What Does “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” Mean?

What Does “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” Mean?

Aug 17, 2023 | The Gospel

I’ve wondered all my Christian life why God tells us in His word that we are to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” I thought we were saved by God’s grace, His unmerited favor, that we’ve been saved from God’s wrath through Christ who “paid it all,” and as He says through Isaiah, “the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” I thought “there was now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” and that “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Not only all this, but we know that “perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” And lastly, although I could add a lot more, Christ Jesus is “our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” All of this is my understanding of the gospel, and doesn’t seem to jive with what Paull tells us in Philippians 2:

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 . . . .

Even though Paul continues this with, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose,” he is still connecting that with “fear and trembling.”

My framework for understanding the gospel, the good news, starts with Genesis 3 after the fall when the Lord comes walking in the garden “in the cool of the day,” and because Adam and Eve have disobeyed Him they hide. They now knew they were naked and were ashamed, so they hid from their Creator. That alienation, the desire to hide or run away from God has been dealt with once for all on the cross, and everything I said about the gospel is true, yet Paul still says our redeemed and reconciled relationship to God through Christ should be characterized by “fear and trembling,” and that we need to “work out our salvation” with this attitude. Until not too long ago this confused me, but it shouldn’t have. I’ll just chalk that up to my ignorance and dullness of heart and mind. I never thought God should now be my best buddy since I’m “saved,” but I couldn’t quite imagine why Paul would use these words.

There are probably many reasons “fear and trembling” is appropriate in our relationship to our God and Savior, but most simply it comes down to He is God and we are not. I know that’s anti-climactic, but it’s true. Read through the Old Testament and see how God teaches His people how they are to relate to Him. Moses says in Deuteronomy 4:24 and 9:3 that Yahweh, Israel’s God, is a “consuming fire.” Moses experienced this directly because when he asked God to show him His glory, the Lord said, “no one may see me and live.” The tabernacle the Israelites were instructed to build included the Holy of Holies where God symbolically dwelled, and it was protected by a great curtain. Only one man ceremonially cleansed, and that only once a year, could enter without being instantly killed. We might say for sinners, holiness kills. That’s kind of a good reason for “fear and trembling,” don’t you think? Or maybe we take this relationship for granted? I’ll give you the answer: Yes we do. We’re sinners, and we’re always fumbling and stumbling around trying to get this thing right. We often don’t. That’s why Jesus being our righteous and sanctification is such incredibly, insanely, wonderfully good news!

Another reason for “fear and trembling” is that we are born-again into a spiritual cosmic drama with consequences beyond our imagining. This is extremely serious business. As Paul says, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” This evil exists in the hearts and minds of every human being, including our own, thus we seek first He who is “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion” and alone is able to “deliver us from evil.”

As good Protestants we know none of our striving means we earn our salvation by what we do, but taking our relationship with our holy Creator God through Christ for granted is a grave error, one we too often make. It is important to understand our salvation from sin into this reconciled relationship is just the beginning. That’s the reason Jesus commands us to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Not second, third, or twenty-eighth, but first. If His kingdom and His righteousness, His Word, living according to His law, is not first in our lives in terms of priority, something’s wrong. What does that mean, though? Clearly it doesn’t mean giving it the most time because for most of us we have to earn a living and raise our families, not to mention enjoy the life and people God has given us. But I suggest it’s giving it the most thought, the most focus, the highest priority in all our seeing and perceiving of life as we live it. We live in a God-drenched reality, and every square inch of it, every millisecond of time, is His. So we see God in all things! As C.S. Lewis said, he believed in Christianity as he believed the sun had risen, not because he sees it but by it he sees everything else.

Paul’s exhortation that we “work out” our salvation in this way convicts most of us as lazy Christians. The Greek word Paul uses for that phrase means, strangely enough, to work! To “effect by labor,” to “achieve.” The Christian life takes effort! In several letters Paul compares it to being an Olympic athlete, and that we are to run the race with the kind of effort it takes to win the prize. It’s unfortunate most Christians know more about their careers, occupations, and hobbies than their Christian faith. That makes some sense given we spend eight or more hours a day at it, but those are not the most important things in our lives. God in Christ is! And Jesus said God’s word should be every bit as important to us as food, “For man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” All of us should be theologians, which simply means the study of God. We should also be apologists, meaning we know not only what we believe but why we believe it, and then competently be able to defend it. That all takes effort! I’ll end this with the Apostle Peter’s words explaining “working out” our salvation (2 Peter 1):

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

 

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

 

10 Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

Zechariah 3 – Joshua, Sin, and Rich Garments for Rich Living

Zechariah 3 – Joshua, Sin, and Rich Garments for Rich Living

Aug 2, 2023 | The Gospel

This short chapter is one of the most powerful and revelatory in all of Scripture. Zechariah prophesied during the time of Judah’s restoration after the exiles had returned from their seventy years in Babylon and were rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, around 520 to 470 BC. I’ve always been impressed by the presentation of the unique and unmistakable portrayal of the gospel in this chapter, and in how few words it’s done. It unmistakably magnifies God’s grace and mercy, but something else stood out to me in this specific period of learning in my life, something flowing out of God’s mercy and grace: our obedience and the blessings flowing from it. In other words, we are saved unto good works. The forgiveness of our sins and restoration of our relationship to our Creator God should manifest itself in the life we live, and transformed lives will transform the world.

In the past I always focused on the gospel side of the implications represented, we might say the Protestant side. Our understanding is that Jesus’ death on the cross was a substitutionary atonement for our sin: because he paid the price, death, for our sin, and by faith (i.e., trust) we are legally granted his righteousness before God. This was always a challenge for Christianity because sinful human beings will often jump to the non sequitur; since we’re saved by grace it doesn’t matter if we sin. The Apostle Paul had to deal with this because it’s an ever present temptation as we read in Romans 6:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We who died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

“By no means” can be translated as may it never happen, never be born, never come to be. It should be literally unimaginable to us. Alas, we are still sinners so sin will happen, but that is why Christ is our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (I Cor. 1:30), yet there is never any excuse for sin. This struggle highlights another focus of this chapter, the spiritual war we are part of, but more on that in a minute. First, the gospel presentation here is just too good not to review.

It is no coincidence the story is about Joshua or Yeshua (Jesus’ name), the High Priest who was the first man chosen to be the High Priest for the reconstruction of the Temple. He is in the process of being accused and condemned by Satan and is portrayed wearing “filthy clothes.” There is an historical reason for that given the exiles had recently returned from Babylon and Temple worship was just getting started again. The important thing is that the Lord commands these be taken off, and he’s told: “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.” The Lord does this pointing forward with three Messianic references. The first is by sending “the Branch,” a common Messianic reference in the prophetic writings. There is also a stone with “seven eyes” (all seeing, all knowing), and then the final reference, the Lord Almighty will “remove the sin of this land in a single day.” Which is also clearly a Messianic reference, one the Jews could never conceive happening in the way it actually did. It is only exactly the way it did happen that gives us hope that our sin has been removed, and we have been clothed with “rich garments” of righteousness.

What I love about how God presents the gospel in this chapter is the direct connection between being granted His righteousness, His call to obedience, and the implied blessings that results if we “walk in His ways.” Once the clean garment is put on Joshua, the angel of the Lord gives him this charge:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “If you will walk in obedience to me and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here.”

In the prophets there is often more than one meaning in a text, which is clearly the case here. While this is spoken to the High Priest Joshua in that historical moment, it is also spoken to our High Priest Jesus of Nazareth who obeyed the law perfectly for us, and now governs all of God’s house, all of creation from God’s right hand.

Then after the sin of the land is removed in “a single day” we’re told:

10 “‘In that day each of you will invite your neighbor to sit under your vine and fig tree,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”

God forgives our sin so we can be reconciled to Him, our Creator. Out of that reconciliation flows a changed heart that slowly (sanctification) orients our lives from self to God and others, thus the greatest commandment encompassing all the law and the prophets, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. God changes our affections to desire the right things, as Augustine said, He gives us right ordered loves.

God want to bless us, but He will not bless sin. This is why Paul in Ephesians 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—because exhibiting these traits to others, and ourselves, will bless us, make us happy, fulfilled, make life truly enjoyable and compelling. Compare it to the “acts of the flesh,” and there is no comparison. If you want to be miserable, do those things. This is all fleshed out, so to speak, in the context of an unimaginable, to us, cosmic spiritual war.

The Lord of Hosts

Notice the one who is making all this happen is The Lord Almighty, translated in other versions as the Lord of Hosts or the Lord of Armies. Yahweh, our God is the God of war! In fact, this adjective is the most common associated with Yahweh in the Old Testament, used upwards of 280 times. But God doesn’t wage war as the world does because the war, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 is “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” We also see Christ conquering evil in Revelation with a “sharp, double-edged sword” coming out of his mouth. And the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

We get a glimpse of our Lord or Hosts in the first two verses of this chapter with Satan accusing and the Lord defending this man, Joshua the High Priest, who is “a burning stick snatched from the fire.” No matter how pathetic we are, He goes to war for us. But that requires, as Jesus says, seeking first his kingdom and His righteousness through daily prayer and time in His Word (for man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God), daily repentance and thanksgiving, and obedience to his law. As the Lord says to Joshua, “walk in obedience to me and keep my requirements,” and He will bless our efforts as pathetic as they may be. He wants us to live as richly as the garment of righteousness he’s placed on us.

My Testimony on the One80 Podcast

My Testimony on the One80 Podcast

Jun 30, 2023 | The Gospel

Francis Thomson wrote a poem in 1890 called The Hound of Heaven that perfectly captures the story of my Christian journey. We don’t read poetry much anymore, but if you read the poem you may find it describes your journey too. Being a Christian of the Reformed perspective, I believe that Jesus came to earth specifically to “save his people from their sins,” as the angel of the Lord told Joseph in his dream when he was commanded to give Jesus his name (Matt. 1:21). Having listened to hundreds of testimonies over the last several years, it is amazing to me the infinite variety of ways he is able to accomplish this. As I look back over these forty four and a half years(!), it’s clear I didn’t stand a chance, thanks be to God. He was going to have me whether I wanted Him or not! He is faithful, even when we are not because his covenant promise to his Son will never fail. It was an amazing honor to share my story after so many years. (I really need a new “publicity” photo. This one was six years and over 20 pounds ago!)

Tim Keller RIP

Tim Keller RIP

May 20, 2023 | The Gospel, Uninvented

The Lord took another one of his faithful servants all too soon. We all know time is a mist and passes more swiftly than we have the ability to convey or comprehend, but that doesn’t make the end of it any easier to convey or comprehend, or accept, but we have no choice. Death sooner or later comes for us all, and all of us feel it comes way too soon no matter when it comes, at one or one hundred-and-one. As Christians, though, our encounter with the Grim Reaper, for us and the ones we care about, is different than those who don’t trust Christ. As the Apostle Paul says in I Thessalonians 4:

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Paul gives us further Christian perspective in Philippians 1 on this most unpleasant and unnatural fact of life when he tells us about his own inevitable coming encounter with death:

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.

How many of us can say, honestly, we are “torn between the two.” I’ll confess, I’m not terribly torn, although I pray to learn how to be as that encounter comes ever closer. When contemplating my own departure, my “falling asleep,” I always go to Jesus’ words to Martha at the tomb of her brother Lazarus whom Jesus would bring back to life only moments after he said these words (John 11):

 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

I do! The word for believe in Greek is trust, and trust requires faith. All human beings live by faith, or trust in some things and some ones, and it’s a requirement for daily existence for finite human beings. For ultimate things, as well as our everyday mundane life, Christians trust in our Almighty sovereign Creator God, and that makes all the hardness a little less hard.

Speaking of trust, I often think of the father in Mark 9 whose son was possessed by an evil spirit when he asked Jesus if he could do anything to help heal his son. Jesus’ response was priceless and speaks to our natural lack of trust in God’s almighty power on behalf of his people: “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” I love how Jesus gently rebukes him, although it’s impossible to know the tone of the rebuke when he gave it. He’s basically saying, you can trust me! If you do, anything is possible. Yet the man knows his weakness and with tears pleads with Jesus (in the poetic King James version): “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” I love that! It’s so hard to trust, but I so badly want to trust!

For those who know me, I attended Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia where I met my future wife, Sarah. It so happens that Tim Keller was a professor there at the time, and prior to our getting married he was our premarital counselor. I still remember, and recite to others, little gems of marital wisdom he gave us in those sessions. The most common and often repeated by me are the very first words he spoke to us after we sat down for our first session: The only sinner bigger than the one you’re marrying is you! That’s a hard one to forget because it is so obviously true. How many marriages have failed because one spouse thinks the other is the bigger sinner? A lot!

But it isn’t just that personal connection that makes Keller’s life special to us. His theological and apologetics teaching over the years has been a profound help in us maturing in our Reformed faith. It’s a testimony to his vision and persistence that he could go into the heart of the secular Christian hating Gotham and build not only a successful church (he preferred the word fruitful), but a world-wide church planting movement. I’ll never forget visiting New York City for a business trip in 2016 and visiting one of his churches. I was hoping to see him, but Redeemer Presbyterian didn’t advertise which church he would be preaching at, so I attended one closest to my hotel. The sermon by another pastor on the righteousness of God by faith in Romans 3 brought me to tears and the amazing depth of God’s grace for me. It didn’t surprise me coming from a Keller led church because the gospel of God’s good news of unmerited favor in Christ was his north star. Even though I had a problem with his thinking and writing on political and cultural engagement in recent years, he will be sorely missed.

 

 

Let’s Not Forget: Christmas is About Easter

Let’s Not Forget: Christmas is About Easter

Dec 24, 2022 | The Gospel

Given how big the celebration of Christmas is compared to Easter, it might come as a surprise that for much of Christian history it wasn’t celebrated at all. One reason is the gospels where only two address Jesus’ birth, but all four his death. There is no indication that Jesus’s birth should be celebrated, but specific teaching (including Paul in I Cor. 11) by Jesus himself (e.g., Matt. 26) that his death should be. So it isn’t surprising it took three hundred years before his birth would be celebrated.

During those centuries the church didn’t think the incarnation was holiday (in the literal meaning of the term, holy day) material. At this time of year they celebrated the feast of Epiphany which is where the idea of the twelve days of Christmas comes from. We know this as the three kings, the Magi, visiting Christ (which probably happened when he was two years old) symbolizing that salvation was for all people. In those centuries of the church, births were not celebrated by Christians, rather it was the death or martyrdom of saints that was celebrated because of the death and resurrection of the Savior of the world.

As the centuries went on, some early church fathers thought the day of Christ’s birth should be celebrated, and “December 25, 336, marks the day Christians officially celebrated the first Christmas on Earth.” We know pagans in those early centuries had mid-winter celebrations in December, December 25 being specifically the day of “natalis solis invict” (the Roman birth of the unconquered sun), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian “Sun of Righteousness.” But when the Roman Empire became officially Christian, the church decided to appropriate these holidays for Christianity. In fact, Augustine (354-430) wrote, “We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it.” Is that beautiful or what!

There was a fourth century Bishop named Saint Nicholas, but it was a very long time before he became associated with Christmas and Santa Clause. It’s a fascinating history how the celebration of a generous saint became connected with jolly Old Saint Nick that slowly became Santa and the holiday we celebrate. It developed in the 19th century with a significant push from Charles Dickens who wrote A Christmas Carol 1843 and took his show on the road reading it to packed houses in America in the coming decades. (I learned a movie came out in 2017 called The Man Who Invented Christmas, which I am looking forward to watching this Christmas season.)

J. Gresham Machen, one of the great saints of the church (1881-1937) just five days before his death gave a radio address about the atonement. In it he expresses his gratitude about the celebration of Christmas:

[T]hank God for the Christmas season; thank God for the softening that it brings to stony hearts; thank God for the recognition that it brings for the little children whom Jesus took into His arms; thank God even for the strange, sweet sadness that it brings to us together with its joys, as we think of the loved ones who are gone. Yes, it is well that we should celebrate the Christmas season; and may God ever give us a childlike heart that we may celebrate it aright.

Then he discusses the contrast in the New Testament related to Christ’s birth and death, and why that contrast exists:

I think the answer is fairly clear. The birth of Jesus was important not in itself but because it made possible His death. Jesus came into this world to die, and it is to His death that the sinner turns when He seeks salvation for his soul.

This Christmas season as we give gifts with loved ones, let us remember the greatest gift was God becoming man to die in our place to reconcile himself to his people. He was given the name Jesus before he was born specifically for that reason because as Joseph was told, “he will save his people from their sins.”

Nehemiah’s Hopeful Frustration and the Gospel

Nehemiah’s Hopeful Frustration and the Gospel

Nov 27, 2022 | The Gospel

The book of Nehemiah takes us to the end of Old Testament history in the early 5th century BC. The last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachi, lived during that time and spoke a message of hope and judgment, and he points to the hope in Nehemiah’s frustration. The Lord declares through this messenger (what his name means) another one to come (3:1):

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

The final verse says it will be the prophet Elijah whom he will send “before that great and dreadful day of the Lord.” It ends with the promise of something God will do, or else he “will come and strike the land with a curse.”  When I finished reading Nehemiah, I realized the answer to Nehemiah’s frustration lay in the promise of God through Malachi.

First, a brief historical background. Jerusalem had been destroyed by the great empire of Babylon in the late 500s, and most of the people of Judah, the southern kingdom, were taken to Babylon (modern day Iraq). Because they were from Judah they were first called Jews in Babylon. The northern kingdom, called Israel, had been destroyed in 722 BC by the Assyrians, and the 10 tribes who lived there were scattered throughout the Middle East never to be identified again by their tribal association, thus called the lost tribes of Israel. By contrast Judah, consisting of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, was also conquered and exiled, but because the Messiah was to come through Judah, God brought them back to Israel.

After the Persians conquered the Babylonian empire, King Cyrus who ruled from 539-530 let the remnant of Jews go back to Israel and rebuild the temple. This is recounted in the book of Ezra. When we get to Nehemiah, we’re in the mid-400s, and learn Nehemiah is a personal cupbearer to King Artaxerxes (ruled 465-425). When he learns the remnant in Jerusalem that survived the exile is suffering because the walls of the city had been broken down and its gates burned with fire, he asked the king if he could go and help his people, promising to return to his job when he did. When he arrives and inspects the damage, he tells the leaders his idea to rebuild the wall, and they get about doing it.

There is predictable opposition that comes along with anything the people of God do in a fallen world, but they eventually accomplish the task. Ezra the scribe was told to get the Book of the Law of Moses and read it to the people, and they weep and repent, and are told to then celebrate before they confess their sins. In 9:38 we read of the peoples’ agreement:

“In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”

So far so good. Nehemiah has to head back to Babylon to keep his word to the king, and sometime later he asked to visit Jerusalem again. You can read what the people did, and Nehemiah’s final reforms in chapter 13, but what struck me was the hopeful frustration of Nehemiah. Using the phrase, “O my God,” he asks four times for God to remember, three for himself, and one for those who “defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.” It seems Nehemiah is aware of the futility of his own actions, and that God alone is the answer to sin. This is why reading Malachi helps us to understand the redemptive historical context of the end of Old Testament history that points directly to the New. The final words, after which the prophets went silent, tell us what to expect:

5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

These verses and 3:1 point directly to the coming of Jesus and the gospel, the answer to Nehemiah’s frustration. He doesn’t want to be forgotten by God for what had “so faithfully done for the house of” his “God and its services,” but the Old Testament ends in apparent futility. Nehemiah’s hope, however, is in the right place, not in his own efforts, but the God who can make his efforts ultimately fruitful.

As 3:1 and here both say, it is the Lord himself who is coming, and who came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And we notice it is the coming Lord who turns hearts, in the image of Ezekiel, from stone to flesh. And the hearts being turned are the heart of the family, the very foundation of civilization. When peace, and righteousness, and wisdom in Christ reign there, society will be blessed.

As I say, ad nauseum, it all comes down to trust, but what exactly is trust. One definition: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. In all we do, fruitful or not at the moment, we pray and trust in the God whose kingdom is even now coming. He promises to keep us in perfect peace who trust in him.