“You have nothing to do in order to be saved. You have only to believe.”
“I cannot agree with you,” was the reply. “Works are necessary; and more, we read in the Bible that we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Hence, first, we have to work it out; second, we have to maintain a humble spirit, to fear and tremble; for after all we may not be saved.”
This answer is often given to the messengers of free grace, as it was in this case by one who, we should suppose, is really a believer, but who has not yet understood the full meaning of the grace of God. The text referred to is taken from that epistle which, of all others, speaks most of the work of the gospel, namely, the Philippians—it is in ch. 2:12, 13: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
It is evident to any reader of ch. 1 that the persons then addressed were believers. These believers probably numbered amongst them the jailor, whose question, “What must I do to be saved?” received the gracious answer “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Certainly they had heard from Paul and Silas, “the servants of the most high God,... the way of salvation.” (Read Acts 16:17-31). And being saved, they were responsible before God to work out in their lives what God by His grace was working in their hearts. Had their hearts been empty they would have had nothing to work out. But God had placed His Spirit in their hearts, and given them a desire to do His good pleasure, hence the exhortation, as to loving and obedient children, who fear to grieve their Father, to work out the holy things which He is working in them.
The unsaved sinner is not told to work out salvation for himself. We could not say “his own salvation,” for until a man be saved he has no salvation of his own, and he is only hoping to get salvation some day. The unsaved sinner needs salvation, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of sinners; whosoever believes on Him is saved; and when saved, then salvation is his own.
“As ye have always obeyed,” says the apostle in Phil, 2:12. Alas! how much disobedience there is in men’s hearts even to the plain word, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” so many twist the end of the verse, as did the person whose words we have quoted, to mean that salvation comes not altogether from Christ, but from man’s working out of himself what he has not yet got. Dear believer in God, God is working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure; let godly fear and trembling characterize all that you do.