to gain favor to live with a perfect Creator. Charles Stanley wrote in Eternal Security Can You Be Sure? “Placing the responsibility for maintaining salvation on the believer is adding works to grace. Salvation would no longer be a gift.  It would become a trade—our faithfulness for His faithfulness.” 

We work out salvation through what was obtained by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead (see Ephesians 2:8,9). To know (as in believing in Jesus and following Him) requires obeying Him, not to earn what He already paid for, but to revere Him for the incredible power He holds and manifests in our lives.

Do you know people struggling with their faith and negotiating their relationship with God from a place of guilt? This is usually a sign that they base their salvation on works—warranting what cannot be gotten. The sign that God is working in us is our enabled desire to fulfill His “good purpose.”  It comes from a heart that trembles before Him in awe. The phrase “with fear and trembling” “indicates a nervous and trembling anxiety to do right.”[1]  This is not guilt-induced respect. It is a desire to please out-of-awe respect. It is what James writes in James 2:14, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?”  Sanctification requires faith that is expressed through a saved life working to please God.[2]

If you see a person with no desire to achieve or fulfill God’s purpose in their life, with no reverence for Him, that is a red flag that there is no authentic faith. One cannot work out what one does not have.  We revere and obey the Lord because we are saved, not to be saved.
 
Inspiration
“It is altogether doubtful whether any man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help, but with no intention to obey Him.”—A.W. Tozer

©2022 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed, subject to the inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)
 


[1] Lightfoot, J. B.  (1957). St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians. Zondervan.
[2] CSB Tony Evans Study Bible. (2019). Holman Bible Publishers.