For us to work out our own salvation is to carry it out, to bring it to the ultimate conclusion, by our constant and absolute obedience with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who operates in us.
As believers in Christ we have all received the salvation of God, and we didn’t have to work or do anything to deserve it – we simply had to believe into the Lord and receive it. But now we need to continue and work out our salvation; we need to experience Christ as our pattern.
This salvation that we need to work out, as seen in Phil. 2:12, is not eternal salvation from God’s condemnation; rather, it is the daily and constant salvation that is Christ as a living person.
When we live Christ, experience Christ, and enjoy Christ as our inward and outward pattern, we enjoy a practical, daily, moment-by-moment salvation.
But do we live Christ? Do we experience Christ? Do we enjoy Christ? There’s a danger that we would be distracted from Christ as our focus, so we need to be in the word of God and open to the Lord so that we may see, enjoy, and experience Christ as our inward and outward pattern.
The main elements of our salvation – which we need to work out – are Christ as the crucified life and Christ in His exaltation. When Christ as our pattern becomes our inward life, the pattern becomes our salvation.
It is amazing that in our Christian life we can experience Christ as our pattern, for He has come into us to be our life and everything; when we cooperate with God to work out our own salvation, we become in experience a reprint of Christ as our pattern.
When all the saints work out their salvation and thus cooperate with the inward operating God, we become the reality of the Body of Christ, which is Jesus living again on earth in all His members.
This is what God desires to obtain, the Body of Christ in reality who expresses and lives out Christ, having the same kind of living as He did when He was on the earth.
For this, we need to be daily saved in the divine life, realising that there are so many specific and general things that we need to be saved from.
May we have the same aspiration as Paul, that in nothing we would be put to shame but in all things, even in our circumstance and situation, Christ may be magnified in us, whether through life or through death.
We Work out our own Salvation by our Constant and Absolute Obedience to God
What does it mean to work out our own salvation? Does it mean that we need to work for our salvation?
To work out our own salvation is to carry it out, to bring it to the ultimate conclusion. God didn’t just save us and that’s it; He has a goal in His salvation, and He saved us from sins, hell, and judgement so that we may be brought into His glory.
According to 1 Thes. 2:12, we have been called into His kingdom and glory; the goal of God’s salvation is to bring us into His glory, so that we become as glorious as He is, the same as He is – this is the ultimate conclusion of His salvation.
So we need to work out our own salvation to that degree, to that state, for us to reach God’s goal for us. We have received God’s salvation, which has its climax our being exalted by God in glory even as the Lord Jesus was.
Now we need to day by day carry out this salvation, work out our own salvation, so that we may bring it to its ultimate conclusion.
How do we do this? It is by our constant and absolute obedience with the inward motive of fear and the outward attitude of trembling (Phil. 2:8, 12).
The first requirement in carrying out our salvation is obedience; when Paul presented Christ as our pattern, he pointed out that Christ became obedient and perfected that obedience.
In Heb. 5:8 it says that Christ learned obedience through the things which He suffered; without obedience, Christ could not express the Father, neither could He do the Father’s will.
When He was in the garden of Gethsemane and asked the Father to remove the cup from Him, He concluded by saying, Yet not as I will but as You will. This is obedience.
Obedience implies that there’s no argument, no bargaining; the Son accepted whatever the Father has ordained for Him and destined for Him, and this obedience eventually led Him to the cross.
Now He is our pattern. In working out our own salvation we need to have obedience; by nature we are disobedient, as stubborn as the children of Israel were when they were in the wilderness on their way to the good land.
Many times we are not happy with God’s arrangement, we disobey Him, and we even rebel against Him. Obedience is crucial in working out our own salvation.
God’s eternal economy is to work Himself into us so that He may be expressed through us; do we obey what God has shown us, or do we have some better idea, a better solution and way for our Christian life?
We may think that God may need to do this or that better, but His desire is for us to open to Him and allow Him to work His Christ into our being; this requires obedience – it requires for us to simply say Amen.
It is not a small thing to be obedient and work out this salvation.
For example, when the angel Gabriel came to Mary to announce to her that she was about to bear this Holy Thing in her womb, she did not argue or reason but simply said, Let it be done in me according to Your word. This is obedience, and this is a channel through whom the Savior was brought forth.
We need to be obedient to work out our own salvation, obeying what God has shown us and revealed to us.
Our inward motive should be fear – not in the sense of being afraid of something that may happen to us if we don’t obey, but in the sense that we are concerned that we may offend Him, we may make Him not happy with us.
Our outward attitude needs to be trembling, that is, being fearful that we would not miss the mark, that we would misaim. The inner operating God Himself is our salvation, and our obedience to Him is the working out of our salvation (see Phil. 2:12-13).
God couldn’t care less for what we can do for Him, what we can sacrifice for Him, and what we can offer Him as a sacrifice; He desires to have our obedience.
Our disobedience is likened to contacting the demons, and our insubordination is like idolatry; God honors our obedience to Him more than what we can do for Him or offer Him (see 1 Sam. 15:22).
Lord Jesus, we want to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure. Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with You by being obedient according to what You have revealed to us so that we may carry out our salvation, bring it to its ultimate conclusion. May we as Your people have a constant and absolute obedience with the inward motive of fear and the outward attitude of trembling as we work out our own salvation! Hallelujah, the inner operating God Himself is our salvation, and our obedience to Him is the working out of our salvation!
It is God who Operates in us to Carry out our Salvation; we simply Obey the Inner Operating
It may not sound pleasant to hear that we need to obey; no one is willing to obey, and by nature we are not only rebellious but also inquisitive, for we want to know the situation and the consequences before we do anything.
Why do we need to obey to work out our salvation? It is because God operates in us. This is a passive-active cooperation with God’s inward salvation, His inward operation. Passively it is God who operates in us, and actively we cooperate with Him by obeying to work out our own salvation.
We need to obey, but in ourselves and with our own energy and zeal we cannot obey, we cannot submit; so we need to remember that it is God who operates in us.
Hallelujah, there’s an inner operating God in us, and He operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.
The God who lives in us and operates in us is the very Jesus Christ who lived the life presented in the pattern in Phil. 2; He was processed and consummated, and now He dwells in us and operates within us.
So we should not try with our own will and energy, with our natural determination and zeal, to work out our salvation; rather, we need to be reminded that it is God who operates in us, and we simply need to cooperate with Him.
It’s not that we by ourselves carry out our salvation but that God operates in us to do it; the only thing we need to do is obey the inner operating, energizing God.
Hallelujah, the inner operating, energizing God works in us, and we simply need to cooperate with Him! God is the One who is doing this work; He operates, but He needs our permission, our obeying; even our saying Amen to Him gives Him the opening to operate freely in us.
God knows that we can’t do it; He knows we don’t have the ability or the capacity, but He needs our willingness, our cooperation, our obedience. He wants us to agree with Him so that He may go ahead and do what He pleases in us. Amen!
We need to obey and work out our salvation, but even this obedience is not from us – it is based on the God who operates in us!
The God who operates in us as our subjective salvation is the Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; the very God who is Christ is in us (2 Cor. 13:3, 5) and the Spirit is in us (Rom. 8:11).
In Phil. 2:13 Paul says that it is God who operates in us; who is this God? It is the Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, who operates in us.
God came and passed through a process of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, and now as the Spirit He operates in us. He wants to do many things in us; He wants to save us to the uttermost, and He wants to bring us into glory, but He needs our cooperation. He operates inwardly, and we need to cooperate with Him. Hallelujah!
Thank You God for coming into us to be the inward operating and energizing Triune God! Hallelujah, in ourselves we cannot carry out our salvation but God operates in us to do it, and we can simply say Amen, do it in us Lord! Amen, God, we give You the permission to work in us, operate in us, and carry out Your full salvation in us until we are brought into glory! Oh, inner operating, energizing God, we open to You as much as we can, and we want to give You our cooperation to the uttermost so that we may work out our own salvation!
This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Trebuie să ascultăm de Dumnezeu să lucrăm propria mântuire, căci Dumnezeu operează în noi.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Philippians, msg. 12 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Experience of Christ (2019 Memorial Day Conference), week 3, Experiencing Christ as Our Constant Salvation.
- Hymns on this topic:
# He’s pledged to save us to the full, / His life is operating; / He’s doing everything for us / ’Tis all for our perfecting; / Our life’s a failure at its best, / Only His life can stand the test: / His life brings full salvation! (Hymns #1130)
# I say Yes and give You full permission / To touch every corner of my heart; / Break through all the barriers in my being; / Do not let me withhold any part. (Song on, My heart longs for absolute surrender)
# Lord, be my pattern, humble and lowly; / Save me from self and pride and vainglory. / Preserve and keep me, for Your economy, / Live in me, possess me wholly. (Song on, Lord, I do thank You for another day)
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