Work Out Your Salvation with Fear and Trembling

While Paul was with them, the Christians at Philippi held firmly to the faith, but once they had to stand on their own, they began to lose their footing. Pride had crept in among them: they quarreled over who should be greater and sought to be honored. Paul pulls them back with the charge to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

Salvation is a work Jesus has already accomplished in full, yet connecting that current to the switch and turning on the light is the labor that falls to his people. As time given over to worldly concerns piles up and worship comes to be treated lightly, a person is in the end pushed outside salvation, and that is the very moment Satan finds his way in, the most dangerous time of all. The disciples were told beforehand that they would betray him, yet they dismissed it as unthinkable and in the end deserted Jesus. In the same way, a heart grown dull after hearing the warning is like tearing down God’s hedge with one’s own hands.

Paul confesses that if the believers went astray, he would gladly die, if only they would turn back. When someone offers counsel that is hard to hear, it is in fact a sign of being blessed. Such words are to be treasured, and God’s people must obey the Word and guard their faith with their very lives.