My wife and I have recently joined a small group stemming from our Alpha group this past winter. We decided to continue meeting in what the church calls a “life group” where we meet several times a month, share dinner, and then engage in discussion over a selected passage from the Bible. We have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know other people our age who are genuinely interested in being involved in the church and who want to get to know other believers. For our first study, we decided to do a Peter Moore study on Philippians.
In any regard, some interesting questions have come up during our times together. We have addressed everything from the basic questions like “what exactly is grace?” to more thought provoking questions such as “who is your Timothy and who is your Paul?” (i.e. who have you mentored and who has mentored you).
Getting to the point of this brief post, we read and discussed Philippians 2 this past week. When we got to our discussion on Philippians 2.12-13, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure,” I found myself wondering what exactly was St. Paul talking about here?
Was St. Paul talking more about temporal salvation (our day to day decisions) or more about our eternal salvation? My immediate thought was that St. Paul was sounding very James-esque, but then my wife offered her opinion to the group which made me wonder if St. Paul was talking in a more temporal sense. She suggested that St. Paul was telling the Philippians that you have to live your life in the day-to-day sense and that God will always be with you, but not always there in such a literal sense like holding your hand and telling you what to do.
So, I am very interested in hearing what the Mockingbird community has to say about this… What are some good Law/Gospel opinions on this?
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20 comments
JDK says:
Jun 24, 2010
Hey Charles,
Sounds like you guys are having a wonderful discussion down there!
Far be it from me to offer the definitive interpretation of this passage, but here are some initial thoughts.
The specific verse you've quoted says to "work out your salvation," this is clearly not "work for," or even "work on," but work out. This fits perfectly with the idea that salvation is an undeserved (and unchosen;-) gift from God.
Seeing as how the "therefore" indicates the consequent result of the preceding statement, it is helpful to look at what was previously stated.
Philippians 2 begins with the awesome "Christological hymn" where Paul is reflecting on the incarnation and the wonder of Jesus, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped." (2:6).
Therefore:), when people want to simplify the "work out your salvation" verse into a way to reintroduce uncertainty that you may, in fact, not be working enough, then point them back to the "therfore" wherefore it came:)
It is an awesome thing to ponder the incarnation and redemption of the world by Jesus, and the only natural response is "fear and trembling"; however, this is not fear of being let go, or fear of not working enough, but fear/reverence/awe that God Himself has condescended to save you, even you (following John Wesley:), from the law of sin and death.
This verse fits perfectly with the Forde's idea that "justification is getting used to your sanctification." What could be more awesome and fear-inspiring than the idea that God has chosen to save me without any work/merit/righteousness of my own? Work that idea out indeed!
So, those are my initial morning (over here) thoughts, I'm sure there are others—
much love to you!
Jady
paul says:
Jun 24, 2010
Dear Carlos,
It's that 'therefore', which Jady underlines.
Plus, the 'for it is God Who…' — in the meaning that God is actually doing the doing, being the Mover in the 'working out'. He is 'behind the music' (VH1).
StampDawg says:
Jun 24, 2010
What Jady and Paul said!
And as Paul said, whatever the exhortation to work may mean (and Jady was great here), it also has to be understood in the context of the FOR that follows:
"for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure"
Jeff Hual says:
Jun 24, 2010
Perfect answers to an excellent question!
Todd says:
Jun 24, 2010
"For" introduces an explanation, while Paul uses the work "Work" as a word play- we "work out" because God works in us to "work" AND "will." Semipelagianism and pelagianism are both ruled out.
Paul is setting up a parallel of cause and effect between human work, and diving working.
Also… the scope of the working occurs within the immediate context of this great "Christological hymn" which underscores the final, universal scope of salvation, effected not by they're working, but "At the name of Jesus." This should rule out a semi-pelagian understanding of salvation that may be found in 2:12.
SJP says:
Jun 24, 2010
Two Pauline parallels come to mind:
Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Romans 6:11-18
Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
In some sense, I've left out some of the most important parts of the above verses — just as Jady pointed out that an important aspect of understanding Phil 2:12-13 is coming from "Christological hymn" coming before.
Paul tends to precede verses like Phil 2:12-13 and the ones I put above with verses of praise and awe at what Jesus has done, and that the consequences of His obedience and sacrifice are so crucial to so much.
I agree with Forde cited by Jady: "justification is getting used to your sanctification." Gratitude and recognition of the new life Christ puts in us; understanding and believing that we are a new creation just as Jesus said we'd be: these have consequences in our life, and they are good works.
Jeff says:
Jun 24, 2010
Jady,
Did you invert the Forde quote per chance?
JDK says:
Jun 24, 2010
HA! I sure did. I guess that shows how little I think of the two as distinct–they're interchangeable:)
Thanks for the correction—all work and no play and all of that:)
Charles E. Jenkins says:
Jun 24, 2010
Jady, I didn't notice the inversion either, but I keep getting in trouble for that anyways!
'Therefore,' thanks for your input, I found it most helpful!
PZ – Age of Aquarius right?
paul says:
Jun 24, 2010
Right, dear Carlos Jenkins-o-nya.
Christopher says:
Jun 25, 2010
The more I read scripture, the more I'm convinced that all this Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian hand-wringing is foreign to Paul's thought. He simply seems to think that what Christ has done has changed everything (new creation!), most important of which is enabling our response to the gospel and our ability to "strive, run, present ourselves" for good works. Paul never bifurcates human and divine agency like we are wont to do. That being said, maybe our hand-wringing comes from thinking primarily about eternal salvation at the expense of all else. Perhaps what Paul is suggesting in passages like Phil 2:12 has more to do with temporal mission than eternal salvation? Both are clearly present in Paul, but reading this passage missionally (i.e. because of what Christ has done, live like Christ), seems to make a lot more sense than trying to read it salvifically. Is that helpful?
Todd says:
Jun 25, 2010
Christopher, I agree about not reading pelagianism or semi-pelagianism into the text, but the categories can be helpful shorthand for discussion. That said, Paul does clearly construct an antithesis between the divine saving action in Christ and human 'works of the law.'
The issue if divine and human agency is not simply a modern or Reformational concern (see Josephus "War" 2.162-166; Ant. 13.171-173). In this passage in particular, Paul speaks of human agency as enveloped within God's saving action in Christ, though the emphasis lay upon the priority of the divine act. A missional interpretation is certainly possible, but the antithesis is still in place.
Christopher says:
Jun 25, 2010
Dear Todd, I wholeheartedly agree with you that there is a difference between divine saving action and human works of the Law. I am a Reformed Protestant. I just don't think that's the issue in play in Phil. 2:12 for Paul. Yes, it's always there, but the bifurcation of agency doesn't concern him. It's all God's action for Paul, but that doesn't negate the human. I think bringing the categories Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian to bear have a tendancy to downplay the missional aspect of restored human agency so prevalent in Paul (note: missional, not salvific).
Clearly agency was a philosophical issue in the 1st Cent AD….and much earlier with the Greeks and others, but Paul doesn't seem too concerned about those debates.
JDK says:
Jun 25, 2010
Dear Christopher,
Some thoughts. . .
It seems strange that the Apostle would be unconcerned with pressing philosophical/theological concerns of his day, particularly when the presenting issue confronting many of his early churches was the relationship between faith and works.
However one defines these terms, and even conceding some points to NT Wright and friends, it seems that Paul's emphasis on faith has something to say about the relationship between human and divine agency.
Also, if we're talking about importing categories into the text, then it seems that a distinction between "eternal" vs. "temporal" (or missional) salvation is much less evident than are discussions of divine/human agency.
That some Christians have emphasized one to the exclusion of another is clear, but this, rather than the Pelagian arguments, seems like something with which Paul is unconcerned.
Todd says:
Jun 25, 2010
I think Paul is actually very interested in contemporary debates about divine and human agency. With each assertion Paul makes in his interpretation of the Gospel, he does so in antithesis to contemporary arguments.
For example, When Paul speaks of Abraham as one who was justified by faith as opposed to works, he opposes contrary readings of the Abrahamic narrative. Jubilees sees the promise made to Abraham as a divine response to Abraham's lifelong faithfulness to everything that was commanded of him. Paul, by contrast, speaks of Abraham's life not as an unbroken narrative of faithfulness, but of belief in the divine promise (Rom 4:18-22). Similarly, Philo sees the call of Abraham being founded upon the God who reveals himself to those were created to seek him, not the God who "gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were" (rom. 4.17).
I'll admit that Philo and Jubilees have more complex ontologies than the categories of semi-pelagian and pelagian, but that is not to saw that the issue of human and divine agency is not important to Paul.
As for Phil 2.12, It's possible that he has the Church's mission in mind. That said, maybe even the term "mission" is too specific? Perhaps by speaking of transition between the first day, now, and the final eschatological fulfillment of the "day of Christ" (1:6,11), Paul has a much wider vision at work?
Christopher says:
Jun 26, 2010
I like this notion of wider vision you're bringing in here Todd. That's what I was trying to get at with my discussion of temporal and eternal. I wasn't trying to import those categories, I was merely highlighting that we DO import those categories (see the original post), and Paul just runs roughshod over them with his apocalyptic vision (New Creation! here and now, but not yet too).
Also, I didn't mean to suggest that discussions about human agency and divine agency were unimportant to Paul, I merely meant to suggest that for Paul both human and divine are in play without distinction or confusion. His concerns on this issue are not usually our post-Augustinian concerns, which is why he repeatedly says things like, "work out your own salvation, for it is God who works in you." He never wavers from giving imperatives, and he never fails to say that God does it all. This is also found in other NT writers (James, Hebrews, etc).
All I'm trying to do here is to combat our post-Augustine/post-reformation tendency to waiver from the imperatives….if we want to be truly Pauline in our thinking, we would do well to speak as he speaks and act as he acted, knowing full well that it is God who does it all.
Michael Cooper says:
Jun 26, 2010
"Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God"
2 Corinthians 7: 1
JDK says:
Jun 27, 2010
Christopher,
I appreciate your comments, and I don't think that we're really that far apart (if at all), but for the sake of discusison, here are some thoughts:
I'm not sure who you are referring to when you say: All I'm trying to do here is to combat our post-Augustine/post-reformation tendency to waiver from the imperatives….if we want to be truly Pauline in our thinking, we would do well to speak as he speaks and act as he acted, knowing full well that it is God who does it all.
To whose post-Augustinian tendency are you referring? The emphasis on the imperative/indicative distinction is a product of the (equally spurious) separation between justification and sanctification. This distinction was necessary to preserve a nod to the free grace of Justification without somehow allowing people to really think that it was true.
"You can have this for free, but unless you really show how much it means to you, then I'm going to take it back."
Justification by Faith, along with being about human vs. divine agency, is more properly understood in light of its impact on life lived "in the spirit or in the flesh." (not incidentally, another Pauline dichotomy/distinction)
The language of imperatives operates in the realm of the law only insomuch as someone is "in the flesh," because "if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law." (Gal. 5:18).
However, the daily struggle between spirit and flesh, faith and works, law and gospel, is a product of the simul and our eschatology of faith not of sight. Our life lived in the flesh is lived in faith (Gal 2), but this life, as illustrated by Romans 7 and the constant battle alluded to in Galatians 5, is one which puts us in danger of unfaith, of sin, of despairing and fearing. When there is no faith, no amount of explanation is going to help.
This is why when we preach, we preach to the never converted, the mostly non-converted, the faithless, those "dead in trespasses and sins," knowing that they could easily be someone who has never been in church or the warden of 50 years who needs to hear the gospel afresh "every hour."
Faith is a gift, and one of the gifts is that we can hear any "imperative"–for instance, like the one that the Hammer just dropped on us:)—as a promise not a law, but we can hear that just as easily as a threat–therein lies the artful challenge of true theology.
Anyway, just some thoughts:)
Todd says:
Jun 27, 2010
Christopher, as Jady said, I think we're heading in similar directions. All I can add to what Jady said is that I would still suggest that Paul speaks antithetically against human agency, while promoting a much different type of agency that is born out of the divine language-event. The former is "works," while the latter is "faith." You have rightly pointed to the apocalyptic scope of Pauline soteriology, and this is somewhat in view in my original response.
Not that I think you think this, but more broadly, it is unfortunate that in many circles there is very strong language about human actions and responsibilities, and then add with a small footnote the caveat that it is God who ultimately works.
I still speak using Augustinian language because I find it helpful to answer questions and to explain what the passage is and is not saying. I admit that this opens me up to a danger of being shaped by my language.
Christopher says:
Jul 10, 2010
Good stuff JDK and Todd. Sorry I've been absent for so long….
Perhaps another post on what it means to hear these imperatives of Paul's as promises is in order!
Cheers,
Chris