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89. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Phil. 2:12

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[September 18th, 1853.]

I. Salvation, the greatest of all blessings, without which everything else is lost.

  1. Deliverance from the punishment of sin.

  2. Deliverance from its power.

  3. The eternal enjoyment of God.

II. Work out your salvation,

  1. Does not imply that we can merit it;

  2. Nor that we can effect it;

  3. But that we have an important agency in its accomplishment. As illustrations of such agency, we have the examples of Christ’s putting clay on the eyes of the blind man and telling him to wash in the pool of Siloam; Naaman commanded to bathe in the Jordan, etc. The sick may be assured of restoration, but they are exhorted to use diligently the appointed means.

What is the work? And how is it to be done?

The work is obedience. 1. To the gospel. 2. To the prescribed means of grace. 3. To all the commands of God.

How is the work to be done? With fear and trembling. This implies,

  1. The general, conscientious, and earnest desire to attain the object.

  2. Apprehension of failure through neglect.

  3. Conviction of the need of effort and labor.

It is opposed, 1. To indifference. 2. To security. 3. To autinomian neglect.

III. The motive.—It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure, Phil. 2:13. We are not to despair, nor be discouraged, because the work is so great. We have an Almighty Helper. 1. God does assist men. 2. His assistance consists in or is rendered by his working in us. 3. He works (to thelein kai to energein). The former includes, a, right feelings; b, right determinations. The latter, right actions. He gives strength to carry out our wishes and determinations.

Of this working of God it is taught, 1. That it is internal and not merely outward and objective. 2. That it is efficacious. 3. That it is sovereign and gracious. Here as everywhere the divine and human are reproduced in their true relation. 1. Both are indispensable. 2. They are perfectly harmonious. 3. The human is subordinate and instrumental; the divine, controlling and efficient.

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