God within Us (Philippians 12-13)

¹² Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Verse 12 has been used to support the idea that humans work to earn salvation. However, within its context, it’s clear that God gave us salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice. But we must work out the process in ourselves. God and his people work together because God always works through humans – to the extent that he took on human form himself. As Bonnie Thurston and Judith Ryan put it “There is no salvation without God, but humans must accept and “work with” what God offers. Obedience is the proper response. As Thurston and Ryan point out, Paul talks of obedience, but he gives no rules or regulations to follow.

In other words, Christians can only truly become Christians when we model our behavior on that of Christ. Note that, in verse 12, the term usually translated as “work out” is a continuous tense and the form of “you” is plural. So Paul is saying that the whole community must work out, continuously over time, salvation, which one does by imitating Christ. This is very different from an individual person trying to be good. The Christian life is a cooperative effort, directed by God and supported by the community. When we try to keep a New Year’s resolution we often fail, but in the Christian life we are continually supported. Paul helped the Philippians before, but now that he is in prison, they must work out their salvation together, without much help from him.

The Philippians have always obeyed God, and they must continue to do so without Paul to guide them. They must do so with “fear and trembling”, a common term in the Bible for the human response to God. Of course, generally we don’t think of God as present in our lives, and we can all too easily dismiss our actions. In verse 13, Paul says that God works in us to “fulfil his good purpose.” This does not mean that God is some kind of dictator or slave driver: it means that his purpose is the good of his creatures. And we should never forget that he dwells within us and helps us.