Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 820
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, July 12, 1868, by C. H. SPURGEON, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington..
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12,13.
I HAVE frequently heard these words addressed to an indiscriminate audience and it has always struck me that they have thereby been twisted from their right meaning. These words, as they stand in the New Testament, contain no exhortation to all men, but are directed to the people of God. They are not intended as an exhortation to the unconverted. They are, as we find them in the Epistle, beyond all question addressed to those who are already saved through a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
No proof can be needed of this assertion, for the whole Epistle is directed to the saints. It begins, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.” And the verse before us contains within itself conclusive evidence that Paul was not speaking to unbelievers, for he calls the persons addressed, “my Beloved,” and he says of them, “As you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.” He was, therefore, writing to persons who had been obedient to the Gospel! And all true obedience springs from saving faith—he was, therefore, addressing those who, through faith in Christ, had been rendered obedient to the Gospel commands.
To obedient Believers he writes, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” It may be right to use a text apart from the connection, and I will not venture to censure those who have dealt so with this passage, but it is never right to attempt to draw authoritative doctrine from a text apart from the context, and therefore nothing can be drawn from the text before us in reference to the duty or to the power of the unconverted—seeing that from its connection it is tied and bound to those who are Believers in Christ Jesus—and to those who were and still continue to be obedient to the Gospel which Paul proclaimed.
If we sometimes looked a little more to the connection of sentences we should be kept from very dangerous errors. The Bible ought to be treated in conformity with common sense, as you would use any other book. If you took the writings of any author, however carefully he might express himself, if you picked out a sentence here, and a sentence there, you might make the man say what he never believed. No, even make him to be the supporter of opinions which he abhors! So it is with the Bible—if you pay no regard to the connection and general run of the passage, you miss the mind of the Spirit of God—and thrust your own mind into God’s Words than bring out God’s mind from the Words of the Holy Spirit.
The exhortation before us is given solely to the people of God and I feel it to be more than my conscience could endure to force it into any other service. To as many as are obedient to the Gospel, the Word of the Holy Spirit comes this morning, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God that works in you.” In a certain sense, the salvation of every person who believes in Christ is complete—and complete without any working out on his part—seeing that “it is finished,” and we are complete in Jesus. Observe that there are two parts of our salvation, the one complete, the other as yet incomplete—though guaranteed to be brought to perfection.
The first part of our salvation consists of a work for us. The second, of a work in us. The work for us is perfect— none can add to it. Jesus Christ our Lord has offered a complete Atonement for all the offenses of His people. He took His people into union with Himself, and by that union they became entitled to all the merit of His righteousness. They became partakers of His everlasting life, and inheritors of His Glory. Saints are, therefore, saved completely so far as substitutionary work is concerned. Such was the meaning of those majestic death-words of our Lord, “It is finished.” He had finished transgression, made an end of sin and brought in everlasting righteousness. Thus He perfected forever them that are set apart.
Now with the work of Christ we cannot intermeddle—we are never told to work that out, but to receive it by faith. The blessing comes “to him that works not, but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly.” Justification is not at all by human effort, but by the free gift of God. The second part of salvation consists of a work in us—this is the operation of God the Holy Spirit. As many as were redeemed by the blood of Jesus are also, in due time, renewed in the spirit of their minds. The Holy Spirit, in regeneration, descends into a man and creates in him a new nature. He does not destroy the old that remains still to be battled with and to be overcome.